D UKE UNIVERSIT Y LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/reportofsenatevi01illi I REPORT OF THE SENATE VICE COMMITTEE ' : ■ C ' - V - _ \ ' ' ^ — ■ O vv\ ' ' \ IREATED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE OF THE FORTY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY S A CONTINUATION OF THE COMMITTEE CREATED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE SENATE OF THE FORTY -EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY STATE OF ILLINOIS LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR BARR ATT O’HARA. Chairman SENATORS: lELS JUUL, Secretary, Chicago F. JEFF TOSSEY, Toledo DMOND BEALL. Alton D. T. WOODARD. Benton 19 16 1 r THE COMMITTEE ACKNOWLEDGES ITS INDEBTEDNESS AND EXTENDS EXPRESSION OE SINCERE APPRECIATION TO Hon. Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, whose endorsement gave national scope to the inquiry; Hon. Edward F. Dunne, Governor of Illinois, ■^or his earnest support and co-operation ; Hon. Patrick J. Lucey, Attorney General, whose assistance was of inestimable value; Hon. James J. Brady, Auditor of Public Accounts; Hon. Andrew Russel, State Treasurer; Hon. William F. Ryan, former Treasurer; Hon. Harry Woods, late Secretary of State; Hon. Lewis Stevenson, his successor; Hon. Francis A. Blair, Superintendent of Public Instruction ; Hon. Frank Higgins, Superintendent of State Printing; Hon. Fred Kern, President of the State Board of Administration ; Hon. Finley Bell, Secretary of the Legislative Reference Bureau ; Members of the Forty-Eighth and the Forty-Ninth General Assembly; Witnesses Who Testified, many at personal inconvenience; Delegates to the Woman's Legislative Congress ; Newspaper Men, for the fairness and accuracy of their reports ; The Managements of the La Salle Hotel, in Chicago ; the Leland Hotel, in Springfield ; and the New Willard Hotel, in Washington, D. C., for many courtesies extended. 3 CONTENTS. Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 3 EORTY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 6 FORTY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 9 HISTORY OF THE INQUIRY 13 FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 23 PRESENT LAWS; THEIR PERFECTIONS AND IMPERFECTIONS; A careful and complete digest of the laws of Illinois bearing on the subjects embraced in the Committee’s inquiry; together with an analysis of certain decisions of the Supreme Court, and a history of legislation tending toward the removal of poverty and the im- provement of industrial conditions 57 PUBLIC MEETINGS AND TESTIMONY; (For index to testimony and witnesses, see page 965.) Stenographic report of the proceedings of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee, as transcribed and compiled by Thomas J. O’Neill, official reporter of the Committee ; Corris & Corris, Fuller & Meanor and C. F. Trick 129 INQUIRY IN CITIES UNDER 100,000 POPULATION; Reports of investigators employed by the Illinois Senate Vice Committee. Summarized by C. F. Trick 807 PUBLIC OPINION REFLECTED IN CORRESPONDENCE; Forty typical letters presenting matters of fact and judgment from many viewpoints 823 RECOMMENDATIONS OF OTHER VICE COMMITTEES; A digest of the measures for the eradication of the social evil suggested by the municipal inquisitors of Chicago, Portland, Phila- delphia, Hartford, Pittsburgh and Grand Rapids, and the state commissions of Wisconsin and Massachusetts 845 PREVALENCE OF THE SOCIAL DISEASES; Statistics on contagions *in various cities and arguments for certain radical medical reforms 875 SOCIAL EVIL IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES; Report of an investigation made in July and August, 1912, in Europe for the Vice Commission of Philadelphia 891 COLLEGES PARTICIPATE IN INQUIRY; A discussion of the industrial phase of the moral problem, with many authoritative references, by Henry T. Rogers, Jr 909 WOMAN’S LEGISLATIVE CONGRESS; Several hundred representative women of Illinois, convened in con- ference to co-operate with the Committee in framing suggestions for legislative action demanded by the mothers and wives of the State ; how organized, its purposes, names of delegates, its delibera- tions and recommendations 933 IMPORTANCE OF INQUIRY TO THE NATION; Many governors and legislatures respond to Committee’s invita- tion to participate in co-operative campaign to rid country of social evil 945 INDEX 965 5 FORTY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Convened January 8, 1913. Adjourned Sine Die, June 30, 1913. OFFICERS OF THE SENATE. President, Lieutenant Governor Barratt O’Hara. President Pro Tempore, Walter I. Manny. Secretary, James H. Paddock. Assistants, George L. Carpenter, J. W. Greenway, William A. Compton, Jr. Enrolling and Engrossing Clerk. Fred W. Rinck. Assistants, Theresa Baldi, Marie L. Powell, Harry Rich.yrds. Sergeant-at-Arms, George W. Zinn. Assistants, Thomas Pasley, F. W. Benjamin. Postmaster, Adele H. Smith. Assistant, Gladys Wom.ack. OFFICERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Speaker, William McKinley. Clerk, B. H. McCann. Assistants, J. H. Hill, E. M. Gullick, A. E. Eden. Enrolling and Engrossing Clerk, Charles W. Baldwin. Assistants, Michael Sullivan, Frank McC.auley. Doorkeeper, Gus J. Keim. Assistants, William Haines, Carl S. Burgett, Peter Ettelbrick. Postmistress, Miss Mollie McCabe. Assistant, Mrs. Henrietta Vest, 6 FORTY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Andrus, Henry. Bailey, Martin B. Barr, Richard J, Beall, Edmond. Brady, Francis P. Broderick, John. Campbell, F. C. Canaday, Stephen D. Carroll, P. J. Chamberlin, J. M., Jr. Clark, Albert C. Cleary, Michael H. Compton, Wm. A. Cornwell, Willet H. Curtis, Edward C. Dailey, John. Denvir, John T. Ettelson, Samuel A. Forst, Edward J. Eranklin, Noah E. Glackin, Edward J. Gorman, Al. F. Gray, John H. Haase, Christian. Hamilton, John R. Harris, Geo. W. SENATORS. Hay, Logan. Hearn, Campbell S. Helm, Douglas W. Hurburgh, Chas. E. Hurley, Francis A. Johnson, Henry W. Jones, Walter Clyde. Juul, Niels. Keller, Kent E. Landee, Frank A. Lundberg, Carl. Maclean, William H. Madigan, John E. Magill, H. S., Jr. Manny, Walter I. Meeker, Raymond D. O’Connor, John M. Olson, Albert J. Piercy, W. Duff. Shaw, Willis R. Stewart, Thos. B. Tossey, F. Jeff. Waage, Johan. Womack, J. A. Woodard, D. T. REPRESENTATIVES. Abbott, Alfred N. Atwood, John A. Baker, Geo. B. Barker, Elwood. Barron, Robson. Bell, James M. Benson, O. E. Blaha, Joseph C. *Boardman, George B. Boyd, Randolph. Boyer, Thomas A. Briscoe, Polk B. Browne, Lee O’Neil. Burns, John S. Burres, William F. Butts, Lucas I. Campbell, Thomas. Carmon, Charles H. Carter, Joseph. Catlin, Franklin S. Clarke, Maurice J. Clyne, Charles F. Coldmeyer, A. H. Coleman, John. Costello, Edward J. Crawford, George W. Curran, John M. Curran, Thomas. Curren, Charles. Devine, John P. Dickman, Wm. Dillon, Martin J. Donlan, James M. Dudgeon, Israel. Dunn, William H. Duvall, E. W. Elliott, Robert A. Elliott, William B. Etherton, James M. Fahy, Michael. Fargo, Henry B. tFarrar, Edwin T. Farrell, James H. Fjnley, William E. Fitch, George. Flagg, Norman G. Fleming, Chas. W. Foster, A. M. Foster, Henry A. Garesche, Ferdinand A. Gillespie, Frank. Gorman, Thomas N. Graham, Thomas E. Graves, Charles S. Griffin, John D. Groves, William M. Grunau, John. Harriss, Judson E. Hartquist, William. Hilton, Geo. C. Hoffman, William H. Holaday, William P. Hollenbeck, William T. Hollister, Thomas H. Hruby, Joseph Otto. Hubbard, William A, 7 FORTY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASS^UBIN— Continued. Hull, Morton D. Hunt, Roy D. Huston, John. Hutchinson, Charles G. Igoe, Michael L. jjackson, Robert R. Jayne, J. H. Jones, Robert S. Kane, W. C. Karch, Charles A. Kasserman, R. J. Keck, Fred. Kilens, Hubert. King, Edward J. Kirkpatrick, R. D. Kleeman, Benton F. Koch, Fred J. Lloyd, F. E. J. Lovejoy, Andrew J. Lyon, Thomas E. Madsen, Christian M. Mason, J. M. McCabe, William R. McCarty, John F. McCormick, Medill. McCormick, William W. McGinley, William. McKinley, William. McLaughlin, John J. McNichols, Frank J. McWilliams, Lewis S. Miller, Ezra E. Miller, George A. Mitchell, Benjamin M. Morrasy, Frank W. Morris, James F. Mulcahy, Robert J. Munro, Fayette Smith. Myers, Geo. W. O’Connell, Daniel. O’Rourke, J. J. Pervier, Clayton C. Pitlock, Joseph. Poorman, Edward F. Provine, Walter M. Rapp, John M. Richardson, John C. Rinehart, Walter E. Roe, Arthur. Roos, Frederick B. Rostenkowski, Albert. Rothschild, Isaac S. Rowe, Wm. Ryan, Frank J. Scanlan, William M. Schnackenberg, Elmer J. Schubert, Henry F. Scott, Charles L. Shanahan, David E. Shaver, Harry L. Shephard, Henry A. Shepherd, Frank W. Sherman, Richard E. Shurtleff, Edward D. Simpson, S. Elmer. Smejkal, Edward J. Smith, Peter F. Snite, Frank J. Stedman, Seymour. Stoklasa, Rudolph. Strubinger, Edwin Thomas. Sullivan, Patrick J. Taylor, John H. Thompson, Abraham C. Thompson, R. R. Tice, Homer J. Trimareo, Tony. Tucker, Cyrus J. Walsh, John P. Watson, James A. Weber, Joseph A. Werts, Everett L. W’illiamson, Francis E. Wilson, George H. Wilson, Robert E. Wood, Chas. L. Zolla, Emil N. *Elected March 11, 1913, vice James H. Alexander, deceased, and Michael F. Hennebry seat contested. tSeated, vice Henry M. Ashton, seat contested. ^Seated, vice H. W. Harris, seat contested. FORTY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Convened January 6, 1915. Adjourned Sine Die, June 30, 1915. OFFICERS OF THE SENATE. President, Lieutenant Governor Barkatt O’Hara. President Pro. Tern., Stephen D. Canaday. Secretary of Senate, A. E. Eden. First Assistant Secretary, T. F. Russell. Second Assistant Secretary, W. M. Buckham. Third Assistant Secretary, Edith Cleary. Executive Secretary of the Senate, J. H. Paddock. Sergeant-at-arms, Joseph Miller. First Assistant Sergeant-at-arms, G. G. Lindblade. Second Assistant Sergeant-at-arms, F. W. Benjamin. Third Assistant Sergeant-at-arms, Walter Bretz. Postmaster, Adele H. Smith. Assistant Postmaster, Gladys Womack. Enrolling and Engrossing Clerk, Fred W. Rinck. OFFICERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. Speaker, Hon. David E. Shanahan. Chief Clerk, B. H. McCann. First Assistant Clerk, E. M. Gullick. Second Assistant Clerk, Lewis Vogel. Doorkeeper, Harrison T. Ireland. First Assistant Doorkeeper, Frank Leonard. Second Assistant Doorkeeper, Lucas West. Third Assistant Doorkeeper, John P. Maloney. Postmistress, Henrietta Vest. Assistant Postmistress, Mollie McCabe. Enrolling and Engrossing Clerk, Charles W. Baldwin. 9 FORTY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY. SENATORS. Abt, Paul W. Andrus, Henry. Austin, Henry W. Bailey, Martin B. Baldwin, Percival G. Bardill, J. G. Barr, Richard J. Boehm, John J. Broderick, John. Campbell, F. C. Canaday, Stephen D. Carroll, P. J. Cleary, Michael H. Cliffe, Adam C. Coleman, Peter E. Compton, Wm. A. Cornwell, Willett H. Curtis, Edw. C. Dailey, John. Denvir, John T. Ettelson, Samuel A. Franklin, N. Elmo. Glackin, Edw. J. Gorman, Al. F. Haase, Christian. Hamilton, John R. REPRESENTATIVES. Atwood, John A. Elliott, Robert A. Barker, Elwood. Ellis, DeGoy B. Basel, William H. Epstein, Jacob W. Benson, Ole E. Fahy, Michael. Bentley, William H. Farrell, James H. Bippus, Frederick J. Felts, James H. Boyd, Randolph. Festerling, Emil A. Boyer, Thomas A. Fieldstack, Charles L. Brewer, F. A. Flagg, Norman G. Brinkman, William M. Foster, A. M. Brown, William M. Frankhauser, E. 1. Browne, Lee O’Neil. Franz, Charles F. Bruce, George R. Gardner, John I. Burns, John S. Garesche, Ferdinand A. Burres, William F. Gorman, Thomas N. Butler, William J. Graham, Thomas E. Buxton, T. C. Graham, William J. Campbell, Thomas. Green, Carl. Conlon, Bernard J. Green, E. Walter. Cooper, John L. Gregory, Charles A. Curran, Thomas. Griffin, John. Curren, Charles. Groves, William M. Dahlberg, Gotthard A. Hamlin, Harr}' F. Dalton, Frank R. Harvey, James C. Davis, James E. Helwig, John H. Desmond, John T. Hennebrv, Michael F. Devereux, Thomas P. Hicks, H. S. Devine, John P. Hilton, Geo. C. DeYoung, Frederic R. Hoffman, William H. Donahue, Daniel D. Holaday, Mhlliam P. Donlan, James M. Hruby, Joseph O. Drake, Harry W. Hubbard, William A. Dudgeon, Israel. Huston, John. Harding George F., Jr. Harris, Geo. W. Herlihy, Daniel. Hughes, Edw. J. Hull, Morton D. Hurley, Francis A. Jewell, W. S. Keller, Kent E. Landee, Frank A. Latham, Sam W. Manny, Walter I. Meeker, Raymond D. McNay, Charles R. Olson, Albert J. Pervier, Clayton C. Piercy, W. Duff. Roos, Frederick B. Shaw, Willis R. Smith, Elbert S. Stewart, Thos. B. Sullivan, Patrick J. Swanson, John A. Tossey, F. Jeff. Womack, J. A. Woodard, D. T. 10 FORTY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY— Igoe, Michael L. Jackson, Robert R. Jacobson, John G. Kane, W. C. Kasserman, John. Kessinger, Harold C. Kilens, Hubert. Lantz, Simon E. Leech, Wm. L. LePage, Stephen T. Lipshulch, Geo. U. Lyle, John H. Lynch, John F. Lyon, Thomas E. Madsen, Christian M. Mason, Joseph M. Maucker, William C. McCabe, William R. McCormick, Medill. McGIoon, James C. Meents, Richard R. Merritt, Edward L. Mitchell, Benjamin M. Moore, John Robert. Morrasy, Frank W. Morris, W. T. Mulcahy, Robert J. Murphy, Hawkins O. O’Connell, Daniel. O’Rourke, J. J. Pace, James M. Perkins, Edwin C. Pierson, Louis J. Placek, Joseph. Prendergast, James T. Provine, Walter M. Purdunn, C. A. Quisenberry, Clifford. Ray, G. A. Rentchler, James W. Rethmeier, Chris. Richardson, John C. Rinehart, Walter E. Roderick, Solomon P. Roe, Arthur. Rostenkowski, Albert. Rothschild, Isaac S. Rowe, Wm. Ryan, Frank. Ryan, Frank J. Ryan, James W. Sanlry, Edward M. Scanlan, William M. Scholes, Robert. Schuberth, Henry F. Seif, Frank J., Jr. Shanahan, David E. Shephard, H. A. Shurtleff, Edward D. Smejkal, Edward J. Smith, Peter F. Sonnemann, Otto C. Stanfield, Abraham L. Stewart, C. A. Strubinger, Edwin T. Taylor, Richard F. Thomason, John W. Tompkins, Squire F. Thompson, R. R. Thon, William G. Tice, Homer J. Trandel, Joseph A. G. Turnbaugh, John D. Turner, Sheadrick B. Tuttle, Oral P. Vickers, James H. Vursell, Charles W. Walsh, John P. Watson, James A. Weber, Joseph A. West, Owen B. Williamson, Francis E. Wilson, George H. Wilson, Harry Wilson, Robert E. Wood, Chas. L. Young, C. A. 11 HISTORY OF THE INQUIRY. To the Honorable, the Senate of the Forty-ninth General Assembly, State of Illinois: Upon taking the gavel as President of the Senate, February 4, 1913, Lieutenant Governor O’Hara gave expression to the following conviction : “In my judgment the most vital problem for this distinguished body to solve in the interest of the people of Illinois, and, in a general way in the interest of the people of the world, is that problem that has to do with the chastity of our women and the sanctity of our homes. No observing man can have failed to notice with keen alarm the growth of an industry that thrives from the greed of men upon the purity of women. So appalling has been the spread of the industry of the white slave that it is receiving the most serious consideration of the foremost thinkers in all the nations of civilization and the conditions upon which it thrives are being studied today by governmental com- missions in every nation that makes the slightest pretense of culture and enlightenment. “I trust this body will begin by providing for a commission to study conditions relating to the white slave industry, and it is to that movement that I shall devote my chief energies and efforts during the next four years.” As soon as the presentation of resolutions was in order. Senator Beall, of Alton, offered SENATE RESOLUTION NUMBER 25. Whereas, There is a nation-wide movement in progress for the purpose : of extirpating the white slave traffic, so-called; and Whereas, The senate is advised that the white slave traffic is not yet extinct in the State of Illinois; and Whereas, Such traffic is a stigma upon our civilization and a heinous j crime, that strikes at the very vitals of our social well-being, be it Resolved, By the Senate, that a committee be appointed, to consist of ; the President of the Senate, as chairman thereof, and four senators, to be \ appointed forthwith by the Executive Committee of the Senate, and named |i by the President of the Senate, to investigate the subject of white slave I traffic in Illinois; be it further i Resolved, That such committee shall Investigate the workings of the j present statutes of our state, dealing with the subject of white slave traffic. 13 14 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee and shall report such amendments and additions, if any, to said statutes, as the committee shall deem necessary and adequate in the premises. Be it further Resolved, That such committee shall co-operate with bureaus or com- mittees appointed in other states, for the purpose of devising a compre- hensive plan for the complete suppression of such white slave traffic. Be it further Resolved, That said committee shall report its findings, conclusions and recommendations to this session of the Senate, or if not practicable, to the Senate of the Forty-ninth General Assembly; be it further Resolved, That such committee shall have the power to administer oaths, take evidence, subpoena witnesses, and compel them to testify, compel the production of books, papers and documents, and do any and all other lawful acts to carry out the foregoing purposes. Be it further Resolved, That said committee may appoint such clerks or investigators as it may deem necessary. Be it further Resolved, That such expenses connected with the foregoing, as shall be necessary, shall be certified by the chairman of said committee and the chairman of the contingent expense committee of the Senate, and shall be payable out of the fund for committee expenses of the Forty-eighth General Assembly. By unanimous consent the rules were suspended, the resolution was taken up for immediate consideration, and was adopted by the following vote : Barr, Compton, Hamilton, Keller, Aleeker, Beall, Curtis, Harris, Landee, O’Connor, Brady, Dailey, Hearn, Lundberg, Piercy, Campbell, Denvir, Hurburgh Maclean, Tossey, Canaday, Ettelson, Johnson, Madigan, Waage, Carroll, Glackin, Jones, Alagill, Womack, Cleary, Haase, Juul, Manny, Woodard. Yeas — 35; Nays — none. The following senators were appointed to serve, with Lieutenant Governor O’Hara as Chairman-; Edmond Beall, Alton; Niels Juul, Chicago; F. Jeff Tossey, Toledo; D. T. Woodard, Benton. On April 25, 1913, Senate Bill Number 156, making an emergency appropriation of $10,000 to the committee, having passed both houses, was approved by Governor Dunne. METHOD OF PROCEDURE. At the initial session of the Committee, the Chairman outlined the method of procedure in the following statement ; “The committee has agreed upon several details of procedure : “First, That all sessions — where the evidence is of an important nature — shall be made public. “Second, That all members of the General Assembly shall be in- vited to attend any and all sessions. “Third, That the interrogation of witnesses shall not be confined to History of the Inquiry 15 members of the committee, but any member of either House of the Legislature be privileged to ask any questions within the scope of the inquiry. “Under this arrangement, it will be impossible for any member, or the committee as a whole, to give immunity to any witness.” Several members of the House of Representatives and members of the Senate, not of the committee, attended the sessions of the com- mittee, were accorded the same privileges as the members of the com- mittee and frequently did interrogate witnesses, occasionally bringing out facts of much value. SCOPE OF THE INVESTIGATION. From February 28 to June 7, in the year 1913, twenty-eight sessions were held for the purpose of taking testimony. This testimony much exceeded in volume that offered at any previous governmental in- quiry of the nature. How searchingly and thoroughly the committee endeavored to go into every phase of the vice problem brought to its attention ; how girls of various rungs on the moral ladder were granted hearings [under full protection from unnecessary publicity, not one having her real name revealed] to explain and analyze their own situations and experiences ; how employers, social workers, public officials, preachers, reformers, dance hall proprietors, educators, labor leaders, physicians and many others from the various activities and groups of the commonwealth were heard and their opinions recorded; of what purpose all this and to what end may most properly be seen and estimated, not by your committee, but by the Honorable Senate and its constituent, the people of Illinois, from the testimony itself, which is printed as a part of this report, necessarily much abbreviated but with no alteration other than that of brevity. Aside from sessions in the cities of Chicago, Peoria and Springfield, in our own state, your committee [in compliance with your specific instruction “to co-operate with bureaus and committees in other states to devise a comprehensive plan”] visited the capital of the common- wealth of Pennsylvania, at Harrisburg — where a helpful conference was participated in by Governor Tener, Speaker Alter and other offi- cials — and the national capital at Washington. Here your committee, being received by the President of the United States, Hon. Woodrow Wilson, later at a public hearing was fortunate in obtaining the testi- mony of many distinguished men and women, representing the several aspects of the national viewpoint, as well as that of the federal officials having in charge the prosecution of “white slave” cases by the United States Government. Your Committee was materially aided in its subsequent work by the information thus gained. Without an adequate 16 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee conception of the scope of the national undertaking in the extirpation of organized vice, there could have been no adequate conception of the scope of co-operative labor remaining for the state and municipal gov- ernments. Nor could your committee intelligently approach the pe- culiar vice problems of Illinois as by learning which of those problems were general, which local and what the crystallization of the trained national thought bearing on them. COMMITTEE’S INQUIRY EXTENDED. The public hearings extending well into June, and the work com- pleted but in small part, your committee was unanimously of opinion that its report could not, in justice to the problems sought to be studied and to the Honorable Senate, be presented before the convening of the Forty-ninth General Assembly. Your committee, therefore, reported a minimum wage bill, with committee recommendation, to the Senate of the Forty-eighth General Assembly and reserved its further report, under the option accorded in your instructions, for the following session. Accepting the precedent of other legislative committees, [and es- pecially that of a senate committee of the Forty-seventh General Assembly, the expenses of which were, it was generally believed prop- erly, liquidated by the Forty-eighth General Assembly, to which it reported], your committee made no request for a further appropriation from the Forty-eighth General Assembly, but confidently looked to the Forty-ninth General Assembly to meet the necessary expense of the continuance and completion of its inquiry. Your committee authorized and instructed its chairman to con- tinue the committee headquarters at 29 South Fa Salle street, in the City of Chicago, and to engage the services of investigators, clerks and others, as might prove necessary, in his judgment, for the satis- factory completion of the committee’s work. The chairman, in compliance with this instruction, maintained offices for the committee during the remainder of 1913, all of 1914 and the early months of 1915, devoting a large portion of his time to the affairs of the committee. During this period the inquir}" was continued, through trained investigators and with invaluable results, in the cities of Galesburg, Joliet, Peoria, Quincy, East St. Fouis, Bloomington, Rock Island, Alton and Chicago. Too, in obedience to your instruction, bureaus and committees in other states were com- municated with ; personal interviews obtained with distinguished dele- gates to gatherings such as the International Purity Congress, an organization exclusively devoted to the study of the problems engaging the attention of your committee ; conferences frequently participated in, and an unusually heavy correspondence handled. History of the Inquiry 17 Your committee was largely enabled to pursue this portion of its inquiry through the public-spirited and extremely efficient co-operation of Mr. Charles F. Trick and Mr. Ralph Pope. They served your committee without any positive assurance of ever being paid. Mr. Trick, luckily, had also private employment during most of this period; but Mr. Pope was for the most part otherwise unengaged. Dr. C. C. Quale also continued work for your committee, with the same un- certainty of payment, and is likewise entitled to a word of appreciation in this connection. Mr. M. Blair Coan, the chief investigator, whose services had proved of inestimable value to the committee, was com- pelled to accord to his private affairs his principal attention, but nevertheless rendered every assistance that his time would permit. The committee also deservedly acknowledges the service of Mr. T. B. Scouten. WOMEN PARTICIPATE IN CONFERENCE. In your committee’s desire to submit to the Honorable Senate for its consideration a complete program of legislation reflecting the best thought and practical common-sense of the people of Illinois, within the scope of the purpose for which your committee was created, and in its belief that morality is advanced by legislation only when that legislation is the embodiment of the level-headed common-sense of the people whose conduct must legally conform to the legislation, and with the thought of ascertaining the practical judgment of citizens and recommending that judgment to the Honorable Senate, your committee issued a state-wide call to the women’s clubs of Illinois, asking (1) that suggestions looking to the improvement of conditions surrounding the working womanhood of Illinois be sent to the committee and (2) that delegates be selected to attend a woman’s legislative congress to be held in Chicago, in December, 1914. It was pointed out that in the opinion of your committee this pro- gram should include two classifications of bills ; First, the funda- mentally moral, as bills aimed at prostitution; Second, the funda- mentally economic, as bills calculated to assure working girls a living wage. Responses were received from practically every woman’s club in Illinois, many of which organizations sent to your committee sugges- tions which were the result of long and serious study of questions confronting the womanhood of the state ; and practically all of the clubs indicated a desire and readiness to participate in such a congress as had been suggested in your committee’s call. On December 10, 11 and 12, 1914, about 600 representative women of Illinois, assembled at the Congress Hotel in Chicago and, being 18 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee delegated by your committee as citizen members, proceeded to the deliberations outlined. The congress was naturally of an advisory nature and the organization and method of procedure was left entirely to the women thus assembled. The Executive Board consisted of : Mrs. Harriette Taylor Treadwell, Chairman, 6220 Harper Avenue. Mrs. Ida L. M. Fursman, First Vice-Chairman, 4465 Kildare Avenue. Mrs. Harlan Ward Cooley, Second Vice-Chairman, 5318 Greenwood Avenue. Mrs. Helen Hefferan, Financial Secretary, 6331 Harvard Avenue. Mrs. Ignace Reis, Treasurer, 4436 Berkeley Avenue. Mrs. Alice Dow Allison, 701 West 14th Place. Dr. Effa V. Davis, 2314 North Clark Street. Miss Margaret B. Dobyne, 604 Tower Building. Dr. Anna Dwyer, 4438 Drexel Boulevard. Mrs. Chas. Scribner Eaton, 5744 Kimbark Avenue. Mrs. Ida Darling Engelke, 5231 Cornell Avenue. Mrs. Chas. H. Zimmerman, 713 North Central Avenue. Mrs. Joseph Eish, 1811 Prairie Avenue. Mrs. Andrew J. Graham, 3340 Washington Boulevard. Mrs. Benjamin E. Page, Highland Park, Illinois.. Miss Edith Wyatt, 4632 Sheridan Road. Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout, 604 Tower Building. Mrs. Maud Cain Taylor, 5609 Wayne Avenue. Mrs. Alice Bradford Wiles, Riverside, Illinois. The digest of recommendations appearing elsewhere in this report shows something of the scope and value of the Woman’s Legislative Congress, which sat as an unofficial part of your committee for the three days designated. FURTHER INVESTIGATION AUTHORIZED. In your honorable body on June 14, 1915, Senator Woodard offered SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 64. Whereas, The Senate of the Forty-eighth General Assembly of the State of Illinois, because of a nation-wide movement in progress for the pur- pose of extirpating the white slave traffic so-called, adopted Senate Resolu- tion No. 25, and Whereas, The committee appointed under said resolution entered upon the discharge of its duties and has faithfully and well pursued an extensive investigation tending to ascertain measures by which may be accomplished bet- terment of the conditions surrounding the womanhood of this State, and Whereas, The white slave traffic continues to be a stigma upon our civilization and a heinous crime that strikes at the vitals of our social well-being, and Whereas, The committee believes that it is essential and expedient in the interest of the public and in the furtherance of good government to continue a most searching, scrutinizing and careful investigation of the History of the Inquiry 19 conditions still existing to a marked degree and which the committee in the' course of its labors has been unable to complete; therefore, be it Resolved, That the committee heretofore appointed under Senate Reso- lution No. 25 of the Forty-eighth General Assembly and as at present constituted be and they are hereby authorized to continue the investigation and inquiry into the subject of the white slave traffic with a view to recommending and reporting such amendments and additions to the stat- utes of the State of Illinois as the committee shall deem necessary and adequate in the premises; and, be it further Resolved, That the committee shall co-operate with bureaus or com- mittees appointed in other states for the purpose of devising a comprehen- sive plan for the complete suppression of such white slave traffic and other menaces to and handicaps of womanhood; and, be it further Resolved, That the committee be and it is hereby authorized and em- powered to subpoena witnesses, to administer oaths and to compel by sub- poena duces tecum the production of books, papers and documents and do any and all other acts to carry out the purposes of this resolution and that said committee shall have and it is hereby given the same power pos- sessed by the Illinois State Senate to enforce its orders; and, be it further Resolved, That the committee shall have and it is hereby empowered to employ such assistants as it shall deem necessary in furtherance of this resolution; and, be it further Resolved, That no member of the commission shall receive a salary or other payment for his services as such member, and that the expenses con- nected with the aforesaid investigation as shall be necessary shall be certi- fied to by the chairman of said committee and shall be payable from an appropriation to be made therefor or out of the funds for committee expenses of the Forty-ninth General Assembly; and, be it further Resolved, That the committee shall make its report and recommenda- tions to the Fiftieth General Assembly and the said committee shall be allowed its traveling expenses, and that such assistants as are necessarily employed shall be paid by voucher certified to by the chairman of the said committee out of the funds heretofore referred to. By unanimous consent the rules were suspended, the resolution was taken up for immediate consideration, and was unanimously adopted. Those in the senate chamber at the time of the unanimous adoption of the resolution were : Abt, Canaday, Ettelson, Hurley, Piercy, Andrus, Carroll, Franklin, Jewell,. Roos, Austin, Cleary, Glackin, Keller, Shaw, Bailey, ClifTe, Gorman, Landee, Smith, Baldwin, Coleman, Haase, Latham, Stewart, Bardill, Compton, Hamilton, Manny, Sullivan, Barr, Cornwell, Harris, Meeker, Swanson, Boehm, Curtis, Herlihy, McNay, Tossey, Broderick, Dailey, Hughes, Olson, Womack, Campbell, Denvir, Hull. Pervier, Woodard. Your committee then met, reorganized, accepted the records and wbrk of the corptnittee created by the senate of the Forty-eighth Gen- eral Assembly, and elected Lieutenant Governor O’Hara chairman with power to act. 20 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee On June 9 the senate voted to amend House Bill Number 975 to include a special appropriation of $10,000 for your committee. Those voting for the bill thus amended were : Abt, Canaday, Franklin, Hurley, Pervier. Austin, Carroll, Glackin, Keller, Piercy, Bailey, Cliffe, Gorman, Landee, Roos, Baldwin, Coleman, Hamilton, Latham, Shaw, Bardill, Curtis, Harris, Manny, Sullivan, Barr, Dailey, Herlihy, Meeker, McNay, Swanson, Boehm, Denvir, Hughes, Tossey, Broderick, Ettelson, Hull, Olson, Womack. The amendment, however, was not pushed on the house side, and the funds necessary for the completion of your committee’s labors were drawn from the general committee expense fund, as authorized by the Honorable Senate in Senate Resolution Number 64, this fund being that created by SENATE BILL NUMBER 438. APPROVED JUNE 16, 1915. An Act making an appropriation to pay the expenses of the com- mittees of the Forty-ninth General Assembly. Section 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, repre- sented in the General Assembly; That there be and is hereby appropriated the sum of fifty thousand ($50,000) dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary to pay the expenses of the committees of the Fortj'-ninth General Assembly. 2. The auditor of public accounts is hereby authorized and directed to draw his warrant upon the state treasurer for the sum herein specified, upon presentation of proper vouchers certified by the chairman of the committee incurring the expense and the presiding officer of that branch of the General Assembly appointing the committee. 3. The appropriation above recited is necessary for the payment of the expenses of the committees of the Forty-ninth General Assembly now being incurred in the transaction of business assigned to said committees. Therefore, an emergency exists, and this act shall take effect from and after its passage. This bill atively : passed the senate with the following senators voting affirm- Abt. Canaday, Ettelson, Hull. Piercy, Andrus, Carroll, Franklin, Jewell, Roos. Austin, Cleary, Glackin. Keller, Smith. Bailey, Cliffe, Gorman, Landee, Stewart. Baldwin, Coleman, Haase Latham, Sullivan, Bardill, Compton, Hamilton, Meeker, Swanson. Barr, Curtis, Harris, AIcNay, Womack. Boehm. Campbell, Dailey, Denvir, Herlihy, Hughes, Olson, Pervier, Woodard. CHANGES IN CONDITIONS STUDIED. Your committee, in obedience to your instructions, prepared to continue a most careful and searching inquiry into many angles of the white slave industry that, in the judgment of your committee, urgently History of the Inquiry 21 demanded immediate investigation. In September, a public hearing was held in the city of Alton and similiar hearings were scheduled in other cities previously visited by the secret operatives in the service of your committee. Two important changes had taken place in Illinois, since your com- mittee started its labor in the early months of the year 1913, changes effected partly through the efforts of your committee, partly through the agitation aroused by its activities, and partly through the untiring endeavors of other individuals and agencies quite unassociated with your committee and the General Assembly. 1. Licensed segregation had been almost entirely eliminated from Illinois. 2. Industrial conditions had improved ; many thousands of working girls in Illinois were being paid more nearly a living wage than at the beginning of your committee’s inquiry. To what extent wages had been increased in some lines of female employment, and why they had remained cruelly stationary — cruelly below the “bare cost of existence”- — in other lines, was a subject of fresh inquiry well within the scope of your committee’s authority, it was thought; and your committee found no disagreement at all to its proposed program of ascertaining the effects, immediate and remote, of the removal of the segregated districts in Alton, Springfield, Peoria and other Illinois municipalities. The old, old cry that the elimination of vice segregation scattered vice through the home dis- tricts seemed to your committee on the threshold of positive proof or disproof in the gathering of statistical and other undisputable evidence in those cities of Illinois where the ban had but newly been placed and the doors of licensed vice just padlocked. CONCLUSION OF THE INQUIRY. On November 6, 1915, the Supreme Court of Illinois rendered an opinion in the case of Fergus v. Russel et ah, part of which follows : With the sine die adjournment of the legislature all its functions as a legislative body cease. During the sessions of the legislature either house may appoint separate committees, and the two houses, acting concurrently, may appoint joint committees for any proper purpose, which may exercise such powers as the house or houses appointing them may lawfully dele- gate or impose. As all the powers of the legislature, as such, cease upon its final adjournment, it must follow that all the powers which have been delegated by it, or either house thereof, to a committee by mere resolu- tion cease also. Such committees may be appointed, and they may act and may lay before the succeeding General Assembly the result of their in- vestigations, but in so doing they are acting under no authority but by mere request, and they have no authority delegated to them which they may exercise. 22 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee The Supreme Court added : We are not unmindful of the fact that for many years it has been the practice of the legislature of this state, and of each house thereof, to thus appoint, by joint or separate resolutions, committees to act after the session of the legislature had ended, but we have never been called upon to determine the validity of such action. Therefore, conforming to the spirit as well as the letter of the decision of the highest court of the state, your committee respectfully begs leave here to conclude its labors and to make report of its inquiiy", its studies and its findings, which, necessarily incomplete in some parts, will be found in the following pages. January i8, ipi6. FINDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE. Your Committee finds: (1) That poverty is the principal cause, direct and indirect, of prostitution. To avoid this conclusion, is to quibble. Not to recognize it, is to approach, blinded, the problem of the ages. However distasteful we may feel the admission that woman’s virtue, worshipped by man as an attribute of divinity, is in reality a human quality, subject to human stresses, we must begin with that premise, or immediately fall into scientific error. If the Twentieth century is to offer solution to this, as the Nineteenth century gave solution to plagues of contagious dis- eases; superstition and prejudice, consideration for the niceties of persons who would be informed only what they wish things to be, and a habit of slipping by causes and dealing with effects must give way in the treatment of prostitution as previously they did in the treat- ment of yellow fever and diphtheria. Strangely, there has been no disagreement in fact among the many individuals and commissions that have made study of the problem. There has been much disagreement in language, in the degree of direct- ness, in the manner of presentment; much effort to cover up, to soften, to explain and to apologize ; as though it were excessively im- proper bluntly to confess our civilization responsible for prostitution for mere failure to remove poverty. Yet, whether encased in mass of argument of effects that are twisted from the logical arrangement to be placed in priority to the cause, or presented with abashment and half-heartedly, or given directly and frankly, the conclusions of all are alike. One blames Man, not economics ; but forthwith must admit that Man is only the market, and not necessarily the reason why Woman comes to the market. One blames bad housing, ques- tionable dance halls, lack of education, of religious instruction, of ideals and so -on down the long line of unfortunate and deplorable conditions ; and, on analysis, they are traced back one by one, branches of the tree of poverty. 23 24 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Always perhaps a percentage of women, as of men, will err; always the rule of moral rectitude will be proved with its exceptions in moral lapses ; but this is not comprehended within the definition of prosti- tution, which is to err “for hire,” to sin in return for money or other material benefit. While your committee is of opinion that in general the remedies for prostitution are likewise the remedies for immorality, it respectfully cautions the reader against a careless confounding of the act of selling oneself, which is prostitution, and the act of giving oneself without pay; it is with the former act only that this report deals. Throughout this inquiry, as with every other inquiry of public or private undertaking that has come to our attention, one fact has stood forth distinctly, although in some reports no prominence is accorded it, nor hac it the dignity of commentary. It is the all-significant fact that the tail of many thousands of girls annually fed to commercialized vice is entirely exacted from the very poorest groups. Seventy per cent of the mothers of girls at the Geneva home, who were in employ- ment, were either washwomen or scrubwomen, “which means hard work with low earnings.” (Sophonisba P. Breckinridge in “The De- linquent Child and the Home.”) Slightly under 70 per cent of the delinquent girls brought into the Juvenile Court of Cook county were from families not supported by the fathers, where the mother had be- come the wage-earner, and the conditions of poverty were extreme. Twenty-one per cent were from very poor families, where “the father was able to bear the burden of support but there was a hard struggle while the children were small, to make both ends meet.” {Same authority.) This committee was unable to learn of a single prostitute, in any city in Illinois visited or in which its investigators operated, who had come from a home of even modest prosperity. Vomen do not seek lives of prostitution, except under economic pressure, or economic expediency, or under the handicap of moral and mental defects result- ing from previous family economic conditions. This, your committee respectful}- submits, is the fundamental, the first truth to be accepted in the diagnosis and intelligent treatment of the social disease of prostitution. Massachusetts Report (Page 42) : Certain facts recur so often in the stories and records of the 300 pros- titutes that they must be significant. Nearly all come from families in adverse circumstances. * * * In 29 per cent of the families the mother was obliged to work out of the home during the upbringing of the child. In 30 per cent of the families, either one or both parents had died or the family had been broken up by separation or divorce before the child was twelve years old. Only a few even pretended to come from normal, well- conducted homes, with a good father and mother who were able and willing properly to protect and bring up their children. * * * Xhe few women Findings and Recommendations 25 found of good mind and normal family life point to the fact that a massing of contributory causes is necessary before a woman of this type can be so debased. Philadelphia Report (Page 18) : Our woman investigator interviewed 150 prostitutes now in institutions, and 108 mow leading a life of prostitution but not in institutions. * * * They are typical cases, and are fairly indicative of the true situation. * t- t- 'j'jjg causes may be summarized as follows : Inadequate support, 125; lack of recreation, 44; lack of supervision and demoralizing surround- ings, 89; total, 258. We interpret “inadequate support” to mean that, in the judgment of these women, what they could have earned had th§y abandoned the life would not have sufficed for their maintenance. Same Report (Page 22) : ' The housing conditions in portions of our city are such as to make it* almost impossible for a child to grow up in a clean, modest, self-respect- ing manner. The living conditions are often so congested that nothing short of the moral heroism of a saint is required in a little girl to combat the temptations and the assaults that conspire against her chastity. Same Report (Page 25) : The strongest support of the idea that prostitution roots in low wages is found in a study of the annual wage incomes of men. * * * cannot too strongly voice our conviction that prostitution is chiefly a family and community, not an individual responsibility. Any large body of wage- earning families, if dropped below a now fairly well-defined standard of living, speedily becomes a seed bed for the nurture of the inefficient and criminal individuals who are the bulk of the goods on sale in the business of prostitution. With low incomes belong overcrowding, bad sanitation, anemia, degenerating amusements, a shortened term of education, religious decay — all the conditions which work directly against health and decency; which corrupt the general morale of life among both children and adults as to modesty, reticence, cleanliness of mind and person, reserve or con- trol of action ; which makes it almost surely a losing fight to try to raise a family of children to decency as it is understood among thoughtful wage- earners. Large groups of men in Philadelphia earn annually a wage about $200 below the amount estimated as a “living” wage in this city for a family of father, mother, and three children. Such a family status as to income insures deterioration physically and socially for the individual and for the family as a unit social group. Exceptions to this rule are negligible. Grand Rapids (Mich.) Report (Pages 31-32) : One of these underlying causes for the social evil is the inadequate family income, which we believe has a considerable bearing. The homes where the father receives insufficient income to properly support and edu- cate his family are numerous. There the children are often comnelled to assist in maintaining the home and at a tender age are sent into the store or factory at a time when their character is still in formation * * * and is very susceptible to wrong influences. The girl from the farm or small city, who is compelled through financial stress of the familv to earn a live- lihood * * * being inexperienced, is compelled to start at a low wage, forcing her to exercise the strictest economy in food and clothing, tends 26 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee to lead her into the cheap rooming house with the consequent intermingling of sexes, and too often bringing her into contact with uersons of immoral character. * * * By the time she is in a position to earn a sufficient wage to support herself, in comfort, she has reached the stage where she doesn’t care. * * Jt -vvill be seen from the data relative to those who had been inmates of houses of prostitution that the average age at which they left school was thirteen and one-half years. It can fairly be assumed that the larger number of these entered upon some employment, as can be gathered from the report, only two stating they had never worked. Is there anyone who believes if these children could have received a proper education and had been able to remain under the influences of a home where the father was able to support the family in comfort the result would not have been different? The ceaseless struggles for existence, the hopelessness and despair of poverty has its influence on the character of the children. Eminent authorities hold * * * that children of parents who are con- stantly harassed by the fear of want * * * are liable to be brought into the world handicapped by weak minds and lack of power to resist evil influences. Hartford, Conn., Report (Page 70) : It is * * * the environment of poverty in which she has grown up that gradually leads to the state of mind and to the situation which makes that step possible. A great variety of unfavorable conditions have drawn “daughters of . the poor” into traffic with their bodies. So far as it is a question of wages, it is a question of the wages not only of women and girls, but of husbands and fathers; in short, of the earnings of the entire social class from which the supply of prostitutes has been so largeR de- rived. Insanitary surroundings, bad housing conditions, overw’ork, lack of recreation, etc., obviously lead to defective phvsical condition and some- times to feeble minds. Wisconsin Report (Page 118): In a state like Massachusetts or Connecticut, where there is a ver>' large amount of female labor in textile factories, the industrial conditions undoubtedly ' contribute very largely to orostitution. * * * Temptations usually come at a time when the girl is less able to resist, owing to the conditions of fatigue and nervousness, which follow a day’s work in the factory, in the store, or in the kitchen. It has been reuresented at times that when an individual is fatigued from a dav’s work, he or she has little energy to direct toward any immoral practice. This is contrary to the opinion of psychologists, physicians and experts upon fatisrue in industrial processes. It has been demonstrated many times that the nervous system craves a form of excitement and expression after the operations of the daily task, especially if the task is a tedious and monotonous one. * * * There is much testimony to show that the wages received (bv working girls in Wisconsin) would not pay for room rent, board, etc., if the girl were not living at home. * * * That the conditions under which women work tend to create immorality cannot in general be questioned. In many stores and factories men and women of all degrees of morality and immorality' mingle with promiscuous familiarity. It must also be stated that the require- ment that woman employes shall stand all day. and the active nature of the day’s work cause a severe nervous strain, leading to fatigue and weaken- ing of the will power by the time the day is ended. Findings and Recommendations 27 Minneapolis Report (Page 126) ; The economic aspects of the social evil offer * * * a most necessary field for investigation. * * * One does not need to go far along this line of research to reach the conviction that one of the first factors in tracing the source of supply (of prostitution), is the increasingly large influx of very young and immature girls into industry. The chances for the careless making of promiscuous male acquaintances, the close association of the sexes in employment * * * taken with the low wage scale prevailing in so many callings and affecting so many individuals, combine to create a situation that must inevitably weaken the moral stamina and lead to the undoing of many. The fault plainly is not so much in the individual ; it is rather the results of the industrial system. Your Commission is inclined to give the low wage scale some emphasis in this connection : for low v/ages undoubtedly increase the menace to good morals, as well as con- stituting an economic injustice which should be remedied. * * * jja.s the effect of encouraging in many a recourse to immoral means to piece out the inadequate wage. * * * It is unfortunate that there are others (em- ployers) who give preference to this class of girl labor, anoarentlv for no other reason than the desire to get service on the cheapest possible terms. It cannot be pretended that such employers are ignorant of the effect of such a policy. * * * Is it fair that girls should be nut under such stress and temptation at an age when they are peculiarly susceptible to the in- fluence of their surroundings and so much in need of the traininp- and pro- tection of the home and parent? Can society, in protection to itself, allow this situation to continue? * * * It is well to remember that low in- come for the family means inability to provide the ordinary necessities for the maintenance of vigor and good health and the little luxuries which satisfy young people. In the face of the constantly rising standard of living and of the increased cost of living, the low wage for the voung man means postponement of marriage, and this in turn paves the way for promiscuous relations with the opposite sex. Portland (Oregon) Report (Pages 199 and 200) : Where the mother is away working the children are uncared for and to a degree homeless. Again, if there is not proper income in the family the home may be in crowded quarters in an undesirable part of the city. * * * Overcrowding in vicious quarters of the citv trains children in ways of vice. The army of prostitutes is largely recruited from the children of the poor. Pittsburgh Report (Page 5) : To cure these evils of society, we must go beneath the symptoms to the causes. With the rise in the cost of living, artificial social standards, and other factors of modern life have tended to defer the age of marriage and to penalize the establishment of a home. Same Report (Page 27) : The Commission realizes that the best remedies are economic and edu- cational. * * * Every step to better housing and cheaper living is a step in the direction of healthier morals. Good wages and low rents en- courage earlier marriages. Family life and home joys are the preventives of illicit passion and roving pleasure. 28 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Chicago Report (Page 269) : The whole tendency of modern industrialism is to place too heavy a strain on the nervous system of all classes, men and women alike. * * * It goes without saying that if you have conditions which make living with comfort impossible for any large number of men and women, some of the men will become criminals and some of the women prostitutes. Same Report (Page 281) : One of the chief reasons why girls enter the life of prostitution is evidently the economic one. They cannot live on the wages paid them. * * * An investigation should be made of all establishments employing girls and young unmarried men, for the purpose of securing accurate figures as to the salaries paid, hours of work, including overtime. * * * If such an investigation were made public, it would assist in creating an “in- dustrial conscience” and would educate the community to demand the living wage. (2) That thousands of girls are driven into prostitu- tion because of the sheer inability to keep body and soul together on the low wages received by them. By the testimony of the girl victims, in one unbroken narrative of hopeless struggle ; by the reports of their private conversation from experienced investigators; by the observations and judgments of social workers whose integrity has never been questioned; and, over and above all, by the figures of what the girls are actually paid and of what it actually costs them to live, the hideous deficit and the more hideous contemplation of how sometimes that deficit may be bridged; is your committee brought irretrievably to this finding. It is not a matter of sentiment, or of emotion, or of opinion. It is the fact, cold, not nice, uncomplimentary to all of us ; but nevertheless the fact. It is to be remembered that this is an inquiry into prostitution, not of that immorality practised without gain ; and whether the initial moral lapse is entered into for money, or because of deceit or ignorance or other cause, is not pertinent to the subject. There is testimony, of authenticity scarcely to be questioned, in the steno- graphic record of girls deliberately selling their virtue under ex- treme economic stress. Testimony of Mrs. Louise Bowen (Page 454); Q. Do you think that low wages has ever caused, directly or in- directly, a girl to go wrong? A. Oh, j^es, I know, because we have a great many instances where we have cases of girls going wrong, directly attributable to that cause. I believe it is a great factor in the matter. Findings and Recommendations 29 Testimony of Mrs. Louise Bowen (Page 456) ; SENATOR BEALL: Have you known of any girl, of any specific case, who went wrong because she was paid a starvation wage? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where you believed that the girl was telling the truth? A. Yes, sir. I had no reason to believe any other way. Q. You know of cases where she has sold herself for money? A. Yes, sir, I know of one case; she was hungry; she hadn’t had anything to eat for a long time. Q. And she sold herself for money? A. Yes. Q. You believed that she had been good up to that time? A. Yes, sir; she came to the Juvenile Protective Association, bringing with her another little girl, and told her own story to me. She said, “It is too late now; you can’t do anything for me, but perhaps you can help this little girl.” Her story was very true; do you wish me to give the name of this girl? Testimony of Mrs. Gertrude Howe Brittain (Page 466) : MRS. BRITTAIN: A girl came to my office and told me that she was in a very bad condition physically and she didn’t know what to do. I took her to a doctor and found that she needed medical attention. * * * inflicted with a venereal disease. She did not look like a girl who was a street girl, or who ever could be, and I talked to her and she told me that she had been getting $6.00 a week at the Boston Store and could earn no more. She had to have a pair of shoes. She had tried to save her money, but she had not been able to save enough to get her a pair of shoes, and in her extremity, and she thought that she would do it, just for once, that she might have this pair of shoes, with this result. It is a rare and extreme case, I think, but it does happen. Wisconsin Report (Page 18): In every large center of population there are * * * women who, upon losing their positions as sales clerks, domestic servants or other poorly paid positions, resort temporarily to prostitution in order to live. There is ample testimony in every investigation to show that many thousands of this type of women pass into the ranks of pros- titutes and out again every year and often several times a year. Many of them finally secure a stable position, marry or return to their homes and so escape the lot of the professional prostitute. However, a large number finally succumb to the tempfation of what is upon first con- sideration an easy mode of earning a living. Grand Rapids Welfare Commission (Pages 30-31-32) : That low wages paid female workers are to some extent responsible for the downfall of those who have gone wrong is unquestioned, as is borne out by the data gathered. In that portion of the information gathered relative to the “apt woman,” occasional transgressors and prostitutes, eight girls out of forty-seven give low wages as the direct cause, and in that portion relative solely to inmates of houses of prostitution, numbering thirty-three, nine give this as the direct cause and two as the main contributory cause, or nearly twenty-five per cent when combined. But, whether the percentage be somewhat higher or 30 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee lower, it is of sufficient importance to merit the consideration of remedial action. Taking the average wage of female employes at $6, which is a fair deduction, it shows that all too many girls are earning insufficient to properly support themselves, and it is a source of con- gratulation that the percentage of those who fall is not higher. Philadelphia Report (Page 18) : It is quite true, even with virtuous girls, that privations and the dreadful monotony of a life without any diversions, which inadequate means involve, serve to impair their physical and moral fibre so as to render it more difficult to resist the insidious allurements at hand. * * * It is this consideration which involves the terrible responsi- bility of employers who, for the sake of inordinate profits, adhere to the standard of mere supply and demand in fixing w'ages, though it is fair to add that it is by no means every employer who enjoys inordinate profits. There is much other testimony of the actual practice of prosti- tution being preceded by an experience in ignorance or deception or force, in which virtue was sacrificed without either the receipt or the expectation of money. But even in this respect the line of demarkation between the actual sale of virtue and the loss of virtue through deception and force is many times difficult to trace. The familiar experience of the girl decoyed to her infamy through promise of marriage may be on her part either an error of affection or a transgression born solely of desire to escape an intolerable economic condition. The presumption is incontrovertible that the girl, whose means are inadequate properly to meet the items of a bare existence, is least fortified to resist prenuptial demands, the denial of which she may fear will cost a husband while the grant- ing might open the matrimonial door of escape from all the miseries of starvation. In the absence of love, therefore, such experiences may partake of many of the elements of prostitution, virtue being given, not indeed for a price in mone}", but for a promise of future support. The girl gambles rather than makes open sale. This Committee is unwilling to believe, however, that in a ma- jority of instances mercenary motives, or even those of self-preser- vation, actuate the girl in her surrender of her sexual integrity. That they do actuate her, whether she at the time be of strict virtue or otherwise, when she permits the promiscuous violation of her body for money is, of course, the inevitable presumption under the plain definition of prostitution. The important point, and the only one really at issue, is that in those cases where it figures the low wage is the impelling force in the girl’s initial act of prosti- tution. Upon contemplation, it is believed most persons will agree that the details of the girl’s experience prior to the actual prostitu- tion may be dismissed as irrelevant. Findings and Recommendations 31 From persons who regard a mistake, or a misstep, as condem- natory of all future effort by the offending party may be expected the argument that, while this Committee may make technical dis- tinction between an immoral act and prostitution, to all practical purposes there is no distinction — that an immoral woman is as evil a thing as a prostitute. The Committee submits that the practical difference is one of redemption. Girls in comfortable circumstances err ; they respond to impulses ; they, too, are the victims of deception and unwisely-reposed affections ; errors, im- pulses and pitfalls that unfortunately cannot immediately and en- tirely be removed by laws. But, in the normal person, remorse follows the violation of rules of right and wrong; and in how many instances this remorse has brought repentance and that repentance, unrestrained by the working of economic pressure, has remained lasting, we leave for estimate to such persons as may care to exercise their imaginations. There are no statistics on “family skeletons” nor on the secrets that are confined to the memories of participants. But the girl’s hope of redemption, we are of opinion, grades downward with the intensity of her struggle for existence. The hope must certainly be dimmest where tempta- tion is strongest — with the girl whose wage cannot support her. This phase of the problem is important. The girl at home, or in receipt of a living wage, is not necessarily doomed by the initial folly. She often redeems herself and is restored to the world of well-behaved, even pure-minded persons. The girl who is below the “bread line,” who is slipping weekly further and further into debt and misery, seldom recovers from the first moral lapse. If virtue outright she would not barter, virtue wrecked she soon stoops to commercialize. Failure to effect a cure by relieving the strain of economics and leaving the girl unhandicapped to battle for her recovery and redemption, almost invariably results in the development of the moral lapse into chronic immorality, or pros- titution. This, your Committee respectfully submits, is a rule of fundamental importance in the genesis of prostitutes. Chicago Report (Page 198) : It may be well to call particular attention to the fact that the present economic and insanitary conditions under which the girls employed in factories and department stores live and work, has an effect on the nervous forces of the girl in such a way as to render her much more susceptible to prostitution. It is unfortunate that it has not been possible to undertake a full investigation of hours of labor and the results of nervous strain caused by machinery and occupations where machinery is chiefly employed and operated by women and girls. Without this accurate economic data, it is practically impossible to establish a firm foundation on which to deal with the sources of vice in its various forms. 32 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Chicago Report (Page 202) : There are many men who own large establishments, who pa 3 ' wages which simply drive women into prostitution. Some of the girls who are most tempted, and enter lives of prostitution, work in the big depart- ment stores, surrounded by luxuries, which all of them crave, and sell large quantities of those luxuries for a wage compensation of about $7.00 or $8.00 a week, and even less. Same (Page 203): The girl in the department store is confronted with certain temp- tations which are ever pressing harder upon her. The first of these is the procuress, the second the “cadet,” and the third, the man directh" over her, who may even be the manager or the proprietor himself. * * * It has been established after exhaustive study that it is quite impossible for a working girl in any large city to live on less than $8.00 per week, yet employers of these department stores say that they pay on an average of from $6.00 to $7.00 per week. * * * A former salesgirl in a department stores was seen in a fashionable all-night restaurant. She said that four weeks previous she had been earning $8.00 per week. She enumerated different articles of clothing which she was wearing, and gave the prices of each, including her hat. The total amount came to over $200.00. Her eyes had been opened to her earning capacity in the “sporting” life by a man who laughed at her for wasting her good looks and physical charms behind a counter for a boss who was growing rich from her services, and the services of others like her. * * * "phe plain blunt facts tell more than pages of theorizing on the .subject. Abram I. Elkus, Counsel of New York State Factory Commission: Many cases, too, are reported of very young girls turning to a life of prostitution because they were “tired of work” — tired of the inces- sant grind of the factory before they had reached the legal age to work in a factory at all. Pittsburgh Survey (Page 305): Where the store is particular as to the mode of life of its emplo 3 -es, the percentage of girls that lead irregular lives is lower than in those stores where it is sometimes tolerated and sometimes encouraged; 3 'et from among the girls themselves, and those dealing with it from those sources, my information is that in the moral jeopard 3 ’' of shop girls lies one of the serious problems of the women emplo 3 ^ed in trades. Alfred Russell Wallace: I have shown that modern ideas as to the necessit 3 r of dealing directly with some of our glaring social evils, such as race degenera- tion and the various forms of sexual immoralit 3 q are fundamentall 3 ' wrong and are doomed to failure so long as their fundamental causes — widespread poverty, destitution, and starvation— are not greath' diminished and ultimately abolished. I have proved that human nature is not in itself such a complete failure as our modern eugenists seem to suppose, but that it is influenced by fundamental laws which under reasonably just and equal economic conditions will automaticalh- abol- ish all these evils. Findings and Recommendations 33 Portland Report (Page 168): If a large number of women are employed in the industries of Port- land at less than a living wage, this is a condition that may lead to vice. The employers did not deny that many thousands of girls were paid in wages an amount below that upon which they could reasonably be expected to live. Mr. Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears-Roe- i buck & Company, was a typical witness. He told of an inquiry con- ' ducted by three department heads of Sears-Roebuck & Company for the purpose of ascertaining the girl’s minimum cost of existence. The inquiry fixed $8.00 as the least amount that would suffice to meet the ' necessary items of a bare living. Mr. Rosenwald then testified that i Sears-Roebuck & Company paid to 1,465 girls, or 30.96 per cent of f all the females employed by it, less than $8.00 a week (page 178). I The average wage paid by Sears-Roebuck & Company [an average ' computed upon the wage of 4,732 females] was $9.12, or but $1.12 : above the “bare cost of living’’ estimate. Mr. James Simpson, vice I president of Marshall Field & Company, also regarded $8.00 a week ! as an amount below which the girl’s expenses would not run. He 1 testified that 1,035 girls, or 24.51 per cent of all the female labor em- I ployed by Marshall Field & Company, were paid less than $8.00 (page ! 206). Other merchants on State Street in the City of Chicago gave I similar testimony — all recognized $8.00 as the minimum cost of liv- ing, and all paid less than $8.00 to large numbers of their female em- I ployes, running from 22 to 85 per cent of the total number at work. In five of the largest stores, of 13,610 women employed, over 7,000, ■or about 52 per cent, were paid less than a living. (Page 115.) * With a few exceptions, the employers maintained that the girls I lived at home, or said they did, and that the burden of their support li was upon the fathers, who begot them, and not upon the industries, I that utilized them. Testimony of Mr. James Simpson (page 204): Q. Do you know, Mr. Simpson, of any girl who can buy the necessities i of life, keep herself neat and pay her car fare on $5.00 a week? [Witness had testified to employment of 440 girls, part time, for $4.00 a week, and 213, all time, at $5.00 a week.] A. No, not if dependent on her own resources. Q. Then, if you pay a girl $5.00 a week and it would cost her, we will say, $8.00 a week, you are placing the burden of the difference between $5.00 and $8.00 a week upon her parents if she be living with her parents. SENATOR JUUL: Or, on someone else’s shoulders? A. I sup- pose the parents’ shoulders are to bear the burden. These children are young girls, young women going to school, as it were. They are pre- paring themselves for a greater earning capacity later on. .They are serving an apprenticeship, as i: were. You put your question as to trans- ferring the burden of these girls on someone else’s shoulders. I don’t think it is a fair question the way it is put. 34 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Then I will try to put it differently. Coming back to the old rela- tion between the employer and the employe — let us take the case of these $5.00 a week girls and we have got a concrete case. You have 213 getting $5.00 a week and you have stated that they can’t live on $5.00 a week, and Governor O’Hara asked you if you were not trying to put the blame of the burden for the balance on other shoulders? A. I am not. Q. Where does it come from? A. Those people are getting all they are worth. They are going to school, as it were. They are preparing themselves for a greater earning capacity. I want to say now that the average wage of all female employes in our establishment is $10.76. * * * These girls that are getting $5.00 a week are preparing themselves to occupy positions which will justify paying them more money. A slightly diflerent reason was given by Mr. L. R. Steele, mana- ger of the Knox Five and Ten-Cent Store, on State Street, in Chicago. Mr. Steele testified that fifty-nine girls, or 84.28 per cent of all the females employed in his establishment, were paid less than $8.00 a week, most of them receiving $6.00. He offered a frank explanation of why he employed girls at less than they could live on. Testimony of Mr. L. R. Steele (page 697): Q. When girls come in looking for jobs, do they fill out any applica- tion blanks? A. Yes. * * * gives the name of her father and mother, how long she attended public school and where she worked at last, and three references; usually the references they, give are fictitious. Q. Before putting a girl to wor’', will you look up her references? A. We are supposed to look them up right away; we have a young man who is supposed to look a girl up right away. Q. Suppose a girl hasn’t a father and has not a mother, you take her anyway, do you? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is, you don’t care whether she is entirely self-dependent or not? A. No, that doesn’t enter into the proposition at all. Q. In other words, you want to get girls at $6.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. And what they do with the $6.00, and whether they live on it, is their own concern? A. Yes, sir. Q. Well, you are frank and honest with us, anyhow. A. Yes, it is a commercial proposition with us. Q. Some of the witnesses before us have told us that they don’t like to take these girls unless they were thoroughly satisfied that they were living at home. A. That is a good rule, but we have applications or requests from the largest firms in the city on the same girls that we have lost from the store. Q. You don’t think it really makes any more difference with them than it does with you? A. No, I do not. Same Witness (page 696) : Q. What do you call “floaters?” A. They might stay a week, or two weeks, and they might be in the store two hours and we catch them stealing, and discharge them. Q. Do you find that happens quite often? A. I should say so. * * Q. Then, in your judgment, some ot these girls getting $6.00 a week, steal to live? A. I would not say that of all of them; I would say some of them did. Findings and Recommendations 35 If a large percentage of the girls working for Marshall Field & Company and for Sears, Roebuck & Company, business institutions that take much pride in their welfare work and that enjoy wide fame and prestige, are in receipt at the end of the week’s toil of inadequate means of liquidating the week’s bills, it is a reasonable presumption that a much larger percentage of girls “below the bread line’’ will hold in those industries without prestige and without pride. Ample testi- mony of conditions in these employments ; of wages running as low as $2.00 a week ; of foremen who profanely abuse girls in short dresses, shake them until their arms are blackened, and occasionally hurl boxes at them ; of the manager who found his factory besieged with the agents of professional white slavery ; of the girls M^ho struggled, and through it all remained good; of other girls who struggled, and succumbed ; all will be found, as given to your Com- mittee under oath, in the stenographic record, appearing elsewhere as part of this report, and to which the members of the Honorable Senate are referred. It is a mass of sordid detail. It tells its own story, and draws its own conclusion. It is proof in preponderance. (3) That thousands of girls are forced into industrial employment by the low wages received by their fathers; that they are separated from proper home influences at an excessively early age ; that they are inadequately schooled and are insufficiently protected; and that many of them become recruits for the system of prostitution. Your Committee has found no disagreement as to the effect of the family life and standards on the morals of the growing children. That any causes with tendency to reduce home standards and to destroy family circles will promote vice and prostitution is unanimously accepted as true reasoning by all students of the problem and by all of the witnesses appearing before this Committee and questioned there- on. It must logically follow that any wage inadequate to the proper sustenance of a normal family of husband, wife and children, will in- evitably promote immorality and prostitution. Testimony of much value was given by prominent bankers, who were unanimous in their position that experience in the banking busi- ness had shown that inadequacy of wage directly affected the power to resist temptation. Mr. James B. Forgan, then, and for many years preceding, president of the First National Bank of Chicago, told of a rule of the pension board, and respected by the bank, that no employe, earning less than $1,000 a year, could marry and hold his position in the bank. Mr. Forgan considered this the least amount upon which 36 Report of the Ii.linois Senate Vice Committee a bank employe could be expected to support a family. In the figures volunteered by Mr. Forgan of the wages paid to male employes of the First National Bank, a total of 580 men, 27 per cent were ascer- tained to be receiving less than $500 a year, and 37 per cent less than $1,000 a year. Briefly, approximately 37 per cent of the male em- ployes of the bank were at the time precluded from marrying. Wages in other large Chicago banks did not differ from those paid in the First National, in a material degree; while they were larger than in many other lines of employment. As example : 4,500 men employed by the Chicago City Railways Company received an average monthly wage of $71.50, or $142 a year less than the “safe” marriage figure quoted by Mr. Forgan. Again; 8,769 men employed by the Chicago Railways Company received an average monthly wage of $69.20, or $169.60 a year less than the marriage figure. Testimony of Mr. James E. Forgan (Page 757): Q. And you don’t care to try the experiment? A. And I don’t care to try the experiment. Q. Is it a fair presumption, Mr. Forgan, that the children of the man being paid $12.00 a week must leave school at an early age and go to work? A. Yes, we have a selfish way of looking at that. When we employ a boy that is not of paying age, one of the first inquiries is, are his parents in position to support him? I think you can see the reason for it. We can’t afford to have anybody who is dishonest working in the bank; the opportunities are too big, and therefore the question of whether he can be properly supported or not is one of the' questions to be investigated before we employ him. We see the father and make arrangements with the father with the understanding of that bo}- that we pay him enough to live on, but with the understanding that the father wants him to learn the business and for a year or two he will be supported. When I started the business, I got as much a 3’ear as these young fellows get a month. I got five pounds the first 3'ear, ten pounds the second, fifteen pounds the third, and twenty pounds the fourth; that was my first four years in the bank and I thought I was getting quite an advantage and it was quite a privilege to get the position. Q. Then 3'ou think that the inadequac3' of wage has something to do with the power to resist temptation? A. Decided^v A 3mung fel- low gets into spending more than he is earning, gets into debt, he ma3' get in debt to some pretty hard creditor, who is crowding him or push- ing him, and it is undoubtedly a strong temptation to him to temporize at first, perhaps thinking he can help himself to something to meet that emergency, and in meeting that emergency he gets in from bad to worse. Q. Most of the dishonesty in life comes from such conditions, does it not? A. I think so, from pressure of circumstances, 3-es. Constantly throughout the hearings of this Committee, day after day, as one wdtness w^ould follow another, the burden of the deficit between the girl’s wage and the cost of her lit ing tvas in issue. It was maintained by the employers that this deficit properly should rest upon Findings and Recommendations 37 the home from which the girl came. Your Committee was of opinion that the burden belonged to the employer. On this there was much argument, the expression of many viewpoints, all of which is printed in the stenographic record. This matter of the deficit is, in the judgment of your Committee, the crux of the problem of low wages. Saddled where it now is, on the shoulders of the parents, it operates to deprive at least three genera- tions of a fair chance. This is a matter of mathematics so simple it may be figured by a child. Mr. Rosenwald gave $15.41 as the average male wage at Sears-Roebuck & Company. This is a much higher average than obtains in many other establishments, so for the purpose of illustration an eminently fair figure to use. If $8.00 be the mini- mum living expense for a girl, no one would expect the recipient of the average Sears-Roebuck & Company male wage to do better than support himself, wife and one child for the first fourteen years of the child’s life. That is, he cannot support two adults and a growing infant on $15.41 a week, and save money. And under the law, which prevents child labor, the support of that child is entirely his responsi- bility for that period. At fourteen the child — a daughter, for example — goes out to employment. From fourteen to sixteen she will receive, in the average place, $3.00 a week, and from sixteen to eighteen prob- ably $5.00. During this period of four years she has required food, lodging, clothing, car fare and other items included in the $8.00 mini- mum calculation. The deficit for the four years totals $832. The father, who is now in the maximum earning period, between thirty- five and forty years, must meet the deficit with an economy prohibitive of many family necessities, such as adequate food, or go into debt. In either case the family environment is lowered, and worry must dis- place that contentment that is essential to completely sane morals. When she reaches eighteen, the father has ceased to advance in- dustrially. He is somewhere about forty, probably slightly over; and in ten years at the most will be face to face with an age barrier; after which his earning capacity will rapidly descend to the point approxi- mately reached by his daughter at sixteen, where he must find money from other sources to force his income to a bare living figure. Mean- while, the daughter, after four years of industrial service at a loss of $832 — from the employers’ self-defending viewpoint, an “educa- tion” — becomes the average female worker at the average salary, which at Sears-Roebuck & Company was $9.12. If she conscientiously under- takes to repay the “deficit” to her father, whose debts or approaching old age clearly demand it, she may finally liquidate the account in fourteen years and three months. But to do this she must keep steadily at work, with never a day off for sickness or vacation. Also, §he must not deviate one cent from the figures, upon which are com- 38 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee puted the $8.00 living scale. She must be content to exist upon the least amount that her employers have found a girl can live on, and must regularly surrender to her parent the $1.12 weekly difference between her wage and the actual cost of her existence. By the time she has liquidated her indebtedness she is in her thirty-third year; and if she should then marry and have children, the strain of her long struggle, together with her advanced age, would, according to medical authority, adversely affect the coming generation even before birth. The illustration is, of course, based upon averages — the average parent, the average parent’s wage, the average girl, the average girl’s wage — and the deductions made must exactly fit the average case. The element of chance, or accident, in the manner of raising the wage above the average, or lowering it, or of keeping the cost of existence below the average, or raising it, is eliminated. If the girl does not recognize or does not attempt to meet her parental obligation (and it is not presumed that she will figure it with the exactness used here), the burden is not lifted from the family. It is fatal to the family’s chance, whether the debt be assumed by parent or by child. Your Committee therefore holds that justification of a payment to the girl of less than a living wage on the plea that her father should meet the deficit is unscientific, untenable and subject to mathematical disproof. It is conclusively answered in the figures revealing that, in reputable and foremost institutions, the average male wage is hope- lessly below the actual cost of family existence. The home is as poor as the girl ; it is unable to bear the burden of the deficit, which, in the employers’ failure to meet it, comes back to the girl herself, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, in the way of sacrificed necessities and restricted opportunities. (4) Unregulated condition of domestic employment, uncertain hours, absence of definite social status and lack of recreative opportunities render the home, in many cases, for the woman servants, a breeding place of com- mercialized vice. Until the system of domestic employment is entirely reorganized, to conform with the American conception of the true dignity of labor, it may not be possible for the woman, in comfortable enough circum- stances to employ one or more female servants, to escape a certain unconscious complicity in the agency of procuring prostitutes. The terrihc indictment against the system, of which every good woman who has servants is a greater or less part, is in the startling per- centage of vice victims who attribute their entry into a dishonorable Findings and Recommendations 39 calling to their previous domestic employment. Of 181 girls sent to the State Training School at Geneva, who had worked for a wage previous to commitment, 115, or 63.55 per cent, had been engaged in domestic service. If many of the girls thus employed eventually find escape from distasteful conditions by embracing prostitution, many others desert the service after a brief trial to swell the army of underpaid, under- fed, underclothed workers in the stores and factories. It is a pecu- liarly strong compliment to the sensing faculty of the female, and her intuitive avoidance of sexual danger, that the occupation proved by actual statistics to be productive of most prostitution is the occu- pation she most shuns. Thus there is a constant unfilled demand for domestics ; a condition in the female labor market that is most often, and erroneously, pointed to in controversion of the contention of this committee that the starvation wage is a factor in the industry of vice. Your committee is of opinion that the lack of facilities for proper social intercourse, the constant reminder of inferior position through differential treatment, and the uncertain and often unreasonably long hours are conditions of poverty, invariably destructive of the calm mind and self-respect necessary to normal morality. Examination of G. Stanley Finch (Page 356) : MRS. OWEN KILDARE: I would like to ask Mr. Finch if he has formulated any reason as to why so many of the women who are house- workers enter the white slave traffic. MR. FINCH: If I had time, I could give you an illustration. It is hard to give a reason for that in a few words. In the cases where we know the real facts, it is due to the fact that the girl who is in the home is apart from her fellows, and is more easily subject to temptation. We have numbers of cases where young girls are acting as nurses or wait- resses, and if they are nice looking girls, they attract some one con- nected with the household and through the display of money, or fur- nishing of money, or the offers or favors of different kinds, the girl is sometimes seduced, and in that way is led astray and eventually is driven into a house of ill-fame. Then, of course, the girls who work in houses are not so well educated as the girls who work in stores, and I think in factories, too; and, being more ignorant, they are more easily the victims of the white slave traffickers. I do not know whether that answers the question satisfactorily. Miss Breckinridge in “The Delinquent Child and the Home:” Many of the girls who are sent out to (domestic) service are piti- fully young and ignorant. Cases of twelve-year-old girls who have gone out to work and then “gone wrong” have been mentioned, and there are many others who are only fourteen, fifteen or sixteen years old, when they are sent out unprotected into strange homes. These little girls, from the very fact of their being so young and so untrained, find only the most undesirable places, where they are household drudges, exposed to temptation, separated from their own families, and only too 40 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee often with no protection substituted for that which their families might have supplied. The records of the country girls furnish many illustra- tions of the extreme peril to which the young girl is subjected when “bound out” or employed in households in which no adequate protec- tion is afforded by the mistress supposedly in loco parentis. We have, therefore, some shocking records of the little maid abused by the boarder, the farm hand, or even by a member of the family group. Testimony of Mrs. Louise Bov.’cn (Page 455): Q. Why does the girl in domestic service sometimes go wrong? A. I suppose there are a great many reasons. In communities like ours, she must have her recreation, and she goes to dances and places of that kind, and gets into difficulties in that way. Most of American girls don’t want to see their men friends in somebody else’s kitchen. Q. Where do they go? A. They go out in the street, or else into the saloon, or the parks, or five-cent shows. Q. That is usually the case? A. Yes, sir. Q. The housewdfe there is the employer, isn’t she? A. Yes. Q. She may have only one employe? A. Yes. Q. And that is her maid? A. Yes, sir. Q. The maid wmrks hard during the day, and at night has only the street or the kitchen in which to meet the young man? A. Yes. Q. That lessens her matrimonial chances? A. Yes. Testimony of Girl Victim at Peoria (Page 339): Well, I am not infatuated with the life, I will sa 3 ' that. However, it does give you a chance to live and take care of j'ourself. There is companionship, too. In a rooming house j’ou have no companionship, many times. They expect you to stay in your room, most places. If a girl works in a private house, as a domestic servant, then j'ou have the kitchen for your place. If anybod\' wants to see j'ou, she or he comes into the kitchen. They give jmu no privileges at all. Their dogs or horses would be treated better, in manj- cases. They simph" have no consideration for you, even if you are ill. The}' wouldn’t let an^'bod}' come to see you at the front door. You are worse than an}- slave that ever was in existence in some places. Thej- don’t consider j'ou ever get tired or need rest. You are a machine, wound up in the morning, and you work till all hours in the night, in a private famih'. You are up in the morning before they are up, and j'ou get jmur meals in a hurry, and do your work all through the dajq and then 3 'ou are expected to work late at night. Their dinner is late. The usual famiU- dinner is not until half past 6 or 7. By the time j'ou get the work done, it is 8 or 9 o’clock. When they have companj' it is worse. You are up, after late work at night, at half past S or 6 in the morning. You work all day long, and thej^ don’t ever stop to figure how manj- hours \'ou work, and whether you need rest or recreation. Thej- give j-ou a salary- of $5.00 a week, and sometimes thej' give a salarj- of $3.00 or $4 00, and think they give you big wages, because 3 'ou get some dark little room and meals you are too tired to eat. The}' simpl}' don’t care how man}- hours you work in domestic service. Findings and Recommendations 41 Testimony of Proprietress of Disreputable House (Page 328) : Q. Now, Miss Hall, I want you to state to this Committee, from the depths of your twenty-two years of experience, what are the con- tributing causes of girls going astray, what it is the effect of, as you have viewed it, during those twenty-two years? THE WITNESS: My opinion is that it is low wages, and girls are thrown out on the world without a home. They haven’t any com- panionship, and they naturally fall into prostitution for the sake of company and companionship. If they are servants in private residences, they have very hard and discouraging treatment. They are treated as though they were inhuman, and the most of the girls fall from these causes, simply because they fall into prostitution for the sake of com- panionship, and getting money enough to eat. They haven’t money enough to eat, half of them, when they try to get along and pay their own expenses on the wages they get in stores, factories and offices. They haven’t enough clothes to wear to make a good appearance or to be comfortable. When girls haven’t enough to eat, nor clothing to wear, what else would cause them to fall but that? I think that is exactly why nine out of ten go astray. Some may do so from inclina- tion, being simply inclined that way; but the number is not large, of that class. I think that nine out of ten fall for the sake of companion- ship, clothing and food. That is my idea of the principal cause. Q. You have talked to them and they have told you this story, in years gone by? A. Nine out of every ten will tell you that has been the cause in their case, either that, or bad treatment at home. Some- times the home surroundings are very bad. The girls haven’t any com- forts or conveniences at home, haven’t any ordinary kindness some- times, and that causes them to wish to leave, and they afterward fall. Testimony of Mr. M. D. Harding (Page 704): There is a lot of these girls that prefer work in the packing houses to doing domestic work. It is almost impossible to take one of these girls who are working in our departments and get them to accept a position as a domestic. They prefer to have their evenings to them- .selves, their homes to themselves, their holidays to themselves; they prefer living there, as they do in the stock yards district, than to work- ing as a domestic. Q. Do some of them go from your service into domestic service? A. I very rarely hear of it if they do. I have tried from time to time to get them to leave the packing house for some of our officials and some of our friends as a domestic, but they don’t care for the jobs; they come back again to work. * * * I kriow it is an impossible proposition to get them to leave us and go to work at domestic work, because I have had experience in that direction; I have tried to get them to go to my own house. Q. And they won’t do it? A. They won’t do it; they want tlieir evenings, their holidays and their Sundays to themselves. « Q. Do they talk English? A. Some few; a large percentage do not. 42 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (5) That segregation of vice, as a system of municipal regulation, is an entire failure; that it promotes and in- creases immorality; that it spreads practices of degener- acy; and, being an open toleration of law violation, ma- terially lessens the community respect for law and order. Strangely, among the citizens of Illinois, as of her sister states, for many years this was an open question. Many, honest men be- lieved that, while the law prohibited vice, the low demands of human nature required it ; and for the presumed protection from violence of virtuous women, there was permitted the public exploitation of their poorer sisters, whose extremities or feeble-mindedness might lead them to the sale of their bodies. As the women thus exploited came from the very poorest groups, as has been seen, the system of segregation was, at the best, a heartless sacrifice of the weakest in the presumed interest of the strongest. In 1913, when your committee was created and entered upon the discharge of its work, most of the sizable towns of Illinois tolerated “red-light” districts. In Chicago, following a campaign of Hon. John W. Wayman while state’s attorney, many of the larger houses had closed, but the smaller ones remained open, which, with the undisturbed activities of cafes and hotels, still attracted thousands of vice patrons. In Peoria, Springfield, Alton, Rock Island and over a dozen other cities there was some effort at regulation, but none at closure. In February of 1913 the federal white slave officials reported to your committee that a survey of Illinois, not more than half completed, had shown the existence of houses of prostitution in East St. Louis, Aurora, Bloomington, Champaign, Chicago Heights, Danville, Elgin, Freeport, Kankakee, Ottawa, Pekin and Peoria. In the three years that have elapsed, public opinion has cr}'Stalized against segregation, and few cities in Illinois now tolerate the presence of moral plague spots. It is probable that in another three years not a single vice district will remain in Illinois to recall a system of tolera- tion general throughout the commonwealth when the Honorable Senate undertook the study and investigation of vice as a state responsibilit}'. Some of the causes of the reform went far back, to the educational pioneering of groups of citizens who had always opposed the stystem, to the publication in 1911 of the findings of the municipal vice commis- sions in Minneapolis and Chicago, and, over and above all, to the prac- tical experiences and observations of the residents in towns tolerating open prostitution. Findings and Recommendations 43 Evidence that segregation does not segregate; that scatteration is the accompanist, not the successor, of vice toleration; that crime, de- generacy and disease invariably are its tolls, will be found in the printed testimony. Especial attention is directed to the testimony, beginning on page 190, of a young woman, who attended a large number of men while in the advanced stages of one of the most frightful of the venereal diseases. She was an inmate of one of the highest-priced houses in the Chicago district. She possessed a certificate of good health, which was given her for a price by a physician who knew her real condition. The essential points in this woman’s story were subsequently verified ’ey the committee’s investigators. Philadelphia Report ("Page 19): Segregation is ineffective — it segregates a small minority of the sexually vicious, can never isolate their diseases, and promotes rather than reduces clandestine prostitution; it is confiscatory — lowering values of properties for reputable purposes; it is anti-social — forcing the families of the poor into evil associations; it is uneconomic — rais- ing a crime to the dignity of a business through concentration, com- bination, and publicity; it is unethical — promoting the double standard of morality by the erection of a female lazaretto; it is mal-administra- tive, requiring official complicity in and partnership with an illegal pursuit to the sure debauching of police morals; it is inhuman — resting upon the assumption that prostitution is a natural and ineradicable feature of society. So far as we know, every vice commission in this country has unanimously rejected it as we do now. It is neither more nor less than licensed vice. The people of Philadelphia may not know how to deal with prostitution, but of one thing we are sure, they are not going to say “it is all right if confined to certain localities.’’ Some speak of “The Social Evil,’’ and lay the emphasis on the word “social”; we lay it on the word “evil.” Wisconsin Report (Page 27) : We find some men contending that the segregated district is the best method of controlling prostitution. They claim that prostitution is a necessary evil, and that if these houses did not exist, respectable women would not be free from molestation on the streets at night. This argument is especially urged by certain residents of the cities and lakes, on account of the numerous sailors, miners and lumbermen who frequent these cities. Testimony before this Committee secured from some of the leading citizens and business men of such cities supports this contention, while other business men most strenuously maintain that such a policy is untenable and dangerous. The great mass of opinion, however, is absolutely opposed to any such policy of segre- gation. Many intelligent and socially minded men and women all over the United States have changed their point of view in regard to the segregation of vice. Ten years ago there were but few supporters of the fight against such districts. Even the greatest leaders in social reform believed that the segregated district was the best way to con- 44 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee trol a so-called necessary evil. This w-as before any of the great investigations had been made. Pittsburgh Report (Page 15): The maintenance of a section for the uses of commercialized vice is a menace to the morals of all classes, but is particularly injurious to the young of both sexes. Regulation or reglementation of any kind is not only in direct opposition to the moral ideals of an American community, but offers insurmountable practical difficulties of admin- istration. Houses cf prostitution and other institutions of commercial- ized vice being forbidden by law, their toleration is a dangerous source of graft and corruption. If there were no more than 1,000 w'omen in the red-light district of Pittsburgh, and if their average career be five years, it is clear that 200 young girls must fall every year to keep up the vast supply of human flesh. A segregated district cannot exist without panders, procurers and white-slavers to secure recruits. No justification, either physical or moral, can be found for the tolerance of the evil, as continence is entirely compatible with health. While virtue cannot be enforced by legal enactment, the law can and should prevent the existence and promotion of commercialized vice. Having reached this conclusion, the Commission is driven inevitably to recom- mend that all the remaining houses of prostitution be closed without unnecessary delay. (6) That many women, through inability to live on the legitimate means at their disposal, or in the desire of sup- plementing allowances by husband or parent, are part of a new and elaborate network of vice, known as the “call- girl” system; that the system is rapidly being organized, and fresh girls drawn into it by the assurance of the ease with which profitable prostitution may be practiced with- out sacrifice of reputation for respectability. The development of this system, which strikes more directly at the home than any of the other activities of the industry of commercialized immorality, has been startling in the cities visited by your committee and in others where its investigators conducted inquiries. Yet so little public attention has leen directed to it, and the police efforts to curb it have been so spasmodic and inadequate, that the most insidious form of prostitution that it is possible for the imagination to conceive has fastened itself upon our urban communities practically unopposed. That the public has no adequate conception of the new problem, and what small information it has is wonderfully distorted, accounts in part for the growth of the system to its present proportions. Your committee is of opinion that the system could not have rooted at all had any considerable number of citizens in any communiw been Findings and Recommendations 45 accurately informed regarding its nature. On no other phase of the vice question, in its open manifestations, did the committee find exist- ing a greater degree of civic ignorance. Even among some close stu- dents of vice activities the call system seemed to be both underesti- mated and hopelessly confused with the old system, of segregation. The chief misconception, indeed, is that the new system is merely the old system existing under changed conditions ; that, as the segregated dis- tricts are being closed, their inmates are flocking into the residence districts to continue in secret the conduct that pre\ iously they followed in the open. This is, however, far from the fact. While a few may be of this class — former inmates of houses in vice districts — most of the modern “call-girls” are not of the branded prostitute type. A very con- siderable percentage belong to that class of women who pass, unques- tioned by their acquaintances and neighbors, as respectable. Testimony of John H. Underwood, chief of police (Page 589): Q. Chief, have you ever heard of the call system in Springfield? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have known that it existed here? A. I have heard it has; yes, sir. Q. That there were girls called from flats and hotels? A. Yes, sir. Q. And some of those girls worked in the daytime? A. Yes, sir; some of them were also married women about the home. Q. And they were a part of the call system? A. Yes, sir. A detective told of a “call.” list which he had seized in a raid. Over twenty (20) names were on the list; first names only being given, then opposite the telephone numbers. He checked up the names and num- bers. Some of the women were “respectable” married women. Two were young daughters, one of the fathers being “prominent,” but with a reputation for closeness. Others were working girls. Corroborative testimony, all tending to reveal the existence of a system which went into the homes and made occasional prostitutes of wives and daughters, was introduced in other cities where the commit- tee held sessions, and obtained wherever its investigators studied local conditions. There was very little evidence connecting this system with that of segregation. The class of women was almost entirely different. The case of a young mother serving as “call-girl” and using the money she made in buying necessities for her baby is merely illustrative of the character of women in this system, the motives that sometimes actuate them and the insidious nature of the whole business in its attack on the home. Testimony of Grace Clybourn (Page 578): * * * She says that the reason that room wasn’t occupied was be- cause she couldn’t find any girls, couldn’t get any girl that night. Q. Couldn’t get any girl that night? A. Couldn’t get any girl to 46 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee call up. She said when she couldn’t get a girl on the phone she went around down to the cafes and got some girls that sat in the cafes. * * * She said she did that when girls weren’t home that she called on the phone; that sometimes when they would leave there they w’ould leave their number so that they could be called up at a certain place. Q. Now, do you mean to say, madam, that this w^oman had a list of girls here in Springfield that she could call on the telephone and have come to serve men? A. Yes, sir. Testimony of M M (Pages 579 and 580): * * * She wanted to know if we called girls, and I stated the facts to her. * * * j told her that if we ever needed her w'e would call her. * * * I gave her a card. Q. This is the card, is it? A. Yes, sir. [THE CARD] Lillian: Call this little girl if you want any one, for she is all O. K. . (Signed) MAY. Q. She asked you if you called girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, what did you understand she meant by that? A. I sup- pose she meant, did she call a girl to meet men intimately. Q. What is this call girl’s system? A. All I know' is that they are supposed to meet fellows w'hen they are called to the house; that is all I know about the thing. Q. Now, do some of those girls that are “called,” work during the day-time, do you think? A. I think, in fact, that most of them do. Q. Most of them work, you think? A. All that I know. Testimony of Rev. John R. Golden (Page 600): Q. Have you ever heard of the call-girl system? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do you know' about that system? A. Well, two men that had done some investigation for our vigilance committee were instrumental in investigating the hotel on Monroe street just oposite the weather bureau — I think it goes by the name of the Normal Hotel — and that case w'as tried in the circuit court recently, and the ladj' con- victed, and our man had visited that place at times and had found a lady with a call list of girls . in the community that she called for service. Q. Now, did these men tell you or have 3-ou knowledge from other sources how many girls and women are involved in this so-called call system in Springfield? A. No; it would be onlj' just a guess, though my judgment, from the information I have had from these two or three men that served on my committee, I should judge the list is quite large. Q. In this system are girls of all classes involved? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is it your opinion that the call girl sj'stem is the greatest menace to your city? A. I think it is. Q. Greater even than the segregated district? A. I think so. To understand the moral problem of today, it is necessart' to be familiar with the call-girl system, its genesis and the causes that Findings and Recommendations 47 have led to its rapid development. It derives its name, as will be readily seen, from the practice of “calling in” girls from their own homes for temporary service at an immoral resort, generally a hotel or an apartment. In the early days of the system, the call-girls were almost exclusively of the professional prostitute class. Often they were “street-walkers” when not “on call.” Sometimes they were, inmates of houses in the segregated districts and were “let out,” on telephonic request, to the proprietors of resorts that were being run “on the quiet” in portions of the city outside the vice reservations. The difference between parlor-house and call-house did not extend to the character of the girls. The inmates of one served the patrons of the other. They were inmates when operat- ing in the districts and call-girls when operating outside the dis- tricts. But they were the same girls. How the two systems gradually drew apart, and the “call-girl” menace assumed its present alarming proportions, quite separate from the system from which it emanated, is not difficult to trace. The first noticeable transition was in the character of the patrons of the call-house. A guarantee of privacy, which the parlor house was unable to afford, attracted a wealthier and more prominent class of men. Some of these patrons revolted at the class of women. They demanded “respectable” girls. And they were willing to pay the price. This was the beginning of the call-girl system, as it exists today — a more or less organized industry of colossal proportions, serv- ing “respectable” men with “respectable” girls, and protecting the reputations of both. How many thousands of girls are enmeshed in its toils, your Committee is not in position to state. The reports of investigators, however, leave no doubt that the number is very large. Here the low wage received by working girls plays a part so con- spicuous that none can ignore it as a vital factor in this insidious industry. That a large majority of the girls on “call lists” that have been discovered are in employment during the daytime is un- disputed. Some of them are thus bridging the deficit between the wage paid them and the cost of their existence. The large number of “respectable” married women who respond to “calls” is another startling sidelight on the effect of the low wages paid to the heads of households. Wisconsin Report (Pages 41 and 42) : Such places [call houses] are conducted by a madam who main- tains a more or less comfortable place of meeting for men and women for immoral purposes. Customers are secured by runners, and fre- quently there is a regular clientele. When a customer comes to such a place, the madam permits him to select from a list of women, who 48 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee are at her disposal, one with whom he is especially pleased or with whom he is acquainted. The madam then calls one or more from a neighbor- ing hotel or rooming house, or even home, usually by means of the telephone. Hence, the name “call house.” In this type of prostitution, the women are frequently engaged in other occupations, and supple- ment their earnings by means of immoral services. * * * Such houses are usually more expensive than the ordinary parlor house, catering to the so-called more “respectable men” of the city. [Report of Investigator: City 59. Well furnished flat. * * * Says her woman friends bring their men friends in here. Are office girls. Has a couple of married women friends who meet men friends here because thejr need to make extra money. Claims those who frequent her place are not sporting women.] Massachusetts Report (Page 14): The “call house” is usually an apartment or room where a man or woman arranges over the telephone for the meeting of the pros- titute and her patron, usually in some other house or apartment. This is a common method of conducting the business of prostitution in the larger cities at the present time. A memorandum book containing the names, addresses and telephone numbers of 49 different prostitutes was found in one “call house.” Several of the addresses given were in the suburbs or near-by towns. Nearly all were in apartment houses in the city itself. Minneapolis Report (Page 74); An interesting as well as significant phase of the Social Evil situ- ation in Minneapolis is the increasing use of the telephone as an agencj' of prostitution. A similar situation is reported from other cities, in- dicating clearly that the telephone is one of the most important factors at work in all our large communities to effect a marked change in the con- ditions of public prostitutipn. To the broad opportunities of easy communication offered by the telephone is due, in notable degree, the passing of the popularity of the old “Red Light” district and the growing use of the assignation house and the private flat. The assig- nation houses keep in touch with large numbers of both men and women by means of the telephone and offer convenient opportunity for coming together without publicity. The telephone furnishes the same useful medium to the woman in the private flat or apartment house to reach the members of her circle of intimates. It is plain that this situation must work to create new conditions in the social evil field, conditions which wull inevitablj^ operate against the old “Red Light” order. In the opinion of your Commission the tele- phone is bound to become an increasing rather than a diminishing factor of prostitution, without regard to the citj'’s policy of segrega- tion or suppression. Rightly this new factor must be given atten- tion and consideration in reaching a conclusion as to the proper policy to be recommended for Minneapolis. Findings and Recommendations 49 (7) That lack of regulation in the employment of girls subjects them to unnecessary perils, and often leads to their downfall. Your Committee was in receipt of many anonymous letters from girls, detailing experiences in the search for employment, and after receiving positions, that argued eloquently against a system of per- mitting young, inexperienced girls to go out into the business world, guided solely by their own instincts and judgments. Instances were reported by the Committee’s investigators of young women, who were summarily discharged from their positions because of refusal to accept advances ;and of others, who attributed their future entry into prostitution to an initial lapse caused through fear of displeasing an employer and thus losing necessary employment. This evil cannot and should not be minimized — the evil of trusting to luck in the matter of a girl’s industrial surrounding. If it be necessary that she leave the home atmosphere during the formative years of her life, there is no excuse for separating her entirely from some protection against undue and improper pressure in the new atmosphere. (8) That many women of the underworld are re- deemed; and that, with the proper treatment, the closing of the vice districts may restore a large percentage of their inmates to decent lives. No question is inquired into more seriously than that of redemp- tion. To drive erring women from town to town, to break down the structures of their calling and give no heed to their succor, is too barren of the element of human sympathy and brotherhood to make strong appeal with most men and women of Illinois. Your Committee, from the outset, went extensively into this phase of the problem. It ascertained that redemption had been found, not only possible, but very probable, with the lessening of economic pressure, [generally through a course of schooling preparing the woman to earn an adequate wage], and an absence from old associations long enough to change their influence. Many actual cases where the reformation remained permanent will be found in the printed testimony, tl is sufficient to justify all the optimism of those persons whose efforts, expended in that direction, have often met with the ridicule of cynical associates, who erroneously maintained that the “bottomless pit” never gave up its victims. 50 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Testimony of Mrs. Susan B. Adams (Page 143): Q. May I ask, madam, if after your ten or twelve years’ experience in this kind of work, you think that a woman can be redeemed regard- less of the depth to which she has fallen? A. Yes, sir, I do. Testimony of Mr. Paul B. Cousley (Page 802) : Q. What has become of the girls who were formerly employed in these places (as prostitutes)? A. Some are at the cartridge plant. Q. What percentage of these girls would you say are now honor- ably employed? A. It is hard to say. I have seen a great many of them in the evening coming home. Q. As far as you know, they are now honorably supporting them- selves? A. Yes. Testimony of Mrs. Sophia DeMuth (Page 803): Q. Do you know of any cases where the women have been re- deemed and gone into honorable employment? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many cases? A. I know a great many cases, but have never kept tab; about seventeen, I should say, that are now married and doing well. Q. Have you ever tried to put these women in respectable homes as domestics? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many times have you tried that? A. I have had two re- turned, but the other fifteen have been satisfactory and have made good. Q. Where would you advise sending these women, if the women in the homes will not take and keep them? A. I would suggest that the great state of Illinois have a place, a farm or some place, where we can put them; and I think 90 per cent of them would be willing to go and make a change. * * * j have been studying this for twenty-five years, and I believe that is what we need. Testimony of Mr. John McAdams (Page 800): I think if some place were owned by the state, or there were some institution to take them to, they would be glad to go to it. I know of one of the most notorious characters we had in Alton, when the laws were enforced, went out of business entirely. She was married to a man in Alton. Q. What is she doing now? A. Living here now, as far as any- body knows, a straight life; but under the other conditions she was given all the leeway she wanted. Q. You wish the committee to understand that her marriage and redemption were brought about by the closing of her house? A. I think so. Testimony of Mr. Joseph J. Mullen (Page 794): Q. Do you wish the committee to understand that in Alton you have redeemed those two girls at least from lives of shame by closing the vice district? A. Yes, I think so. Q. We are dealing in facts. Can the committee accurately report to the Legislature that the city of Alton has redeemed some of the girls formerly in the segregated district? A. Well, I know’ of those two; there are probably others. Findings and Recommendations 51 (9) That the sale of intoxicants, in connection with public dancing, is unquestionably in many cases a strong contributory cause of vice. The effects produced by strong intoxicants are not dissimilar to those springing from over-work and under-nourishment. According to medical authorities, there is an unnatural craving of the nervous system, and a general weakening of the will power. That intoxicants play a conspicuous part in the undoing of many girls is a matter of general knowledge, so adequately covered in previous reports and in the records of our courts as to require no further elaboration. The whole tendency in prostitution may briefly be said to encourage more or less unrestrained drinking. There can be no disagreement as to the probable effect on the young woman of the alternate drinking and dancing as practiced in a number of fashionable restaurants. The free and easy manner of introductions, in some places an employe being delegated to see that everyone gets acquainted, adds to the danger. Most of the girls who frequent the most popular of the restaurants given over to dancing are very young. (10) That the highest standard of morals exists among the girls in the high schools, colleges and univer- sities of the state. Your committee, in the course of its long inquiry, has run to earth not a few rumors of misconduct on the part of school-girls. Invariably they were ascertained to be without truth. Typical was the rumor that in the high-school of a certain middle-sized city eight girls had been forced to leave their classes in one year be- cause of moral delinquencies. On investigation, it was learned by your committee that not one girl had left the school for any reason during the period named, and that the morale in this particular school was a matter of marked pride with the school authorities. Similar rumors, all built on the same pattern, rested on no firmer foundation. That the chance of becoming enmeshed in the industry of pros- stitution diminishes with the length of the schooling is incontro- vertibly proved by the statistics of courts and police offices. Ade- quate schooling would, therefore, appear the surest escape from the conditions of poverty that this committee has found constitute the principal direct cause of prostitution. RECOMMENDATIONS OF REMEDIAL MEASURES. Your Committee respectfully recommends: (1) The immediate enactment of a minimum wage law, prohibiting the payment of less than a living wage to any woman, or minor, except during a period of ap- prenticeship not exceeding six months. This is the first duty of the state. Many thousands of girls in Illinois, it has been clearly and undeniably shown, work for less than a living. To remove the deficit between cost of living and income from service is in the power of the Legislature. Until it is done, until every woman who has to work is assured of the minimum of a rea- sonable living, the state has not only fallen far short of the legitimate demands of plain justice, but has failed to deal with a situation in economics interminably interwoven with deep moral problems. After nearly three years of study and inquiry, seeking statistics and viewpoints, reducing arguments to mathematics, applying accepted rules of economics and logic, your Committee is arrived at the firm conclusion that the enactment of the proposed minimum wage law is the essential initial step in the intelligent treatment of the problems under survey. (2) The repeal of all laws that have fallen into dis- use, and the strict enforcement of all others. A perma- nent committee on law enforcement recommended. In laws prohibitory of immoral and indecent conduct, Illinois is entitled to foremost rank among her sister states. This Committee, indeed, has discovered no offense against good morals that could not adequately be reached by existing statutes. A complete digest of these laws has been arranged b}' your Committee, and will be found, together with such recommendations in connection thereto as to your Committee seems advisable, elsewhere in this report. Findings and Recommendations 53 With the exception of some few minor changes, and perhaps the strengthening of the penalty here and there, the laws of Illinois, as they now stand, are sufficient to deal with the effects and open manifestations of immorality and prostitution. [For illustration, see report of situation in Alton, under law enforcement, beginning on Page 789.] No community is wholly law-respecting unless all the laws of : that community are strictly enforced. To restore absolute respect of law in Illinois, your Committee earnestly recommends the repeal of all statutes that have been outgrown or have fallen into universal ! disfavor. There should be no deadwood among the laws that citi- i zens are presumed to know and follow. Every session of the Legislature witnesses the addition of many laws, and very few re- ; peals. The situation may with perfect propriety be reversed at least once. To this end your Committee urges that, at the convening of the 1 next General Assembly, a committee be created for the purpose of I visiting the various counties of the State, ascertaining to what ex- tent existing laws are being enforced by local officials, and if un- enforced, the reason therefor ; that such committee make report to the General Assembly, recommending the repeal of all laws that seem impossible of enforcement and making specific statement of the circumstances of non-enforcement in other instances. This committee, in the opinion of your present Committee, might ad- visedly become one of the permanent standing committees of the Legislature ; conducting its investigations biennially and reporting back a complete and accurate statement of the condition of law enforcement, as it finds it, in the various sections of the State. Strict enforcement of the law, repeal of all laws unenforced should be a State policy of importance above all others. (3) The encouragement of joint action by the states, looking toward uniform state legislation. A congress of legislative committees, acting in an advisary capacity on matters of distinctly State legislation, would unques- tionably exert a beneficial influence in making uniform the enact- ments of the sister states. This movement, long recognized as essential in the handling of moral problems as divorce and in- dustrial problems as minimum wage, was responsible for the crea- tion of a joint committee for this purpose by the Forty-ninth Gen- eral Assembly. Under the recent ruling of the Supreme Court, the committee, if it should serve, would have its own expenses to de- 54 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee fray and no official standing. It might, however, properly act, as a group of individuals, and report to the next General Assembly, as requested. Whether this committee should be active or inactive, the movement toward uniform State legislation should not be per- mitted to die. (4) Improvement of the condition of girls in domes- tic service, and of girls from homes offering inadequate social opportunities, by the opening of school houses and all other available public buildings as social centers ; hours of labor of girls in domestic employment to be regulated to permit of participation. The matter of the regulation of the hours of domestic employment is a proper topic for discussion by the Woman’s Legislative Congress, whose recommendations, your Committee believes, would find weight with the members of the Honorable Senate. In the face of the startling conditions, mentioned in your Committee’s findings, the women cannot continue to be blind to the necessity of some regulation of hours and conditions. That the greatest moral danger lurks in the employment where there is the least attempt at regulation is a condition speaking for itself. (5) Establishment of homes for the adequate moral and industrial schooling of women during the period of reformation. (6) Extension of vocational education in the public schools. (7) Abolition of the obnoxious fining system in the treatment of immoral women convicted in the courts. (8) Registration of all girls under 18 and of boys under 21, in employment; notice of engagement and of discharge, and reason therefor, mandatory on both em- ployer and employe. A woman, under the state factory inspector, to investigate, without publication, all com- plaints against moral conditions. Findings and Recommendations 55 (9) Newspapers and all other publications of gen- eral circulation prohibited from printing and circulating the details of any breach of promise, divorce or other pro- ceeding in which moral lapse, or immoral conduct, is charged, until final adjudication has been had in the trial court; and then, such publication to be restricted to an unvarnished statement of the charge and the finding of the court. The literature of modern times, with the average reader, is the daily and weekly newspaper. The paper is read by all the members of the family. It cannot usually be hidden from or denied the growing boys and girls. No one will question the harmful impression on the im- mature mind of the narrated details of moral erring, as recorded in connection with divorce, and similar proceedings. Without the slight- est infringement on the liberty of the press, a much needed reforma- tion in this regard may easily be accomplished. (10) Creation of a state athletic commission for the encouragement of healthy and non-professional sports and pastimes. As a counter influence to dance halls, poolrooms and other places indoors where either girls or boys, or both, are attracted, your Com- mittee recommends the encouragement by the state of all manner of sports, pastimes and athletics. A state commission, actively engaged in instructing boys and girls in the various games, organizing them into teams, arranging inter-urban, inter-county and finally inter-sec- tional contests, would, in the judgment of your Committee, prove an invaluable factor. (Further recommendations of the Committee will be found in the section on the working of the laws of Illinois, immediately following.) I ‘C ■( J. ■ i’i i PRESENT LAWS: THEIR PERFECTIONS AND IMPERFECTIONS A careful and complete digest of the laws of Illinois bearing on the subjects embraced in the Committee’s inquiry ; together with an analysis of certain decisions of the Supreme Court, and a history of legislation tending toward the removal of poverty and the improvement of industrial conditions. t'i.. / / i ( <1 \ Working of Present Laws 59 I I. LAWS IN GENERAL. I Many civil laws of importance that prevail in certain countries bear but little resemblance to laws regarding the same subjects in many other sovereignties. This is occasioned by dissimilarity of conditions. National regulations, whether established by statute or by long continued custom, should in every country be consistent with conditions obtaining within its own boundaries. They should be measured to fit internal resources and to preserve national traits and character, be constructed according to familiar and cherished standards, be shaped to subserve the best interests of domestic em- ployments, industries and enterprises ; and those that are peculiarly adapted to promote the welfare of one people may be materially inadequate to secure the prosperity of another. Seas need not separate territories thus differently eircumstanced. Not all of the civil laws that favorably obtain in Maine or Texas would harmonize with conditions prevalent in either Maryland or Illinois. As a whole, the criminal code of any country differs far less from the generality of its class than is true in the case of codes having no application to public wrongs. In every age the wicked, the evil and the criminal have been present in every clime and every juris- diction. Primeval justice has expanded, every century has brought to most legitimate pursuits new and improved methods, but mur- der, rape, robbery and their kin have not been touched by time. Those of today are identical in atrocity and viciousness with those first committed. In every particular they have remained as un- changed as the sun. Sin and crime have always been cosmopolites. Like virtue and justice, they have been at home in every land. The nature of cli- mate and the character of soil are matters of absolute inconse- quence. There is no choice between zones, not any between prairie and desert, none between rich upland and a sterile coast. The universality of crime and its imperviousness to everything that may affect or influence honest callings will account for a closer likeness between any two criminal codes than can be found in the case of the civil codes of any two countries reasonably distant apart. No nation or commonwealth having humane penal laws would will- ingly substitute the criminal code of a eountry or state in which punishment for certain crimes and misdemeanors would seem to be excessive, but nevertheless the fundamental reasons for the pre- I vention and punishment of crime are the same in Japan as in Australia, in Austria as in Illinois. I An abhorrence of many acts burns with an unquenchable in- ; tensity in every honest heart. This is true of every quarter of the ' globe. These acts, so repugnant and shocking to mankind in gen- I eral, have from time immemorial been treated as crimes wherever I civilization has been in the ascendant. j There will always be conflict of opinion in every sovereignty I respecting capital punishment, will never be perfect accord con- 60 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee cerning the machinery of criminal courts, will always be divisions and subdivisions in regard to the enactment of penal statutes touch- ing conduct that violates no moral law, but among the people of every state and nation there will ever be general demand that many crimes should be severely punished. There is another popular demand. It is a call for justice. It is an insistence that an employer should pay a fair wage to his employe. Cry for this justice is neither circumscribed by political boundaries nor fettered by local conditions or prejudices. It is spontaneous and is as widespread as the universe. II. CRIMINAL CODE OF ILLINOIS. General Remarks. The unrepealed sections embodied in the Revised Statutes of Illinois, civil and criminal, number about 11,000. Of these, more than 700 are embraced in the criminal code, and approximately 800 others relate directly or indirectly to public or quasi public wrongs. The criminal code covers a broad field. The number of its de- fined crimes and misdemeanors, when added to that of the offenses proscribed by the 800 allies mentioned would seem to be sufficiently numerous to cover every conceivable offense reasonably punish- able. Some of the minor proscriptions might doubtless be culled without loss. Without such elimination the criminal code and its adjuncts must necessarily be augmented owing to new conditions arising and also to old conditions thitherto uncovered by statute. It is probable too, that amplification and additions must be made in the ' case of the civil code, this being especially true of the chapters de- voted to domestic relations and kindred subjects. Whatever such changes may be made, however, certain it is that they may be effected without increase either of the total num- ber of statutes now in operation or of the size of the single volume containing them. In fact, extensive additions might be made at every session of the general assembly for the next twenty years, and the volume of Revised Statutes to be published at the end of that period still be of less bulk than the one now in use, it being notorious that hundreds of present sections of the civil code and many of the penal sections form a hotchpotch, a worthless stew of surplusage, verbiage and antiquarianism. L^pon the whole, barring the death penalty and that of the whipping post, the criminal system of Illinois does not differ ma- terially from that of any other American state. The criminal code defines a felony as an offense punishable with death or by impris- • onment in the penitentiary. Ever}’ other offense defined and pro- ’ hibited is declared to be a misdemeanor ; and it is expressly pro- i vided that “where the performance of an}* act is prohibited by any ; statute, and no penalty for the violation of such statute is im- posed, the doing of such act is a misdemeanor, and may be pun- ■ ished by fine not exceeding $100, or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or both, in the discretion of the court.” Working of Present Laws 61 Murder, rape, kidnaping and certain other crimes are classed as infamous, and every person convicted of any such “shall forever thereafter be rendered incapable of holding any office of honor, trust or profit, or voting at any election, or serving as a juror, un- less he or she is again restored to such rights by the terms of a pardon for the oft'ense, or otherwise according to law.” The statutes aimed at offenses against the persons of indi- viduals, and those designed to cover offenses against chastity, morality and decency — the latter being those pertinent to the sub- ject of this inquiry — are both numerous and far reaching; and it is not a violent presumption that a common sense interpretation and a rigid enforcement of such laws would minimize the acquittals of persons guilty of such offenses The sections noted in the synop- sis that follows, when given without reference to chapter, are those I of the criminal code. ij Rape. Every person convicted of rape shall be imprisoned in the peni- I tentiary for a term of not less than one year and which may extend , to life. Every person of seventeen and upwards who shall have ! carnal knowledge of a female person under sixteen and who is not his wife shall be deemed guilty of rape notwithstanding her con- [ sent to the intercourse. Section Assault with intent to commit rape is punishable by imprison- ment in the penitentiary for not less than one year nor more than fourteen years. Section 2^. I Immoral and Indecent Liberties with Children. j Every person of seventeen and upwards who shall take, or at- I tempt to take, any immoral, improper or indecent liberties with any child of either sex under fifteen, with the intent of arousing, appealing to or gratifying the lust or passions or sexual desires, either of such person or of such child, or of both such person and child, or who shall commit or attempt to commit, any lewd or lascivious act upon or with the body, or any part or member there- of, of such child, with the intent of arousing, appealing to or grati- fying the lust or passions or sexual desires, either of such person or of such child, or of both such person and child, or any such person who shall take any such child or shall entice, allure or persuade any such child, to any place whatever for the purpose either of I taking any such immoral, improper or indecent liberties with such ^ child, with said intent, or of committing any such lewd or lasciv- ious act upon or with the body, or any part or member thereof, of such child with said intent, shall be imprisoned in the peniten- tiary not less than one year nor more than twenty years. Section 42 ha. Incest. Every father who shall licentiously cohabit with his daughter shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a term not exceeding twenty years. Section 156. Marriages between parents and chil- dren, including grandparents and grandchildren of every degree. 62 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee between brothers and sisters of the half, as well as of the whole blood, between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, and between cousins of the first degree are prohibited and are declared to be in- cestuous and void, the provisions of the section applying to illegit- imate as well as legitimate children and relatives. Persons so pro- hibited who shall intermarry with each other, or who shall commit adultery or fornication with each other, or who shall lewdly and lasciviously cohabit with each other, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not exceeding ten years. Section i^J. Abduction. Whoever entices or takes away any unmarried female of a chaste life and conversation from the parents’ home, or wherever she may be found, for the purpose of prostitution or concubinage, and whoever aids and assists in such abduction for such purpose, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than ten years. Section i. Kidnaping. Whoever wilfully and without lawful authority forcibly or se- cretly confines or imprisons any other person within this state against his (or her) will, or forcibly carries or sends such person out of the state, or forcibly seizes or confines, or inveigles, or kid- naps any other person, with the intent to cause such person to be secretly confined or imprisoned in this state against his (or her) will, or to cause such person to be sent out of the state against his (or her) will shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not exceeding five years, or fined $1,000, or both. Section i66. Enticing Unmarried Women and Girls to Enter Certain Premises or to Leave the State. Whoever within this state shall, by or under any false pretense, entice, induce or procure any unmarried female of a chaste life and conversation, residing or being in this state, to enter a house of prostitution, or any dance house, garden or premises where prosti- tution, fornication or concubinage is practiced or allowed in this state, is subject to imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one year nor more than ten years ; and the same penalty attaches in case one so induces or procures such girl or woman to leave this state and go elsewhere, either to another American state or to a foreign country, and so enter any of such places. V hoever aids, assists or abets the principal offender is equally liable with him. Section Detention in House of Prostitution. Whoever shall unlawfully detain or confine any female, by force, false pretense or intimidation, in any room, house, building or prem- ises, against her will, for purposes of prostitution or with intent to cause her to become a prostitute, and be guilty of fornication or concubinage therein, or shall by force, false pretense, confinement or intimidation attempt to prevent any female so detained from leaving such place, is subject to imprisonment in the penitentiary Working of Present Laws 63 not less than one nor more than ten years. Whoever aids, assists or abets in such detention is subject to the same penalty. Section 57c. Detaining Against Will in House of Ill-Fame. Whoever shall by any means keep, hold or detain against her will or restrain, any female person in a house of prostitution or other place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, or whoever shall, directly or indirectly, keep, hold, detain or restrain, or attempt to keep, hold, detain or restrain, in any house of prostitution or other place where prostitution is practiced or allowed, any female person, by any means, for the purpose of compelling such female person, directly or indirectly, to pay, liquidate or cancel any debt, dues or obligations incurred or said to have been incurred by such female person, shall, upon conviction, for the first offense under this act be punished by imprisonment in the county jail or house of correction for a period of not less than six months nor more than one year, and by a fine of not less than three hundred dollars and not to exceed one thousand dollars, and upon conviction for any subsequent offense under this act shall be punished by imprison- ment in the penitentiary for a period of not less than one year nor more than five years. Section 57 k. Allowing Girl Under Eighteen to Live in House of Ill-Fame. Whoever, being the keeper of a house of prostitution or assig- nation house, building or premises in this state where prostitution, fornication or concubinage is allowed or practiced, shall suffer or permit any unmarried female under the age of eighteen years, to live, board, stop or room in such house, building or premises, shall, on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one year nor more than five years. Section 57 d. Enticing Girl to Come Into State for Certain Purposes. Whoever shall entice, induce or procure to come into this state, any unmarried female under the age of eighteen years, for the pur- pose of prostitution, fornication or concubinage, or to enter any house of prostitution in this state, shall, on conviction, be impris- oned in the penitentiary not less than one year nor more than five years. Section 57 e. Bigamy or Polygamy. Whoever, having a former husband or wife living, marries an- other person, or continues to cohabit with such second husband or wife in this state, shall be deemed guilty of bigamy, and be impris- oned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than five years, and fined not exceeding one thousand dollars : Provided, nothing herein contained shall extend to any person whose husband or wife shall have been continually absent from such person for the space of five years altogether, prior to said second marriage, and he or she not knowing such husband or wife to be living within that time. Section 28. If any man or woman being unmarried shall knowingly marry 64 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the husband or wife of another, or continue to cohabit with such husband or wife in this state, such man or woman shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or confined in the county jail not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court. Section 30. Abortion. Whoever, by means of any instrument, medicine, drug or other means whatever, causes any woman, pregnant with child, to abort or miscarry, or attempts to procure or produce an abortion or mis- carriage, unless the same were done as necessary for the preserva- tion of the mother’s life, shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than’ one year nor more than ten years; or if the death of the mother results therefrom, the person procuring or causing the abortion or miscarriage shall be guilty of murder. Section 5. Pandering. Sections 57 g, 57 h and 57 i relate to the pimp and the procuress, with but one exception the most abominable of creatures. The main section (57 g) makes any one of thirteen different acts punish- able by confinement in the county jail or house of correction for not less than six months nor more than one year and by fine of not less than $300 nor in excess of $1,000 for the first offense. The penalty for any subsequent violation of the act is fixed at imprison- ment in the state prison for not less than one year nor more than ten years. The acts prohibited, whether the offender be man or woman, are as follows : 1. Ordinary procurement of any female inmate for a house of prostitution. 2. To cause, induce, persuade or encourage by promise, threat, violence, device or scheme, a female to become such inmate. 3. Employment of any such means to have a female inmate remain in such house. 4 . Procurement of a female to become such inmate by exercise of fraud, artifice, duress of person or goods, or abuse of any posi- tion of confidence or authority. 5. To cause by any such means a female to enter anj- place in this state in which prostitution is encouraged or allowed. 6. So to cause a female to come into this state for the purpose of prostitution. 7. So to cause a female to leave this state for that purpose. 8. Procurement of a female who has never practiced prostitution to become an inmate of such house in this state. 9. Procurement of such person to come into this state for such purpose. 10. Procurement of such person to leave this state for that purpose. 11. To receive or give, or agree to receive or give any money or other thing of value for procuring or attempting to procure any female to become an inmate of a house of ill fame in this state. 12. So to act with respect to the bringing into this state of a female for the purpose of prostitution. 13. Like act with relation to the leaving of this state by a female for such purpose. It is expressly provided that even though it shall appear that Working of Present Laws 65 part of any such prohibited act shall have been committed beyond this state, such fact shall not constitute a valid defense. In such case the offense shall be deemed to have been committed in the county in this state “in which the prostitution was intended to be practiced, or in which the offense was consummated, or in which were committed any overt acts in furtherance of the offense.” Section 57 h. Any such female shall be a competent witness in any prosecu- tion to testify for or against the accused as to any transaction or as to any conversation with the accused or by him with another person or persons in her presence, even though of her marriage with the respondent either before or after the violation, and ^ be competent either during the period of such marriage or after its dissolution. Section 57 i. Adultery and Fornication. If any man and woman shall live together in an open state of either adultery or fornication, or shall so live in an open state of adultery and fornication (in the latter case one being a married and the other an unmarried person), he and she shall each be sub- ject to a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or confinement in the county jail for not more than one year. A second offense calls for punishment double that for the first, a third offense treble, and each succeeding offense for increase accordingly. Prosecution may be prevented by legal intermarriage of the offenders and the payment of costs of prosecution. Section ii. Lewdness and Disorderly Conduct. Whoever shall be guilty of open lewdness, disorderly conduct, or other notorious act of public indecency, tending to debauch the public morals, shall be fined not exceeding $200. Section 55. Whoever keeps or maintains a house of ill fame or place for the practice of prostitution or lewdness, or whoever patronizes the same, or lets any house, room or other premises for any such pur- pose, or shall keep a common, ill governed and disorderly house, •to the encouragement of idleness, gaming, drinking, fornication or other misbehavior, shall be fined not exceeding $200. And whoever shall lease to another any such premises for such use or purpose, or shall knowingly permit the same so to be used or occupied shall be fined not exceeding $200, and the premises in question be held liable for and sold to satisfy the same. If, how- ever, such premises belong to a minor or to any other person under guardianship, the liability so fixed shall fall upon the guardian or conservator, and his or her own property be subject to lien and sale as aforesaid. Section 57 - The maintenance of any such house is declared to be a nuisance, and the same may be abated and its restoration be enjoined in like manner as in the case of other prohibited nuisances ; and any per- son or persons may be enjoined from using or suffering any prem- ises to be used for immoral purposes. Laws of 1915, page 371. 66 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Keeping Boats for Purposes of Prostitution. Any person who shall keep a boat or other water craft for the purposes of prostitution on any of the navigable waters of this state, breakwater or other stream, over or upon which this state has jurisdiction, shall be guilty of a felony punishable by confine- ment in the penitentiary for not less than one year nor more than three years, and a fine not exceeding $1,000. Section 57 a. Seduction. Any person who shall seduce and obtain carnal knowledge of any unmarried female under the age of eighteen years of previous chaste character, shall, on conviction, be punished by a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or both, the respondent to stand committed until the payment of fine and costs; but no conviction shall be had upon the testimony of the female unsupported by other evidence. Section 525 . Obscene Prints and Other Articles. Sections 22 ^ and 22 i^ are aimed to suppress obscene prints and all other articles similarly tainted, also instruments or articles for indecent or immoral use. No such contraband shall be brought into the state for sale or exhibition, none printed in the state, none sold or given away, none offered to be sold or given away, nor shall any person have possession of any such with or without intent to sell or give away. No such article shall be manufactured in the state, not any be drawn and exposed, not any drawn with intent to sell or to have sold, not any advertised for sale. No person shall write or print, or cause to be written or printed any circulars, hand- bills, card, book, pamphlet, advertisement or notice of any kind, or give information orally as to how or of whom or by what means any such contraband may be purchased or otherwise obtained. No person shall deposit or cause to be deposited any such con- traband or any such printed notice in any postoffice in the state, or place the same in charge of any express company or any person connected therewith, or of any common carrier or other person, nor shall he give to any person oral information as aforesaid with the intent of having such contraband conve 5 'ed by mail or express or in any other manner. Every person shall also be guilty of a vio- lation of the act who shall knowingly receive the same with intent to carry or convey, or who shall carry or convey the same by ex- press or in any other manner, unwitting carriage in the United States mail being excepted. For any violation of the act the offender shall be subject to confinement in the county jail for not more than six months, or a fine not less than $100 nor more than $1,000. In every instance one-half of the fine money shall be paid to the person upon whose evidence the offender shall be convicted, and the other half be turned over to the school fund of the county in which conviction is had. Working of Present Laws 67 General Provisions. Sections 315, 316 and 31^ of the criminal code provide that all indictments for felonies other than murder, manslaughter, arson and forgery must be found within three years next after the com- mission of the crime ; that all prosecutions for manslaughter, ex- cept in the cases where the statute defining the offense otherwise expressly provides shall be commenced within one year and six months from the time of committing the offense ; and that no period during which the person charged was not usually and publicly resi- dent within this state shall be included in the time of limitation. The following provisions, some of them given here in abbre- \ iated form, also appear in the criminal code. Accessories Before the Fact. An accessory before the fact shall be considered as a principal and be punished accordingly. Section 2^4. Accessories After the Fact. Every person not standing in the relation of husband or wife, parent or child, brother or sister to the offender, who knows the fact that a crime has been committed, and conceals it from the magistrate, or who harbors, conceals, maintains or assists any prin- cipal felon, or any accessory before the fact, knowing him to be such, shall be deemed an accessory after the fact, and shall be pun- jshed by imprisonment not exceeding two years, and fine not ex- ceeding $ 500 . Section 2^6. Accessory May be Punished Independently of Principal. Every accessory before the fact, when a crime is committed within or without this state by his aid or procurement in this state, may be indicted and convicted at the same time as the principal, or before, or after his conviction, and whether the principal is con- victed or amenable to justice or not, and punished as principal. Section 273. Arrests Without Warrant. An arrest may be made by an officer or by a private person with- out warrant, for a criminal offense committed or attempted in his presence, and by an officer, when a criminal offense has in fact been committed, and he has reasonable ground for believing that the person to be arrested has committed it. Section 342. Attempt to Commit Offense. Whoever attempts to commit any offense prohibited by law, and does any act towards it but fails, or is intercepted or prevented in its execution, where no express provision is made by law for the punishment of such attempt, shall be punished, when the offense thus attempted is a felony, by imprisonment in the penitentiary not less than one year nor more than five years ; in all other cases, by fine not exceeding $ 300 , or by confinement in the county jail not exceeding six months. Section 273. 68 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Compounding a Felony. Whoever takes money, goods, chattels, lands or other reward, or promise thereof, to compound any criminal offense, shall be fined in double the sum or value of the thing agreed for or taken. Section 4 ^. Conspiracy. Criminal conspiracy is punishable by imprisonment in the peni- tentiary not exceeding five years, or fine not exceeding $2,000, or both. Section 46 . Perjury. Every person convicted either of perjury or subornation of per- jury shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary not less than one nor more than fourteen years. Section 22 ^. Every person who by willful and corrupt perjury, or suborna- tion of perjury, shall procure the conviction and execution of any innocent person, shall be deemed and adjudged guilty of murder, and punished accordingly. Section 226 . Search Warrant. A warrant may issue to search for and seize books, pamphlets, ballads, printed papers or other things containing obscene lan- guage, or obscene prints, pictures, figures or descriptions, mani- festly tending to corrupt the morals of youth, and intended to be sold, loaned, circulated or distributed, or to be introduced into any family, school, or place of education. Section 273- Witness — Causing One to Abscond. Whoever, by hiring, persuasion, or otherwise, induces any wit- ness in any criminal cause, or any person having knowledge of any fact tending to show the guilt or innocence of any person suspected or charged with having committed a crime, to leave the state or secrete himself so that he cannot be produced as a witness at any examination on trial of the person so suspected or charged, or who- ever having knowledge of any fact tending to show the guilt or innocence of any person suspected or charged with having com- mitted a crime, takes any money or valuable consideration or gratuity, or promise thereof, upon an agreement or understanding, expressed or implied, not to testify or give evidence of such fact, or to leave the state, or to secrete himself so that he cannot be pro- duced as a witness at any examination or trial of the person so sus- pected or charged, shall be fined not exceeding $1,000, or confined in the county jail not exceeding one year, or both. Section 2 J 2 . Children. Males of the age of twenty-one and females of the age of eight- een years shall, according to statute, be considered of age for all purposes. Girls, however, may under certain circumstances be committed to the State House for Juvenile Female Offenders “for a time not less than one year, nor beyond the age of twenty-one Working of Present Laws 69 years.’’ A summary of the statutes relating to the welfare of chil- dren follows : Abandonment. Every person who shall abandon his or her minor child or chil- dren, under the age of twelve years, in destitute or necessitous cir- cumstances, and wilfully neglect or refuse to maintain or provide for such child or children shall be subject to a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500, or imprisonment in the county jail, house of correction or workhouse not less than one month nor more than twelve months, or to both such fine and imprisonment. The court may direct the fine money to be paid, in whole or in part, to the guardian or custodian of such minor child or children. The act provides that in such cases wives shall be competent witnesses against their husbands. Sections 24 and 25, Chapter 68. When any child under the age of one year shall be abandoned by its parents, guardian or any other person having legal control or custody thereof, such person or persons shall be punished by a fine of not less than $300 nor more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding three years, or by both. Section 42, Criminal Code. Cruelty. Any person who shall wilfully and unnecessarily expose to any inclemency of the weather, or shall in any other manner injure in health or limb, any child, apprentice, or other person under his legal control, shall be fined not exceeding $500, or imprisoned in the peni- tentiary not exceeding five years. Section 5J, Criminal Code. Banned Publications and Employments. It shall be unlawful for any person to sell, lend, give away or show, or have in his possession with intent to sell or give away, or to show or advertise, or otherwise offer for loan, gift or distribu- tion to any minor child any book, pamphlet, magazine, newspaper, story paper or other printed paper devoted to the publication, or principally made up of criminal news, police reports, or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures and stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime. Section 42 he, Criminal Code. It shall be unlawful to exhibit upon any street or highway, or in any place within the view, or which may be within the view of any minor child, any book or other print coming within the descrip- tion mentioned in the preceding section. Section 42 hf, Criminal Code. It shall be unlawful to hire, use or employ any minor child to sell or give away, or in any manner to distribute, or who, having the care, custody or control of any minor child, to permit such child to sell, give away, or in any manner to distribute any book or other print coming within the description mentioned in said section 42 he, and any person violating any provisions of either of the two preceding sections or of this section shall be fined not ex- ceeding $500, or imprisoned in the county jail not to exceed six 70 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee months, or both in the discretion of the court. Section 42 hg, Crim- inal Code. It shall be unlawful for any person having the care, custody and control of any child under fourteen to exhibit, use or employ, or in any manner, or under any pretense, sell, apprentice, give away, let out, or otherwise dispose of such child to any person in or for the vocation or occupation, service, or purpose of singing, playing on musical instruments, rope or wire walking, dancing, begging or peddling, or as a gymnast, contortionist, rider or acro- bat in any place whatsoever, or for any obscene, indecent or im- moral purpose, exhibition or practice whatsoever, * ^ * or cause, procure or encourage any such child therein. Nothing in this section contained shall apply to, or affect the employment or use of any such child as a singer or musician in any church, school or academy, or at any respectable entertainment, or the teaching or learning the science or practice of music. Section 42 a, Criminal Code. Dance Halls. It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation, as owner, agent, lessee or otherwise, that maintains or conducts any public dance hall where intoxicating beverages or liquors are sold or given away, or any such dance hall that is adjacent or connected with any room, building, park or enclosure of any kind- where such intoxicating beverages or liquors are sold or given away, to permit any minor to enter and be and remain within such public dance hall or be and remain upon the premises where such public dance hall is located, unless such minor is accompanied by his or her parent or parents. Section 48, Chapter 4^, Criminal Code. For every violation of the preceding section the penalty shall be a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $ 200 . Any person falsely representing himself or herself as parent of any such minor shall be punished likewise. Section 4p, Chapter 4s, Criminal Code. III. STATUTES RELATING TO DEPENDENT, NEG- LECTED AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN. For the purposes of acts relating to children who are now or may hereafter become dependent, neglected or delinquent these defini- tions shall obtain : A “dependent” or “neglected” child is any boy who while under seventeen or any girl who while under eighteen, for any reason, is destitute, homeless or abandoned; or dependent upon the public for support ; or has not proper parental care or guardianship ; or habitually begs or receives alms ; or is found living in any house of ill fame, or with any vicious or disreputable person; or has a home which by reason of neglect, cruelty or depravity on the part of its parents, guardian or any other person in whose care it may be, is an unfit place for such a child; and any child who while under the age of ten is found begging, peddling or selling any articles, or singing, or playing any musical instrument for gain upon the street, or giving any public entertainment, or who accom- panies or is used in aid of any person so doing. Working of Present Laws 71 A “delinquent” child is any boy who while under seventeen, or any girl who while under eighteen, violates any law of this state; or is incorrigible, or knowingly associates with thieves, vicious or immoral persons; or without just cause and without the consent of its parents, guardian or custodian absents itself from its home or place of abode, or is growing up in idleness and crime ; or know- ingly frequents a house of ill repute ; * * * or wanders about the streets in the night time without being in any lawful business or occupation; * * * or uses vile, obscene, vulgar, profane or indecent language in any public place or about any schoolhouse; or is guilty of indecent or lascivious conduct. Section i6g, Criminal Code. Any parent or parents, or legal guardian, or person having the custody of any such dependent, neglected or delinquent child, or any other person who shall knowingly or wilfully encourage, aid, cause, abet or connive at such state of dependency, neglect or de- linquency, or shall knowingly or wilfully do any act or acts that directly produce, promote, or contribute to the conditions which render such child a dependent, neglected or delinquent child as so defined, or who, having the custody of such child, shall, when able to do so, wilfully neglect to do that which will directly tend to prevent such state of dependency, neglect or delinquency, or to re- move the conditions which render such child either a neglected, dependent or delinquent child, shall be deemed guilty of a misde- meanor, and be subject to a fine of not more than $ 200 , or by im- prisonment in the county jail, house of correction or workhouse for not more than twelve months, or both such fine and imprisonment. Section 42 hb, Criminal Code. IV. STATUTES CONCERNING DETENTION OF DELIN- QUENT BOYS AND JUVENILE FEMALE OFFENDERS. Delinquent Boys. The board of trustees of the St. Charles School for Boys (name of the state school for delinquent boys) shall make regulations for the placing in a home and placing in employment, or returning to his own home, if suitable, any inmate of such home who may safely and consistently with the public good and the good of the boy be so placed out, or returned to his own home ; it being the intention of this act that no boy should be kept in such home who can prop- erly be placed out, or returned home, longer than may be reason- ably necessary to prepare him for such placing out. Any boy placed out may, for good reasons, be returned to said home. Sec- tion 207, Chapter 2^. Juvenile Female Offenders. The State Home for Juvenile Female Offenders shall be under the control of five trustees, to be appointed by the governor, two of whom may be women. * * * Section 216, Chapter 2^. Whenever any girl between the ages of ten and eighteen years is convicted before any court of record of any offense which, if com- 72 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee mitted by an adult, is punishable by confinement in any house of correction, county jail or penitentiary, such juvenile offender may be committed by the order of such court to the State Home for Juvenile Offenders for a time not less than one year nor beyond the age of twenty-one years. * * * Section 2^1, Chapter 2^. Whenever any girl between the ages of ten and eighteen years is charged with or found guilty of the violation of any statute, law or city ordinance before any justice of the peace, police magistrate, examining magistrate or court, if any credible person, a resident of the county, shall file a petition in any court of record in such county, setting forth the offense charged and that such girl is a vagrant or without a proper home or means of subsistence, or lives with or frequents the company of reputed thieves or other vicious persons, or is or has been in a house of ill fame, prison, or poor- house, or setting forth and showing any other facts of a similar nature, showing that it will be for the interest of such girl and the public that she should be sent to said State Home for Juvenile Female Offenders, the court may, if in the opinion of the judge, said State Home for Juvenile Female Offenders is a proper place for such girl, cause such girl to be brought before it and cause a jury of six competent persons to be impaneled for the trial of the case, and if the jury shall return its verdict that the facts set forth in the petition are proved, the court may commit such girl to said State Home for Juvenile Female Offenders for a term not less than one year nor beyond the age of twenty-one years. Section 2J2, Chapter 2^. No imbecile, or idiotic girl, shall be committed or received into said home. Section 2^5, Chapter 2^. MAY BE PLACED IN GOOD PRIVATE HOMES. Any girl committed under the provisions of this act may be dis- charged from custody at any time by the governor, or by the trus- tees, when in their judgment the good of the girl, or the good of the home will be promoted by such discharge. Section 2^6, Chap- ter 2^. Any girl committed under the provisions of this act may, by the trustees of said home, be placed in the home of any good citizen upon such terms and for such purpose as may be agreed upon or she may be given to any suitable person of good character who will adopt her, or she may be bound to any reputable citizen as an ap- prentice to learn any trade, or as a servant to follow any employ- ment which, in the judgment of the trustees, M'ill be for her ad- vantage. * * * Any disposition made of any girl under this section shall not bind her beyond her minority. * * * q^^e trustees shall have a supervising care of such girl, to see that she is properly treated and cared for ; and, in case such girl is cruell}^ treated, or is neglected, or the terms upon which she was com- mitted to the care and protection of any person are not observed, or in case such care and protection shall for any reason cease, then it shall be the duty of the trustees to take and receive such girl Working of Present Laws 73 again into the custody, care and protection o£ said home. Section 242, Chapter Any girl committed to said home shall, by good behavior, earn to herself and be credited with time as follows: each month in the first year, five days ; each month in the second year, six days ; each month in the third year, seven days ; each month in the fourth year, eight days ; each month thereafter, nine days. Any such girl, for any misconduct or violation of the rules of the home, shall be liable to forfeit five days of the good time placed to her credit. The su- perintendent shall release every such girl from the home as many days before the expiration of time of her sentence as she shall have balance of good days to her credit. Section Chapter 2^. Upon the discharge of any girl from the said home the super- intendent shall provide her with suitable clothing and five dollars in money, and procure transportation for her to her home, if she has one in this state, or to the county from which she was sent, at her option. Section 24^, Chapter 2^. V. INJUSTICES OF THE FEMALE OFFENDERS’ ACT. A young man or woman of exemplary character and of excellent family, and who is supplied with written testimonials of the very first order, may well have anxieties if upon leaving home in search of employment in a strange place his or her sole possessions shall consist of “suitable clothing,” five dollars in money, and a railway ticket to the point of destination. So, too, must be disturbed the mind of man or youth freshly discharged from an Illinois peniten- tiary or reformatory, and whose aim is to avoid crime in the future. Every convict discharged from the penitentiary, by pardon or otherwise, shall be furnished by the warden with a suitable suit of citizen’s clothing, with transportation to the place of his conviction, or the equivalent thereof in money, and in addition thereto the sum of ten dollars for other necessary expenses (Section 21, Chapter 108); and every prisoner discharged from the reformatory shall be provided with suitable clothing, with transportation to his home if in Illinois, or to the place of his conviction if such home be else- where, and with ten dollars in money to be paid at such times and in such installments as the general superintendent of the institu- tion may determine. Section ip. Chapter 118. Whatever may be the state of mind in either of these two cases, that of the unfortunate girl or young woman just emerging from the Home of Juvenile Female Offenders may fairly be imag- ined to be more uneasy. There is an abyss, whether right or wrong, between a good name and five dollars and a bad record and many dollars; and ten dollars whether in hand or in print must always be the double in value of five dollars in like coinage or issue. Why the state should give ten dollars to man or boy and but five dollars to girl or woman so discharged is beyond ordinary compre- hension. PRESENT ALLOWANCE INSUFFICIENT. The larger allowance is none too much to any such discharged 74 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee prisoner or inmate and in many instances it might fairly be in- creased, but if ten dollars is to be the maximum and a greater al- lowance be continued to be made in the case of one sex than the other, can there be any doubt as to which sex should be favored? i It is not a question of sentiment but one of justice. j Whether an inmate for short or long period, the girl may have ; gained all good time possible, may never have had a mark against her. She may have been in the institution eleven full years, may , never have won a day’s good time. Many of the latter, however, ' may have abundant good traits. A girl or boy may get many black marks in an ordinary school and yet be incomparably better in heart than many without a single unfavorable marking. Whatever her term or her conduct in the public home no girl inmate should be set adrift with but five dollars — the price of a single week’s board. The girl of pride and spirit will not care to live in the community in which is known her degradation. Nor will she avail herself of the services of any public agent charged with the duty of assisting discharged inmates to find employment. Aid in that direction would lead to disclosure of her history. It is cruel to send out these girls to battle among strangers for a de- cent living and a good name, and to supply them with so miserable a pittance to make the start. The discharged murderer, rapist, robber or firebug is furnished not only with ten dollars cash, but with the equivalent in money of the cost of his transportation to the place of conviction, if he elects to take such instead of ticket, thus enabling him to go to a strange field without breaking in upon his ten dollars. The discharged girl whose principal offense may have been birth in a drunken or otherwise unhappy home is given but five dollars and has no such election in the matter of transportation. She must board a train destined either for her home or for the county of her conviction, the very last places that many a good girl so un- happily situated would willingly go. To go elsewhere she must either break into her five dollars or sell some of her “suitable cloth- ing,” perhaps do both. And then begins the struggle. VI. MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS REGARDING MINORS. Not to Be Imprisoned. An infant under the age of ten years shall not be found guilty ' of any crime or misdemeanor. Section 28^, Criminal Code. No child under twelve years of age shall be committed to jail or police station. If unable to give bail the offending child shall be given in charge of certain officers whose duty it shall be pend- ing the hearing to keep the child in some suitable place outside the enclosure of either jail or police station. In case of the child’s sen- tence to confinement in any institution to which adult convicts are sentenced, it shall be unlawful to confine such child in the same building with such adults, or to confine the child in the same yard ' or enclosure with them, or to bring the child into any yard or • Working of Present Laws 75 building in which such convicts may be present. Section J/p, Chap- ter 2^. Detention Homes. Every county may maintain a detention home for the temporary care and custody of dependent, delinquent or truant children. Such home shall be so arranged, furnished and conducted that, as near as practicable for their safe custody, the inmates thereof shall be cared for as in a family home and public school. It shall be managed by a discreet woman of good moral char- j acter, or by a man and woman of like character, and the first and ! at least one of the second shall be competent to teach and instruct j children in branches similar to those taught in the public schools up to and including the eighth grade. Sections 2^1 and 2^2, Chapter ' ^ 3 - Pawnbrokers. No pawnbroker shall take or receive any pawn or pledge for any advancement or loan, any property of any kind from any minor, or the ownership of which is in, or which is claimed by, any minor, or which may be in the possession or under the control of any minor. Any pawnbroker violating the same is subject to a fine of not less than $20 nor more than $100 for the first offense, and for each subsequent violation not less than $50 nor more than $200, or imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding thirty days, or both. Section 8, Chapter loy a. Unlawful Leases. No owner or agent of a dwelling house, flat or apartment shall i require as a condition precedent to the leasing of the same that the person or persons desiring to rent such premises shall be without , children under fourteen residing in their family or families ; and it j shall be deemed unlawful to insert in any lease or agreement for such premises a condition terminating such lease if there are or j shall be any such children in the family of any person holding such !' lease and occupying such premises ; and any such lease shall be I void as to such condition. Any person violating this act shall be I subject to a fine of not less than $50 nor more than $100 for each li offense. Section 38, Chapter 80. VII. BASTARDY. Arrest of Reputed Father. When an unmarried woman who shall be pregnant, or delivered of a child which by law would be deemed a bastard, shall make complaint to a justice of the peace or judge of a municipal court in the county where she may be so pregnant or delivered, or the person accused may be found, and shall accuse, under oath or affirmation, a person with being the father of such child, it shall be the duty of such justice or judge to issue a warrant against the person so accused and cause himi to be brought forthwith before him, 76 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee or in his absence, any other justice of the peace or judge in such county. Section i, Chapter I’J. Upon his appearance it shall be the duty of the said justice or judge to interrogate the woman under oath or affirmation with respect to such charge, which examination shall be had in the presence of the alleged father. The latter may controvert the charge, and evidence may be heard. If the justice or judge shall be of the opinion that reasonable cause appears, it shall be his duty to require the accused to give bond with sufficient security to appear at the next term of the county court except that in Cook county such appearance shall be at the next term of the criminal court for that county. In case of neglect or refusal to give such bond the accused shall be committed to the county jail until the holding of such term. Section j. Chap- ter 17. If the issue shall be found against the accused, or if he shall in open court confess the truth of the accusation, he shall be con- demned to pay a sum of money not exceeding $100 for the first year after the birth of such child, and a sum not exceding $50 yearly for the next nine years, such to be for the support, main- tenance and education of the child. He shall also be adjudged to pay all costs of prosecution. To secure the payment of such sums so ordered to be made each year he shall be required to give bond with sufficient secur- ity to be approved by the judge of said court, which bond shall run to the People of the State of Illinois, conditioned for the pay- ment of such yearly sum, in equal quarterly installments, to the clerk of said court. Section 8, Chapter 17. In case the defendant shall refuse or neglect to give such secur- ity as may be ordered by the court, he shall be committed to the jail of the county, there to remain until he shall comply with such order, or until otherwise discharged by due course of law. Any person so committed shall be discharged for insolvency or in- ability to give bond: Provided, such discharge shall not be made within six months after such commitment. Section p. Chapter 17. If the said child should never be born alive, or, being born alive, should die at any time, and the fact shall be suggested upon the record of the said court, then the bond aforesaid shall from thence- forth be void. Section 14, Chapter i7- Marriage Legitimatizes Child. If the mother of any bastard child, and the reputed father, shall, at any time after its birth, intermarry, the said child shall, in all respects, be deemed and held legitimate, and the bond aforesaid be void. Section 15, Chapter 17. No prosecution under this act shall be brought after two years from the birth of the child : Provided, the time any person so accused shall be absent from the state shall not be computed. Section 16, Chapter 17. Either before or after such birth the mother may release its alleged father from all legal liability on occasion of such bastardy, upon such terms as may be consented to in writing by the judge of Working of Present Laws 77 the county court in the county in which she resides, but without such consent any release obtained for a consideration less than $400 shall not be a bar to a suit for bastardy against such father. In case of such suit and a finding against the defendant he shall be entitled to offset whatever he may have paid under such release, and the same shall be accredited as of the first payment or pay- ments. Any such father, however, may at any time and without the consent of the county judge, compromise all his legal liability touching such bastardy, by paying to the mother any sum not less than $400. Section //, Chapter ly. Concealing Death of Bastard. If any woman shall endeavor, privately, either by herself or by the procurement of others, to conceal the death of any issue of her body, which if born alive would be a bastard, so that it may not come to light, whether it shall have been murdered or not, she shall suffer confinement in the county jail for a term not exceeding one year: Provided, however, that nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to prevent such mother from being indicted and punished for the murder of such bastard child. Section 44 , Crim- inal Code. VIII. SCHOOLS FOR DELINQUENTS. Industrial School for Girls. Upon obtaining the written consent of the governor, any seven or more residents of the state, a majority being women, may or- ganize a corporation for the establishment and conduct of an industrial school for girls, the object of which in each case shall be to provide a home and proper training school for such girls as may be committed to the charge of such home. Any responsible resident may petition any court of record in his or her county to inquire into the alleged dependency of any female infant then within the county. It shall be considered that every girl under eighteen shall be dependent for the purposes of this act if she begs or receives alms while selling or pretending to sell any articles in public ; or if she frequents any street, alley or other place for the purpose of begging or receiving alms; or if she has no permanent place of abode or not have proper paternal care or guardianship ; or if she shall not have sufficient means of subsistence, or from any cause shall be a wanderer through streets and alleys or other public places ; or if she shall live with, or fre- quent, the company of, or consort with, reputed thieves or other vicious persons ; or if she shall be found in a poor-house, house of ill fame, or in any prison. No girl, however, who is an “inmate” of a house of ill fame, or who is in prison charged with or convicted of any penal offense, shall come within the provisions of this act. In every case a jury of six shall determine whether the girl is delinquent or not, and in case of finding that she is, and if the trial judge shall be of opinion that she is a fit person to be sent to such industrial school, the judge shall enter an order that she be com- 78 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee mitted to such school in his county if there be one, but if no such local school, then to any such school elsewhere in the state, and that she be kept in such school until reaching the age of eighteen, unless sooner discharged by law. Sections ^20-^2^, Chapter 122. The officers and trustees of such school shall provide for the support and comfort of such girls ; instruct them in such branches of useful knowledge as may be suited to their years and capaci- ties ; and shall cause them to be taught in domestic avocations such as sewing and knitting, and housekeeping in all its departments. For the purpose of their education and training, and that they may assist in their own support, they shall be required to pursue such tasks as are suitable to their years and sex and which may be prescribed by the officers of the school. Section ^2p, Chapter 122. Training School for Boys. Under another act corporations similar to those mentioned in the last preceding sections may be organized by seven or more residents of the state with the object of establishing training schools for boys. Except such as distinguishes sex and that with respect to age, there is no material difference between the two acts. No boy shall be committed who shall be over seventeen, and the commitment in every case shall be until arrival at twenty-one years of age, or until otherwise discharged. In addition to ordinary instruction every boy shall have instruc- tion and training in some trade or industrial pursuit. Sections 55^- 5^7, Chapter 122. Other Schools for Delinquent Children. Boards of education and school directors shall be empowered to establish, maintain and control classes and schools for the delin- quent children, being local residents, committed by courts of com- petent jurisdiction. Sections Chapter 122. There are various other statutes relating to dependent, neglected and delinquent children, the definitions of the words “dependent,” “neglected” and “delinquent” and the dispositions to be made of the unfortunates not agreeing in any two cases. IX. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS. Compulsory Attendance. Every person having control of any child between the ages of seven and sixteen years, shall cause such child to attend some public or private school for the entire time during which it shall be in session each year and which time shall not be less than six months. This act, however, shall not apply in case the child has been or is being instructed for a like period in each and every year in the elementary branches of education by person or persons com- petent to give such instruction, or in case the child’s physical or mental condition renders his or her attendance impracticable or inexpedi- ent, or in case the child is excused for temporary absence for cause by the principal or teacher of the school which said child attends, or in case the child is between the ages of fourteen and sixteen Working of Present Laws 79 years and is necessarily and lawfully employed during the hours when the public school is in session. For every neglect of the duty prescribed by this section, the person so offending shall forfeit a sum not less than five nor more than twenty dollars and costs of suit, and shall stand committed until the full payment thereof. Truant officers shall be appointed ] whose duty shall be to make complaint in all known violations aforesaid, and to arrest any such child who habitually haunts public places and has no lawful occupation, and also any such child i who absents himself or herself from school. Sections 2'j^ and .?75, Chapter 122. Truants. In cities of 100,000 or more there shall be one or more parental or truant schools for the purpose of affording a place of confine- ment, discipline, instruction and maintenance of children of com- pulsory school age who may be committed thereto. Section 140, Chapter 122. Upon petition of a truant officer or agent of the board of education, or of any reputable citizen of the city, the county or circuit court may commit to such school any child of compulsory I age who is not attending school, and who has been guilty of habit- ual truancy or persistent violation of the rules of the public school. The order of commitment shall require such child to be kept in such school until he or she attains the age of fourteen years, un- less sooner discharged according to law. No child shall be so i committed who has ever been convicted of any offense punishable i by confinement in a penal institution. ] Children so committed may be allowed to return home upon I parole, but no parole shall be granted in less than four weeks from j the time oT confinement, nor at any time thereafter unless the I superintendent of such school shall have become satisfied from the ! conduct of the child that, if paroled, he or she will attend regularly the public or private school to which he or she may be sent by parents or guardian. Sections 144, 145 and 147, Chapter 122. By a majority vote of the electors such schools may be estab- lished and maintained in cities having a population of over 25,000 and less than 100,000. Section 151, Chapter 122. X. BENEVOLENT STATUTES. The statutes devoted to benevolent objects are multifarious. The principal ones apply to homes for the blind, deaf and dumb, insane, feeble minded, epileptics, foundlings, indigents, and paupers. Others provide for hospitals, for sanitariums for tubercular pa- tients, for treatment of poor persons afflicted with rabies, and for surgical treatment of children “suffering from physical deformities or injuries of a nature likely to yield to surgical skill and treat- ment.” Provision is made for the maintenance of homes for soldiers and sailors, homes for the mothers, wives, widows and daughters of soldiers and sailors, and also is made for the burial of soldiers 80 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee and marines, and of their mothers, wives and widows. An act as amended in 1911 provides that in certain cases dependent and neglected children may live with their parents or guardians and at public expense; and an act as amended in 1915 aims to give reasonable allowance to every deserving mother whose husband is dead or who is permanently incapacitated for work, or who has been deserted for a period of two years, in case such mother shall keep her child or children at her own home, the extent of allowance in such case to depend upon the number of children under fourteen. No allowance is made for a child over fourteen unless at any time or times between fourteen and sixteen such child shall be ill or be incapacitated for work, in any of which cases the mother may have the usual allowance for the period of the child’s disability. Before the granting of such relief in any case it must satisfactorily appear to the juvenile or county court that such mother is a citizen of the United States and for three years last past has been a resident of the county in which such court is established ; that the child or children in question live with her ; that continuation of such residence will promote the welfare of such offspring; that she is physically, mentally and morally competent to care for such minor child or chil- dren ; that such relief is necessary in order to give such minor or minors reasonable care and sustenance ; that there are no other rela- tives either willing or able to support such child or children ; that she owns no personal property other than household goods ; and that she either owns no realty or that which she owns does not yield sufficient income to support herself and said child or children. Orders of allow- ance in such cases may at any time be modified or vacated. Another statute provides for houses of shelter designed to effect the reformation of fallen women. XL EMPLOYMENT STATUTES. The statutes covering employment and kindred subjects are exten- sive both in number and variety. Women. The third and fourth sections of the chapter (No. 48 ) exclusively devoted to the principal subject provide that on account of sex no person shall be precluded or debarred from an}^ occupation, pro- fession or employment, except military, but that this shall not be construed either to affect the eligibility of any person to an elective office or as requiring any woman to work on streets or roads, or serve on juries. No female shall be employed in any mechanical or mercantile establishment, or factory, or laundr}^, or hotel, or restaurant, or tele- graph or telephone establishment or office thereof, or in any place of amusement, or by any person, firm or corporation engaged in any express or transportation or public utility business, or by any common carrier, or in any public institution, incorporated or unincorporated in this state, more than ten hours during any one day. The hours of work may be so arranged as to permit the employment of females at any time so that they shall not work more than ten hours during the twenty-four hours of any day. The violation of any such provi- Working of Present Laws 81 sion shall be punishable by a fine of not less than $25 nor more than i $100. Sections i2i and 122, Chapter 48. Every person, firm or corporation employing females in any fac- tory, mercantile establishment, mill or workshop in this state, shall provide a reasonable number of suitable seats for the use of such em- ployes, and shall permit the use of such seats by them when they are not necessarily engaged in the active duties for which they are em- ployed, and shall permit the use of such seats at all times when such use would not actively and necessarily interfere with the proper dis- charge of the duties of such employes, and where practicable, such seats shall be made a permanent fixture and may be so constructed or adjusted that when they are not in use they will not obstruct any such employe when engaged in the performance of her duties. The penalty for violation of this section is fixed at not less than $10 and not more than $50 for the first offense, and not less than $25 nor more than $200 for each subsequent offense. Section p7, Chapter 48. Females under sixteen years of age shall not be employed in any capacity where the employment would compel them to stand con- stantly. Section 2oj, Chapter 48. i Children. No child under the age of fourteen years shall be employed, per- mitted or suffered to work at any gainful occupation in any theatre, concert hall or place of amusement where intoxicating liquors are sold, or in any mercantile institution, store, office, hotel, laundry, manufacturing establishment, bowling alley, passenger or freight elevator, factory or workshop, or as a messenger or driver there- for, within this state. No child under fourteen years of age shall be employed at any - work performed for wages or other compensation, to whomsoever pay- able, during any portion of any month when the public schools of v the town, township, village or city in which he or she resides are in * session, nor be employed at any work before the hour of seven in the , morning or after the hour of six in the evening: Provided, that no t child shall be allowed to work more than eight hours in any one day. Section 20, Chapter 48. Under section 20j of the same chapter it is made a misdemeanor to employ any child under sixteen at any of many enumerated em- ployments deemed dangerous to life, limb or health. The section also forbids the employment of any such child in any capacity whatever in the manufacture of goods for immoral purposes, or at any other em- i ployment of character likely to corrupt morals, or in any theatre, A concert hall or place of amusement wherein intoxicating liquors are M sold. According to an amended section approved May 10, 1901, and the publication of which is continued in the Revised Statutes, being fj- section 36 of chapter 48, “no person under the age of sixteen years ‘6 shall be employed or suffered to work for wages at any gainful occu- tr pation more than sixty hours in any one week, nor more than ten i hours in any one day.” Under a section adopted May 15, 1903, however, no person under 62 . Keport of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the age of sixteen years shall be employed or suffered or permitted to work at any gainful occupation more than forty-eight hours in any one week, nor more than eight hours in any one day. It further pro- vides that no such minor shall be required or permitted to do such work either before seven in the morning or after seven in the evening. Section 2g, Chapter 48. Register to be Kept. It shall be the duty of every person, firm or corporation, agent or manager of any firm or corporation employing minors over fourteen and under sixteen years of age in 'any mercantile institution, store, office, hotel, laundry, manufacturing establishment, bowling alley, theatre, concert hall or place of amusement, passenger or freight elevator, factory or workshop, or as messenger or driver therefor, to keep a register in which shall be recorded the name, age and place of residence of every such minor employed or suffered or permitted to work therein, or as such messenger or driver; and it shall be un- lawful for any person, firm, or corporation, agent or manager, to hire or employ, or to permit or suffer to work in any such place, or to serve as messenger or driver as aforesaid, any such minor unless an age and school certificate duly approved shall first be produced by or for such minor, and such certificate shall be filed by such employer. Section 20 a, Chapter 48. Such age certificate shall be subscribed by the father, mother, guardian or custodian of the minor and shall give the place and date of birth, and shall also be sworn to unless corroborated as to age by the last school census, the certificate of birth or baptism of the child, or by the records of the public or parochial schools. Sections 20 f and 20 e, Chapter 48. Such school certificate, when given in the case of any such minor who is or has been in attendance upon a day school, shall be signed by the teacher in charge of the grade to which such minor belongs or belonged, and shall certify that such minor can read simple sentences and also write the same legibly. Such teachers shall also certify that the records of such school disclose the alleged birthplace and the date of birth of such minor, and that he or she (the teacher) believes the same to be authentic. Section 20 f. Chapter 48. In case of an attendance upon an evening school, the pupil’s actual teacher, also the principal of the school, shall certify that such minor pupil is reg- istered in and regularly attends such school. They shall also certify as to records of birth in the same manner as is required in the case of day school certificates. Should any such minor “be unable to read at sight and write legibly simple sentences,” such fact shall.be noted in the certificate of the teacher and principal, but no such certificate shall remain in force unless it shall be certified weekly by such teacher and principal that the pupil in question is in regular attendance upon such evening school. Section 20 f, Chapter 48. An age and school certificate shall be approved only by the super- intendent of schools or by a person authorized by him or her in writing ; or where there is no such superintendent, by a person authorized by the school board : Provided, however, that the superintendent or principal of a parochial school shall have the right to make such Working of Present Laws 83 approval in the case of any child attending such latter school. Sec- tion 20 d. Chapter 48. In any city or town in which there is no public or parochial evening school, an age and school certificate shall not be approved for a child under the age of sixteen years who cannot read at sight and write legibly simple sentences ; and in cities and towns having a public evening school, no person while such school is in operation shall em- ploy any minor between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years who cannot so read and write, nor shall any parent, guardian or custodian permit to be employed any such minor under his or her control, unless such minor .shall be 'la regular attendant at such school. Sections 20 f and 20 g, Chapter 48. Every employer, agent or manager violating any of the foregoing provisions shall be subject to a fine of not less than $5 nor more than $100 for each offense, and stand committed until the full payment of fine and costs ; every parent, guardian or custodian permitting any such minor under his control to be employed as aforesaid shall be liable to a fine of not less than $5 nor more than $ 25 , and likewise stand committed; and a fine of not less than $5 nor more than $100 shall be imposed upon every person convicted of making any ma- terially false statement in either of the certificates mentioned, the convicted person to stand committed until full payment as aforesaid. Section 20 m, Chapter 48. Health, Safety and Comfort of Employes. Among the many penal statutes that relate to the health and comfort of employes are those concerning occupational diseases, plumbing, ventilation, temperature, light, poisonous and noxious fumes, dust, refuse, overcrowding of rooms, unreasonable hours of employment, wash and dressing rooms and other conveniences, and the regular sanitary inspection of factories, mercantile establish- ments, mills, workshops, mines and certain tenements. Principal among the penal statutes enacted to safeguard the lives and limbs of employes come such as have application to machinery, fire escapes, scaffolds, fire fighting and rescue stations in mines, de- signs of buildings used for certain purposes, and official inspection at stated times of factory and certain other buildings. In all factories, mercantile establishments, mills and workshops sufficient and reasonable means of escape in case of fire shall be pro- vided by more than one means of egress, shall always so be kept in good repair and ready for use; all stairways shall be safe and sub- stantial and have hand rails of like character; all machinery of each establishment must be inspected daily by its operators ; all hatchways, elevator wells or other openings in floors must be properly enclosed or guarded; ample and separate toilet facilities for each sex must be provided ; all parts of the premises must be kept in a clean and sanitary condition ; reasonable light and heat must be furnished ; and in every such building that is of two stories or over in height all doors used by employes as entrances to or exits from the same must open out- ward, slide or roll, and be so constructed as to be opened from within easily and immediately in case of fire or other emergency. The penalties for violation of the statutes in relation to the health. 84 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee comfort and safety of employes are various, running from those subject to a fine of not less than $3, but no imprisonment, to those subject to a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $500, or imprison- ment for not less than three months nor more than two years, or both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court. Employment Offices. The state maintains free employment offices in cities of not less than fifty thousand population. The superintendents of these offices are authorized to advertise in newspapers or otherwise for such situations as they may respectively have applicants to fill. The state board of commissioners of labor may grant licenses to conduct private employment agencies, the exclusive right to grant any such license being confided to such board. No such agency shall be located on premises where intoxicating liquors are sold, exception being made, however, in the case of any office building in which there may be a cafe or restaurant in which such liquors are furnished guests. No person holding such license shall send, or cause to be sent, any female help or servants, or inmate or performer, to enter any questionable place or place of bad repute, house of ill fame, assig- nation house, house or place of amusement kept for immoral purposes, place resorted to for the purpose of prostitution, or gambling house, the character of any of which such licensed person knows, either actually or by reputation. No such licensed person shall knowingly permit questionable char- acters, prostitutes, gamblers, intoxicated persons, or procurers to frequent such agency ; nor shall any such licensed person accept any application for employment made by or on behalf of any child under fourteen years of age, or place or assist in placing any such child in any employment prohibited in section 20 of chapter 48, which section is hereinbefore given. Any violation of the foregoing is made punishable by revocation of the license, also by fine of not less than $50 nor more than $200, or imprisonment in the county jail or house of correction not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Section by f, Chapter 48 . Compensation for Accidental Injuries and Death. The act of June 10, 1911, providing compensation for accidental injuries or death suffered by employes in the course of any of cer- tain employments gives to employers the right to place themselves beyond the main provisions of the act and to have actions of such nature determined in other manner, but the act provides, and very wisely and humanely, that while any such employer may elect to have all such cases against him or it tried by judge and jury as of old, yet that such election, happily, shall in no case operate to re- store either of the three notoriously pernicious rules that for so long a period had tainted the administration of justice in Illinois, and which still, unfortunately, obtain in a few other common-law com- monwealths. In actions of this nature no employer in this state can longer escape liability because the employe assumed the risks incident to the employment, because the injury or death was caused Working of Present Laws 85 in whole or in part by the negligence of a fellow servant, or be- cause the injury or death was proximately caused by the con- tributory negligence of the employe by whom or for whom or for whose estate recovery is sought. In the latter case, however, such contributory negligence shall be considered by the jury in reducing the amount of damages. Sections 126-152, Chapter 48- This act is appropriately entitled An Act to promote the general welfare of the people of this state,” — and while its provisions might in some respects be more liberal to injured employes and to the de- pendents of those killed, yet as it stands it is freighted with much that will operate not only for the good of persons directly affected but of society in general. XII. EMPLOYMENT DECISIONS. General Remarks. The preamble to the constitution of Illinois reads : We, the people of the state of Illinois — grateful to Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors to secure and transmit the same unimpaired to suc- ceeding generations — in order to form a more perfect government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the com- mon defense, promote the general welfare, and-secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the state of Illinois. Article I of the constitution relates exclusively to the boundaries of the state. The bill of rights constitutes Article H and consists of twenty sections. Sections 1 and 2 of such bill read as follows : 1 . All men are by nature free and independent, and have cer- tain inherent and inalienable rights — among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights and the pro- tection of property, governments are instituted among men, deriv- ing their just powers front the consent of the governed. 2 . No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law. For many years certain labor statutes transplanted from other states did not thrive in Illinois. They seemed to be adapted neither to the political nor judicial soil of this state. Those that were not killed by the supreme court had no influence and commanded no re- spect. They were permitted to live but that was all. They were carried in the Revised Statutes from year to year but were never summoned to do service, and the penalties named in them inspired no more fear than urchins have for stone lions in a familiar dooryard. They were as contemptuously treated as was Gulliver by the queen’s dwarf — were apparently as out of place among their fellow statutes as would be a humorous story in the Holy Writ. Their influence nil, their energies withered, their vitality sapped, their very existence ig- nored, these statutes, if animate, instead of entertaining dread of dis- solution, must, in their loneliness and misery, have prayed for the speedy coming of the message that would end it all. 86 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Those that were given the judicial axe were declared by their ex- ecutioner to be hostile to those parts of the state constitution herein- before quoted, and wholly repugnant to the italicized portions of such quotations. A brief history follows both of those that perished and those that survived. Aliens. In City of Chicago v. Hulhert, 205 III, ^46 (decided in December, 1903), sections 10, 11 and 12 of chapter 6 were declared unconsti- tutional. It was intended by these sections to prevent any board, commission, office or other person acting either for the state or any municipality within it from employing any person other than a native born or naturalized citizen, or person who had in good faith declared his intention to become a citizen, when such employe was to be paid, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, out of any public funds by taxation. Contractors and sub-contractors engaging to do work for such municipalities were likewise enjoined. The act containing these sections was approved June 1, 1889. At the time of the enactment most citizens of the state favored all of the provi- sions mentioned, believed them to be just. This belief was generally entertained also by persons then in the state who had not been natural- ized but had declared intention to become such. The court’s holding was disappointing to both classes. Hours of Labor. Another act, born of a reasonably popular demand for relief, came into being March 5, 1867. Although undisturbed in the main, either by the general assembly or by the courts, it has not borne expected fruit. It has been as abortive as the command of a false Joshua. In fact, it was emasculated in its making. It did not measure with the object sought by the advocates of the passage of a bill reducing the hours of labor. This act (sections 1 and 2, chapter 48) reads as follows: Sec. I. On and after the first day of May, 1867, eight hours of labor between the rising and setting of the sun, in all mechanical trades, arts and emplo 3 nnents, and other cases of labor and service by the day, ex- cept farm employments, shall constitute and be a legal day’s work, where there is no special contract or agreement to the contrary. Sec. 2. This act shall not apply to or in any way affect labor or service by the year, month or week; nor shall any person be prevented by anything herein contained from working as many hours over time or extra hours as he or she may agree, and shall not, in any sense, be held to apply to farm labor. This piece of legislation was launched as a sop. It has served as such ever since although a much more sterile act cannot be imagined. The declaration that eight hours of labor shall constitute a legal day’s work is practically neutralized by the exceptions that follow. Whether in 1867 or 1877, the number of paid workers having em- ployers willing to give a full day’s pay for eight hours of labor must have been insignificant as compared with the aggregate number of paid workers employed by the week, month and year and those employed by the day under “special contract or agreement” to put in nine or ten or more hours’ work a day, and regardless of the sun. A like pre- Working of Present Laws 87 ponderance is found even now notwithstanding the victories in this regard in recent years of certain classes of the employed. These victories were achieved without aid of statutes. Legislation, either state or national, has never accomplished much in this direction for ordinary workers. Eight hours the day statutes, rules and regulations have up to this time had application principally to persons in the public pay and to inmates of penitentiaries and workhouses. The thousands of workers for private employers who now work two hours less the day than was required in like employments but a few years ago, and whose pay has not been diminished because of the change, owe their betterment to themselves and to their unions and not to legislation. Not many workers of the favored classes mentioned would now be drawing in Illinois or elsewhere a full day’s pay for eight hours’ work if labor unions had delayed their demands in that behalf in expectancy of statutes framed and actually designed to accomplish the desired end. Indeed, such delay might have precipitated legislation calculated to hinder the success of their efforts if we may consider as being signifi- cant in that connection an Illinois act approved June 9, 1893, and to which allusion has herein already been made. Notwithstanding the “eight hours a legal day’s work” statute (a statute presumably applicable to all persons, adults or otherwise), the act in question, being entitled, “An Act to regulate the employment of children in the state of Illinois, and to provide for the enforce- ment thereof,” contains the following: “No person under the age of sixteen years shall be employed or suffered to work for wages at any gainful occupation more than sixty hours in any one week, nor more than ten hours in any one day Section jd. Chapter 48. It is not unreasonable to believe that the arguments and influences leading to the enactment of such a law respecting children must have been more cogent than those essential to tighten the grip of employers in the case of workers of full age. Another act similarly entitled (both acts are incorporated in the Revised Statutes) was approved May 15, 1903. As previously men- tioned herein, such act provides that “no person under the age of sixteen years shall be employed or suffered or permitted to work at any gainful occupation more than forty-eight hours in any one week, nor more than eight hours in any one day; or before the hour of seven in the morning or after the hour of seven o’clock in the evening.” Section 20 I, Chapter 48. XIII. THE OBNOXIOUS RITCHIE DECISION. An act approved June 17, 1893, and relating to the regulation of the manufacture of clothing, provides that “no female shall be em- ployed in any factory or workshop more than eight hours in any one day or forty-eight hours in any one week.” Section 2g, Chapter 48. In March, 1895, this section was held unconstitutional in Ritchie V. The People, 155 III., p8. Ritchie had been convicted in the crim- inal court of Cook county, to which he had appealed from a con- viction before a justice of the peace. The charge was “that on a certain day in February, 1894, plaintiff in error employed a certain adult 88 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee female of the age of more than eighteen years to work in a factor)' for more than eight hours during said day.” Eight other similar cases then pending in the supreme court were controlled by the Ritchie decision, and the judgment of con- viction in each of the eight, accordingly, was reversed. In the Hulbert case hereinbefore referred to ( 20 ^ III, 346 ), the court said that as it had repeatedly held that city ordinances prohibit- ing the employment of aliens to do public work were “in contravention of the constitution and the right of individuals to contract,” the statute in question must also be declared void upon the same grounds, and that neither a city nor a contractor “was under any obligation to observe” such statute. It was contended by the prosecution in the Ritchie case that the statute forbidding the employment of women to work more than eight hours a day should be upheld as being “a sanitary provision, and justi- fiable as an exercise of the police power of the state.” The court held that “there is nothing to indicate that it is a sanitary measure,” and that “there is nothing in the nature of the employment contem- plated by the act which is in itself unhealthy, or unlawful, or injurious to the public morals or welfare.” Regarding the claim as to police power of the state, the court, defining such power as that which enables the state to promote the health, comfort, safety and welfare of society, and admitting the power to be very broad and far reaching, yet declared that it is not without limitations, and that it could not properly obtain in the case at bar. “There is no reasonable ground,” said the court, “for fixing upon eight hours in one day as the limit within which woman can work without injury to her physique, and beyond which, if she work, injury will necessarily follow.” In the main, the case was reversed because of the court’s holding that the statute was in conflict with sections 1 and 2 of article 2 of the constitution of Illinois. These sections relate to life, liberty and property, and provide that no person shall be deprived of either without due process of law. The court held that the privilege of contracting is both a liberty and property right ; that labor is property ; that the legislature has no power to prevent competent persons from making their own contracts; that it cannot substitute its judgment for the judgment of the employer and employe; that the right to a choice of vocations and the right to contract for labor are no greater in the case of persons of one sex than those of the other; and ordinarily, that either man or woman has an absolute right to sell as many hours of labor a day as he or she may elect to sell. LAW OF 1867 WAS NOT SERIOUSLY REGARDED. That the court was of the opinion that the “sop” legislation already mentioned did not bring many employes within the “eight hours” provision is evidenced by this language in the Ritchie opinion : “Where the subject of contract is purely and exclusivelj- private, unaffected by any public interest or duty to person, to society or government, and the parties are capable of contracting, there is no condition existing upon which the legislature can interfere for the Working of Present Laws 89 purpose of prohibiting the contract, or controlling the terms thereof. An instance of the care with which this right to contract has been guarded may be found in chapter 48 of the Revised Statutes of this state, where an act, passed in 1867, makes eight hours of labor in certain emplojnnents a legal day’s work, ‘where there is no special con- tract or agreement to the contrary’ ; and the second section of which act contains the following provision: ‘Nor shall any person be prevented by anything herein contained from working as many hours overtime or extra hours as he or she may agree.’ ” The decision in this case was not at all based upon the fact that the act under review related to the regulation of the manufacture of clothing and to no other manufacture, and the provision as to hours of labor, therefore, savoring of special legislation. In this con- nection the court said : “We are inclined to regard the act as one which is partial and dis- criminating in its character. If it be construed as applying only to manufacturers of clothing, wearing apparel and articles of a similar nature, we can see no reasonable ground for prohibiting such manu- facturers and their employes from contracting for more than eight hours of work in one day, while other manufacturers and their em- ployes are not forbidden so to contract. “If the act be construed as applying to manufacturers of all kinds of products, there is no good reason why the prohibition should be directed against manufacturers and their employes, and not against merchants, or builders, or contractors, or carriers, or farmers, or per- sons engaged in other branches of industry, and their employes therein. “Women employed by manufacturers are forbidden by section 5 to make contracts to labor longer than eight hours in a day, while women employed as saleswomen in stores, or as domestic servants, or as bookkeepers, or stenographers, or typewriters, or in laundries, or other occupations not embraced under the head of manufacturing, are at liberty to contract for as many hours of labor in a day as they choose. The manner in which the section thus discriminates against one class of employers and employes and in favor of all others, places it in opposition to the constitutional guaranties hereinbefore dis- cussed, and so renders it invalid.’’ XIV. INCONSISTENCIES IN THE OBNOXIOUS RITCHIE OPINION. It was pointed out to the court in the Ritchie case mentioned (an- other Ritchie case will be alluded to later) that a Massachusetts statute regulating the hours of work of women in factories had been sus- tained by the supreme court of that state. The Illinois court was of opinion that the constitution of Massachusetts leaves more to the dis- cretion of the legislature than is the case in Illinois, basing such opin- ion upon the fact that the Massachusetts constitution declares that any statute which is not in conflict with the constitution may be or- dained by the legislature if it shall judge the same “to be for the good and welfare of the commonwealth, and for the governing and ordering thereof, and of the subjects of the same.” Hence, sagely said the Illinois court, the Massachusetts legislature has “the power to ordain all manner of wholesome and reasonable statutes, with or without penalties, not repugnant to the constitution.” The real reading of that particular part of the Massachusetts con- stitution was and is as follows : Full power and authority are hereby given to the said general 90 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee court (the legislature of that state is so styled), from time to time, to make, ordain and establish, all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes and ordinances, directions and instructions, either with penalties or without, so as the same he not repugnant to this con- stitution, as it shall judge to be for the good and welfare of this com- monwealth, and for the governing and ordering thereof, and of the subjects of the same. True, it nowhere expressly appears in the Illinois constitution that the general assembly may properly enact laws judged by it “to be for the good and welfare” of the people of Illinois, provided that such enactments shall violate no provision or provisions of the constitution. It is equally true, however, that in this as in other respects the Ritchie opinion is anomalous — that bench and bar and law-writers generally agree that such silence is not significant — and that, therefore, words in that regard in the Massachusetts constitution are superfluous; that they are merely declaratory of the law as it has been in every Amer- ican commonwealth or state since the adoption of its first constitution ; that they give no unusual powers to the legislature or general court of Massachusetts ; and that in the absence of such expressions in the constitution the general court or assembly may legislate upon any subject if the same shall not be in conflict with or repugnant to the constitution. In this particular, the supreme court of Massachusetts has never held that the constitution of that state gives greater license or latitude to the general court than that granted by sister state constitutions to their respective legislatures. The right so to enact is implied under every American state constitution, else the legislature forever be in the dark; many of its enactments, though there be crying need for their immediate effect, be so uncertain as first to require determination by the supreme court whether they should live or die or be eunuchated ; and the “palladium of the people’s rights” be a curse “to the good and welfare of the commonwealth.” A STRAINED OPINION. Strained, too, is the Ritchie opinion in its references to certain pro- visions of the Massachusetts and Illinois constitutions. As previously observed, the case was reversed because the statute in question was considered to be incapable of reconciliation with the Illinois preamble to the constitution and the two sections of the bill of rights already quoted. Comparison of such preamble with that of IMassachusetts does not appear to reveal the alleged distinction relied upon by the Illinois judges. To most persons the declarations of the two states look very much alike. The Massachusetts preamble reads as follows : The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of gov- ernment, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the powers of enjoying in safety and tranquillity their natural rights, and the blessings of life; and whenever these great objects are not attained, the people have a right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their safety, prosperity and happiness. * * *. As in the case of the preambles, so much of either of the two bills of rights as concerns the question involved, would strike the great body of English-speaking persons as being essentially the same as that embodied in the other ; and not many persons would fail to pronounce Working of Present Laws 91 the language of the Illinois court in such regard as being hypercritical rather than sensible and sound. The pertinent part of the Massachu- setts bill reads : All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights ; among which may be reckoned the right of en- joying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possess- ing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. In April, 1903, eight years after the rendition of the Ritchie opin- ion, the supreme court of Illinois stood by its reasoning in that case in Mathews v. People, 202 III., ^8p; and again adhered to it in October, 1905, in O’Brien v. People, 216 III, 555. DOCTRINE NOT GENERALLY FAVORED ELSEWHERE. Happily, the doctrine of these cases has not in recent years met with favor in many jurisdictions. The supreme court of the United States rejected it in February, 1908, Mr. Justice Brewer delivering the opinion. Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S., 412. The Oregon statute prohibits the employment of women in certain callings for more than ten hours in any one day. Muller, the proprietor of a laundry, was convicted upon the charge of having violated the statute. The Oregon bill of rights is substantially the same as that of Illinois ; and prac- tically the same arguments were made by Muller’s counsel as had been made and sustained in the first Ritchie case. The supreme court of Oregon sustained the conviction. State v. Muller, 48 Ore., 2^2. Muller then sought to escape punishment by alleged conflict between the Oregon statute and so much of the four- teenth amendment of the federal constitution as reads : No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal pro- tection of the laws. It was contended in the Ritchie case that with respect to contracts and property the rights of women are identical with those of men, and that statutes regulating the hours of labor, if ever valid, must be the same in the case of one sex as the other. To the first proposition the federal court assented, but the soundness of the second is denied. The conviction was affirmed, the court saying; It is undoubtedly true, as more than once declared by this court, that the general right to contract in relation to one’s business is part of the liberty of the individual, protected by the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution ; yet it is equally well settled that this liberty is not absolute and extending to all contracts, and that a state may, without conflicting with the provisions of the fourteenth amendment, restrict in many respects the individual’s power of contract. With regard to women, the opinion continued : Her physical structure and a proper discharge of her maternal functions — having in view not merely her own health, but the well- being of the race — justify legislation to protect her from the greed as well as the passion of man. Several different state opinions were cited in support of the opinion so rendered. A contrary decision cited stood alone, as its character deserved — the Ritchie case. In justice to the men who gave this opin- 92 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee ion, however, it should be said that Justice Brewer might have cited somewhat similar decisions made in a few other states. XV. THE COMMENDABLE RITCHIE OPINION. But a change came in Illinois. It came April 21, 1910. At that time the supreme court of the state filed an opinion in Ritchie & Co. V. Wayman, 244 III., 509 ; and, to the credit of that court and fortunate for the good name of Illinois, -the holding in that case still stands good. In June, 1909, the general assembly enacted: That no female shall be employed in any mechanical establishment or factory or laundry in this state, more than ten hours during any one day. The hours of work may be so arranged as to permit the em- ployment of females at any time so that they shall not work more than ten hours during the twenty-four hours of any day. The statute was penal, and the state department of factory inspec- tion was charged with the duty of enforcing its provisions and pros- ecuting all violations of it. This statute, as is shown hereinbefore, was amended and amplified in 1911, and now appears in such amended form in sections 121-123, chapter 48 of the Revised Statutes. Ritchie & Co., a corporation, was engaged in Chicago in the manu- facture of paper boxes, paper box machinery, etc., and had in its em- ploy seven hundred fifty women and girls. The company and two of its women employes joined in a chancery bill praying that John E. V. Wayman, state’s attorney for Cook county, and Edgar T. Davies, chief state factory inspector, be enjoined from enforcing against Ritchie & Co., the statute in question. The two women conscripted by the company to pose as co-com- plainants were made to represent that they had been employed in the factory for many years. The use of their names in the suit was both pathetic and tragic. It cannot be believed that they spoke from their hearts when they prayed that the seven hundred fifty others of their sex in the Ritchie factory, and every other woman and girl in Illinois coming within the provisions of the act, might be permitted to work more than ten hours a day. There was a precedent, however, for this involuntary beseechment - — a beseechment made at the behest of the officers of the employing company in a desperate effort to keep that precedent alive. The su- preme court had virtually said in the first Ritchie case that it is a cruel wrong to deny to woman the right to work in as many hours of the twenty-four as she may elect. The court’s apparent theory was that the statute was infinitely more objectionable to women employes than to their employers — that the latter might thrive but the former suffer under its operation. Contemporaneous with the appeal of the second Ritchie case to the supreme court, was a writ of error in People v. B owes-Allegretti Co. (244 111., 557), a case in which the defendant had been convicted of a violation of the same statute. By agreement, the two cases were argued together, the written opinion in the first case to serve both cases. The circuit judge had granted an injunction in the first case, evidently believing (and so, indeed, seemed to be the fact,) that under Working of Present Laws 93 the first Ritchie case the defendants in the chancery suit did not have a leg to stand on. It was alleged in the bill that during the rush season it was neces- sary that its women employes should work more than ten hours a day in order to enable it to fill its orders and comply with its contracts ; that the factory was situated in a well lighted, heated and ventilated building and that the conditions surrounding its employes while at work were sanitary and healthful ; that it had not complied with the provisions of the statute indicated ; and that the defendants had instituted proceedings to punish for such violation. The act was averred to be unconstitutional and void. In the supreme court it was argued by the Ritchie and Bowes- Allegretti attorneys that in at least eight particulars the act was un- constitutional ; that it was not sustainable as a police regulation ; that, in short, it was an abomination;- — and, of course, the former Ritchie case was confidently relied upon as sustaining all of these contentions. PUBLIC SENTIMENT AROUSED. Fifteen years, however, had come and gone since the publication of that opinion. Public sentiment, asleep in 1895 and but half-awake in 1903 and 1905, had shaken off its drowsiness. A few popvdar maga- zines and newspapers, unsubsidized, and their teachings never influ- enced either by the patronage or menace of the interests that dispense rich advertising, had taken up the subject in dead earnest, and with the result that American commoners generally demanded of judges more common sense and more justice in the construction of labor statutes than were present in the Ritchie decision of 1895. Any court’s absolute approval in 1910 of the Ritchie opinion would in certain circles, at least, have been as unpopular as was the Dredd Scott decision in anti-slavery sections and anti-slavery homes. Be- sides, the personnel of the supreme court was not the same as in 1895 ; and Mr. Louis D. Brandeis had enlisted to aid counsel in their fight to sustain the act’s constitutionality. The court held : It was conceded upon the oral argument by appellants, that if the statute now under consideration had been passed with a view to limit the employment of vien in mechanical establishments, factories or laundries to ten hours during any one day it would be an arbitrary interference with the right of men to contract for their labor and unconstitutional and void. If, therefore, such an enactment would be void as to men, does it necessarily follow that such enactment must be held invalid when by its express language the enactment is limited to women, as is the statute now under consideration? This court has recently held that the disposition of property may be limited or regulated when the public interest requires that its dis- position should be limited or regulated. If, therefore, the public interest requires that the time which women shall be permitted to work in any mechanical establishment or factory or laundry should be limited to ten hours in anv one day, we are unable to see why this statute is not constitutional. The right of the individual to contract with referer!''e to labor is held inviolable under the constitution on the ground that the privilege of contracting with reference to labor is a property right within the purview of the constitution. There inhere in the state, however, certain 94 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee sovereign powers, among which powers is that characterized as the police power, which, when broadly stated, is that power of the state which relates to the conservation of health, morals and general welfare of the public, and the property rights of the citizen are always held and enjoyed subject to the reasonable exercise of the police power by the state. If this statute can be sustained, it must be sustained, we think, as an exercise of the police power. * * * The police power is said to be an attribute of sovereignty and to exist without any reserva- tion in the constitution, and to be founded upon the duty of the state to protect its citizens and to provide for the safety and good order of society. In * * *, an ordinance prohibiting persons from keeping open their places of business in a city or village for the purpose of vending goods, wares and merchandise on Sunday was sustained as a proper exercise of the police power. * * * The police power of the state is that inherent or plenary power which enables the state to prohibit all things hurtful to the comfort, safety and welfare of society, and may be termed “the law of overruling necessity.” * * * Anything which is hurtful to the public interest is subject to the police power and may be restrained or prohibited in the exercise of that power. ♦ ♦ * All rights, whether tenable or untenable, are held subject to this police power. * * * From the examples above referred to, found in adjudicated cases, it will be seen that the police power is a very broad power, and may be applied to the regulation of every property right so far as it may be reasonably necessary for the state to exercise such pow'er to guard the health, morals and general welfare of the public. WHAT MEN KNOW AS MEN THEY KNOW AS JUDGES. It is known to all men (and w'hat we know as men we cannot pro- fess to be ignorant of as judges) that w'oman’s physical structure and the performance of maternal functions place her at a great disadvantage in the battle of life; while a man can work standing upon his feet for more than ten hours a day, day after day, without injury to himself, a woman, especially when the burdens of motherhood are upon her, cannot; * * ♦ and that to require a woman to stand upon her feet for more than ten hours in any one day and perform severe manual labor w'hile thus stand- ing, day after day, has the effect to impair her health, and that as weakly and sickly women cannot be the mothers of vigorous children, it is of the greatest importance to the public that the state take such measures as may be necessary to protect its women from the consequences induced by long, continuous manual labor in those occupations which tend to break them down physically. It would therefore seem obvious that legislation which limits the num- ber of hours which women shall be permitted to work to ten hours in a single day in such employments as are carried on in mechanical estab- lishments, factories and laundries would tend to preserve the health of women and insure the production of vigorous offspring by them and would conduce to the health, morals and general welfare of the public, and that such legislation would fall clearly within the police power of the state. Legislation limiting the number of hours which w'omen shall work in establishments similar to those enumerated in the statute now under consideration to a period of not more than ten hours in any one day has been sustained in Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S., 412; State v. Muller, 48 Ore., 252; Wenman v. State, 38 L. R. A. (Neh.) 805; Commonwealth V. Hamilton, 120 Mass., 383, and Washington v. Buchanan, 59 L. R. A. (Wash.), 342. We are of the opinion the statute limiting the time to ten hours in any one day in which a female shall work in any mechanical establishment or factory or laundry is a legitimate exercise of the police power of the state. Working of Present Laws 95 NOT SPECIAL LEGISLATION. With respect to the contention that the act was special legislation in that it singled out certain businesses, but permitted women in other establishments to work more than ten hours a day, the court held that in the latter class, such as mercantile houses, hotels, restaurants, etc., machinery is not employed, and that therefore “the line of demarkation between the establishments to which the ten-hour limit applies and those to which it does not apply is clearly defined.” In this connection, the court remarked that women employed where machinery is used, and who are compelled to work at a pace set by fellow employes who work with machinery, are, when at work, “under a pressure and spur which is much more likely to drive them to over-exertion when ex- hausted by long continued effort and thereby to impair their health, than are their more favored sisters likely to be driven who are engaged in an employment which is not forced at all times to the limit of pro- duction by the agencies of steam, electricity or other motor powers when applied to machinery.” And how was the first Ritchie case disposed of? Was its reason- ing expressly repudiated? Not at all. The judges or justices of 1910 were extremely nice in their treatment of the opinion of the men who had served in that capacity in 1895. They “let them down easy.” The difference between the titles of the two acts was found to be so extrava- : gantly faint that the modern judges were constrained to say that such “difference between the acts may not be so material but that if this ! were the only difference it might be difficult to differentiate the Ritchie , case satisfactorily from the case at bar.” Continuing, the court said : j The act of 1893 provides for an eight hour day while the act of 1909 pro- i vides for a ten hour day. * * * [(- jjg if f^g limitation upon the ■ number of hours * * * had been fixed at ten hours instead of eight hours the court would have held the act unconstitutional as an unreasonable exercise of the police power of the state or that the act would have been held * obnoxious to the constitution as special or class legislation? I I A VEILED SUGGESTION. We do not think it can so be said, as there is throughout the opinion ! a veiled suggestion which indicates that it was the opinion of the court that the limitation of the right to work longer than eight hours was an unreason- able limitation upon the right to contract, while the right to contract for a ■I longer day, at least under some circumstances, might be a valid limitation : upon the right of contract. * * * \yg therefore repeat what we have j once said, that it is not at all clear that the court, in rendering the opinion in the Ritchie case, where an eight hour day was held to be unconstitutional, was of the opinion a statute fixing a ten hour day in which women might work would be unconstitutional. The opinion concluded by holding the act of 1909 “constitutional in all of its particulars and as an entirety ;” the decree of the circuit court was reversed; and in the Bowes-Allegretti case the conviction was sustained and the lower court ordered to proceed with sentence. “It is not at all clear” to many persons that the supreme court ^ as manned in 1895 would have upheld a ten-hour statute; more likely, , if words are to be given their ordinary meaning, those gentlemen would i have declared unconstitutional even a twelve-hour limitation; and it is r to be hoped that none will harbor the belief that in the second Ritchie I opinion there is a “veiled suggestion” that notwithstanding the ten- 96 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee hour law women may be forced by their employers to work in factories and laundries eleven or twelve hours the day if seats be furnished them ; for certain it is as that 1916 will be a leap year, if some individ- uals and concerns should entertain that notion and learn way whereby as much (or more) work of such character could be done while seated as while standing, the supreme court of Illinois will be called upon to write another opinion touching the ten-hour law of 1909. XVI. WAS OREGON CASE A PRECEDENT? What Influence Did the Opinion of the Federal Court, in the Oregon Case, Have Upon the Judges Who Rendered the Decision in the Second Ritchie Case? Respect Entertained for United States Supreme Court. Ever since its organization the supreme court of the United States has had distinguished place among the world’s last courts of resort. At no time have all of its members transcended all of their countr}"- men in legal lore ; instances are known in which appointments to the court have proceeded from knowledge as to unalterable views enter- tained by the appointees respecting questions pending before or likely to be submitted to that tribunal ; and occasionally a member may un- wittingly have permitted his prejudices to temper mildly his judicial finding; but from the beginning every member has been of excellent moral fibre and has had store of accomplishments harmonizing with his exalted office. Several, too, in extent of learning and in intellectual strength, have towered their American contemporaries at bench and bar, and not been surpassed in these regards by like coevals elsewhere ; and of many such members it may unexaggeratingly be said as Web- ster said of the first chief justice of that court: “When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing less spotless than itself.” The respect entertained for this federal court proceeds from belief in the wisdom and integrity of its justices and is free absolutely from the influences of glamour. In relation either to its decisions or its personnel no person has ever said that “judicial independence” is a fiction, “the law is no respecter of persons,” a myth; that judges, like monarchs, are not always unmindful of the people’s will ; that neither care to hold office by a precarious tenure ; that when the popular voice seems to call imperatively for certain action the fear sometimes pos- sesses judges that prompted the signature of King John at Runny- mede. No; such has never been said of the supreme court of the United States, nor of any of its justices. Opinions have been rendered in that court, both majority and dissenting, that have evoked criticism; one majority opinion sustained a doctrine that was obnoxious to thou- sands of our people and it was denounced accordingly ; but never, not even within the long period when violent passion swayed because of that particular decision, has the integrity or courage of the court been impugned, never has the personal character of any member of it been sullied or aspersed. Working of Present Laws 97 Apparently, too, the impression is general that time will bring no curtailment of this court’s prerogatives, no diminution either of the confidence or the obedience so long accorded it. To the contrary, the popular idea would appear to be that it is destined to exercise its pres- ent functions and to command the utmost respect indefinitely ; and that in the words of Macaulay it “may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s.” Difference Between Opinions of State Supreme and United States Supreme Court. After all, however, the great respect entertained for the opinions of the supreme court of the United States, is due principally to the fact that ordinarily such opinions are well reasoned. No better opin- ions have ever been written than many prepared by state judges, but too many of those published in our state reports, especially those of recent years, are merely collections of citations, and artlessly arranged at that. Many of the excerpts in these judicial messes are from opinions in cases having no similitude to those to which the indis- criminate collations are supposed to relate ; and many of the “opinions” from which the extracts are cribbed being as bare of reasoning and of applicability as are the so-called opinions in which such extracts are given lodgment. Although good and sound and pertinent reasons for the decisions may be “as plenty as blackberries,” too many of the men serving as judges in the chief tribunals of our states, instead of giving study to idle cases and then briefly stating in clear language the reasons for or against affirmance, content themselves by clipping from the briefs of the prevailing attorneys all citations by them relied upon (although some of the citations may be as inappropriate to the questions involved as the dress of an Eskimo for a South Sea Islander), throwing the clippings together, and then causing the hybrid assemblages to be filed and published as “opinions.” It is significant that this slipshod style came into vogue with the advent of the employment of judges’ clerks or secretaries. Dictation lessens their labor, but in a majority of cases the productions of judges employing it come far from equalling handmade opinions. But dicta- tion or no dictation, pen or no pen, the scissored part or parts of an . opinion should be assembled properly. It is a matter of supreme in- difference to the owner of a popular price automobile when or where ! the various parts of his machine were made, or in how many different 1 shops they were produced, if they be of suitable construction and be properly assembled and put together. So may it be immaterial whether ' the supreme court justice delegated to prepare the opinion in a certain ; case employs his own language or not (in many instances the latter ! must be incomparably better) ; but it is not unreasonable to expect that i in a scissors-made opinion, as well as in any other (whether manufac- tured by judge or clerk), the statement of facts should be true but not redundant, the citations fit the case under consideration and be amply sufficient to cover clearly and comprehensively all the salient points involved, and the arrangement not he a jumble. 98 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee XVII.— ABOLISH STATE INTERMEDIATE COURTS. And what a boon it would be to litigants and to the people generally if all intermediate courts in the nation should be abolished and every one of their written opinions and printed reports destroyed ! Many of these opinions are able and are not surpassed by those of the final courts, but altogether too many of them are weak and have occasioned wrongs, and are worthless as precedents to all but those who would cite and otherwise employ them to inflict further wrongs. Every ap- pealed case should go directly from the court of trial or hearing to the supreme court (whatever its appellation) of the state or common- wealth. The additional expense entailed by the necessitated increase of supreme court judges would be insignificant as compared to the waste- ful and abominable cost, to say nothing of annoyances and waste of time, incident to the maintenance of these judicial cormorants. A system is not only unjust but outrageous that compels litigants to take a case from the circuit to the appellate court; to return to the circuit for new trial in case of reversal ; and perhaps to travel back and forth between these courts two or three times before reaching the supreme court, where it may also be reversed, and the parties left where they were at the beginning and with reasonable likelihood of faithful repetition of the same experiences even to the smallest detail. When it is considered that every step taken under this system arbitrarily calls for fees and expenses, all extravagant and many need- less, there can be but small wonder that many persons are “frozen out” before what might have been a victory had they the means to carry on the fight. Justice, in the act creating these intermediate courts, is misnamed. XVIII. STUPID ADHERENCE TO SO-CALLED “PRECEDENTS.” Another wrong of almost daily occurrence in our courts is blind and stupid adherence to the rulings and opinions of courts in analogous cases. A precedent, according to Webster, is something which comes lown to us from the past with the sanction of usage and of common consent. In law, a precedent is a judicial decision which serves as an authority to be followed by courts in cases involving the same questions as the case in which the precedent was established. How firmly wedded to the world is precedent ! Duels have been fought solely because of the tyranny of precedent. Nations have warred, not because armed conflict was unavoidable, but because precedent left no alternative. How obsequious and slavish to precedent have been courts of justice wherever the common law obtains! Stare decisis, much as may be said in its favor, is responsible for a long train of abuses, miseries and wrongs. Decisions have been respected, not because they were right, but because the}^ were gray with age. For instance, the damnable rule exempting a master from liability to a servant for injuries caused by the negligence of a fellow-servant — a rule sound when first adopted, sound today in certain cases, but unsound and Working of Present Laws 99 f cruelly unjust in many instances where conditions exist that were undreamed of when the doctrine was formulated. How many times is justice defeated every week throughout the United States by small-bore judges who decline to hear argument, 1 who invariably insist upon the production of authorities or prece- dents ! With them, too, every decision counts, even though decided contrary to principle. But these men will not listen to argument. With a “precedent” (regardless of its uniform) they are happy, with- I out one they are lost and are apt to be petulant. No wonder that they bring contempt upon themselves, bring disfavor and disrespect to just and able judges and to the judicial system itself. Yet some of thes'e “jurists” profess to believe that their pay of six or twelve thousand the year is grossly inadequate, j That there should be certain principles and rules invariably to be I respected both by nations and individuals, that these principles and ; rules should not be subject either .to sudden or radical change, none 1 will deny. One nation should not be subject to the whim or caprice of j another. The rulers of every nation should know definitely what f constitutes conduct that would justify another nation in waging war : because of that conduct. With the citizen, too, certain laws should be as immutable as the hills. But they are not many in number. Chief among them is that every citizen shall have as many rights and privileges as any other citizen. With the exception of a few precedents relating to the rights of persons and things, and a few concerning private and public wrongs, all of our law precedents might safely be killed — figuratively drawn ® and quartered. This should be the fate of most of our judge-made laws. Burn all the appellate reports of Illinois tomorrow morning, abridge ' the supreme court reports to ten volumes this winter, abolish the 1, appellate court system next winter — Illinois would lose nothing, gain much. , Is the precedent good? Does it stand for the right, for justice? This should always be the test whether there be but one precedent or a score I or more of the same character. This relates to all precedents, whether considered by legislators, executives, judges or private persons. It is immaterial whether the precedent be young or old. Is it right or wrong to follow it? Does it fit existing conditions? These questions, rather than one of age, should be considered. Nor should the absence of a precedent ever deter legal action that seems advisable, necessary and constitutional. New cases frequently arise, cases without prece- dent; and every right has remedy for its enforcement. XIX. OTHER COURT ABUSES. Two other legal abuses should be corrected. It is competent for j the legislature to prevent the recurrence of these evils now present in many of the printed opinions of the judges of the supreme and appel- late courts of Illinois. It has become quite comm.on practice for these judges to pass upon questions of fact. These questions should be determined by jurors in jury cases and by the trial judges in non-jury 100 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee cases. They should not be determined by men who have neither seen nor heard the witnesses giving the testimony. The legislature in no uncertain terms should prohibit this practice. Even in chancery cases the province of reviewing judges should be confined in this regard to the location of the preponderance of evidence. The second evil is the failure of these courts to pass specifically upon important assignments of error. An attorney, guided by former opinions appearing in the printed reports of these courts, advises his client to appeal. According to these opinions, rulings of the court made upon the trial just ended were erroneous and constituted rever- sible error. The attorney makes assignments of error accordingly. What has come to be common practice with respect to many of these assignments? The higher court ignores them. Its opinion is absolutely silent respecting them. As a consequence, the attorney loses the confidence of his client. It is not to be expected that every assignment of error should be touched upon in the final opinion. Our printed reports already con- tain much that might have been left out with no loss. But every attorney should have the right, and the legislature should give it to him, to have from two to five particular assignments of error specifically passed upon by the appellate or supreme court, these particular assign- ments to be noted or marked so as to inform such court that they are to be expressly ruled upon. With this rule in operation the law laid down in Brown v. Brown or Smith v. Smith, the case upon which the appealing attorney relies, will either be affirmed or expressly overruled. It will not be permitted to stand and to mislead any attorney in the future. XX. THE ELERDING CASE. As already observed, the average American citizen, whether in or out of official harness, has a feeling toward the federal supreme court that is akin to reverence. The decisions of that court inspire into inferior federal courts and also state courts courage, industry, and even humanity. Although not required so to do in many cases, a state court is far more likely to respect an opinion of the federal supreme court and to follow its lead than it is to adopt the reason- ing of a sister state’s court. Although legislative acts limiting hours of women’s labor had been sustained by the supreme courts of Massachusetts, Nebraska, Washing- ton and Oregon before the decision of the supreme court of the United States in z'. Oregon (208 U. S., 412), and although the reasoning of the court in that case is practically the same as that of the supreme court of Oregon in the same case (appearing in 48 Ore., 252), each court having adopted literally much of the language em- ployed in the brief of Mr. Brandeis, it is probable that the opinion in the second Ritchie case owes its existence far more to the federal than to the four state courts mentioned. At any rate, it seems safe to assume that even though three of these state decisions may have contributed slightly to the decision reached in the second Ritchie case, that of Massachusetts cut no figure because of its express repudiation by the judges who had decided the first Ritchie case. Working of Present Laws 101 And is it not likely that the really excellent and progressive opinion in The People v. Elerding ( 2^4 III., 57 g), filed June 21, 1912, owes some of its features to the federal court’s opinion in the Muller case? As section 121 of chapter 48 stood when the second Ritchie case was decided by the supreme court it applied only to women and girls employed in “any mercantile establishment or factory or laundry.” In 1911 it was amended, the amendment to be in force July 1 of that year, so as also to include several other lines of employment (see the amended section hereinbefore appearing), among them being that of service in hotels. The amendment did not go unchallenged. Within fourteen weeks from the time it became effective its constitutionality was disputed by Mr. Elerding, manager of a hotel. He was informed against by the state’s attorney, the information containing three sep- arate counts. He pleaded not guilty, was convicted by the court with- out a jury (it was a test case and there was a written stipulation), was fined twenty-five dollars under each count, and appealed. The first count charged the employment of A for a period of ten and one-half hours- — one-half hour in excess of the prescribed time — within twenty-four hours. She was a kitchen maid, her hours were from 5 :30 A. M. to 2 :30 P. M. and from 5 :30 P. M. to 7 :00 P. M., and her duties during such hours were to wash dishes and kitchen utensils, pare potatoes, and clean and prepare other vegetables, also fruits. She was required to be in readiness for work during the ten and one-half hours, but the time required to do the work never ex- ceeded seven hours in the aggregate. The second count charged the employment of B for twelve hours. She was housekeeper, her hours were from 7 :00 A. M. to 7 ;00 P. M., and her duties were solely supervisory, no manual labor being required of her. C, the employe named in the third count, was employed from 7 :00 A. M. to 7 ;00 P. M., but the time devoted to actual work was not more than eight hours. Her duties were to assign guests to rooms, receive payment of bills, keep accounts, and occasionally take dictation of letters in shorthand and typewrite the same. The supreme court’s opinion, after recital of the facts, opens ; “That under the police powers of the state the general assembly may enact legislation to prohibit all things hurtful to the health, welfare and safety of society, even though the prohibition invade the right of liberty or property of the individual, is too well settled to require dis- cussion or the citation of authority. The question here to be deter- mined is whether the law limiting the hours females may be employed in hotels is a valid exercise of that power.” FIRST RITCHIE CASE IGNORED. Then follows brief reference to the first Ritchie case, as is proper, and more extended mention of the second Ritchie case, also commend- able. The court, as constituted at the time of the handing down of this opinion, had grafted into it none of the narrow and inhumane doctrine of the first Ritchie case, evidence of the absence of inoculation appearing in these excerpts : 102 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee There can be no doubt working long hours day after day under the pressure usually attending the labor of an employe who is subject to the control, direction and dismissal of the employer, has a tendency to weaken and impair the health of women that would not attend shorter hours of employment. To exactly what extent this may be so of females employed in hotels cannot, perhaps, be definitely known, nor is it necessary that it should be in order to sustain legislation reasonably limiting the hours of work therein. That such is, in general, the effect of long hours of work in any employment is sufficient to authorize their regulation. * * * The health and welfare of posterity are as much objects of public solicitude as those of the present generation. If the enforcement of this law tends to preserve the health, strength and vigor of women engaged in working in hotels, thereby conserving the vitality necessary to the proper discharge of their maternal functions, the rearing and education of children and the maintenance of the home, its relation to the public health, safetj' and welfare is evident. * * * ' When the legislative authority has decided an exigency exists calling for the exercise of the power and has adopted an act to meet the exigency, the presumption is that it is a valid enactment, and courts will sustain it unless it appears, beyond any reasonable doubt, that it is in violation of some constitutional limitation. In determining the validity of legislation for the purpose for which the act under consideration was adopted, courts may take into consideration that members of the legislature come from every part of the state and from the various callings and vocations of life, and may be presumed to have observed and become acquainted with exist- ing conditions, the course of business, the manner in which it is conducted and how the public interest is affected thereby. These considerations, in a case of doubtful validity of a statute, are sufficient to turn the scales in favor of the validity of the act. It is worthy of note that twenty-seven states have enacted laws limiting the hours of employment of females in certain lines, and five states besides Illinois have enacted laws limiting the hours they may be employed in hotels. Laws limiting the hours females may be employed in mechanical industries, factories and laundries have been sustained by other state courts of last resort and by the supreme court of the United States (citing the case of Muller v. Oregon). * * * There is nothing in the record in this case and nothing within the legitimate domain of judicial knowledge that would justify us in holding there is no reasonable connection between the limitation and the health, welfare and safety of the public. {Note: How shocking this would have seemed to the members of the court that rendered the decision in the first Ritchie case!) * * * This power (police power) is so important and com- prehensive that its application must be allowed to expand from time to time, to meet new conditions and promote the general welfare. * It is contended the facts in the record before us show that the plaintiff in error’s female employes are not overworked ; that the character and amount of labor performed by them could not injure their health, and that the facts in this record show there is no reasonable connection between the limitation of the hours of work and the health of the female emplo3'es named in the information. * * * The law is general in its application, embracing all hotels, and is valid as to all or none. That there may be hotels where the labor required of females is so light that more than ten hours’ employment would not so tax their powers of ph3-sical endurance as to injuriously affect their health affords no justification for holding the law invalid. The wisdom and policy of such legislation are not questions for courts to determine. Those are questions for consideration by the legislature, and unless that bodv' has transcended its constitutional power its enactments must be sustained. * * * The judgment is therefore affirmed. Working of Present Laws 103 XXI. REGULATION OF HOURS IN AMERICAN STATES. The first section of California’s declaration of rights reads : All men are by nature free and independent, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness. The holding in the Ritchie case that labor is property, and that the seller and the buyer of it stand on an equal footing, holdings that might be considered ironical were it not for the fact that they were acted upon, have not met with favor in California ; nor have they had much respect elsewhere. Judges generally know, as everybody else does, that in the absence of an enforceable statute the one who has his or her labor to sell, cannot ordinarily insist with success upon working but a certain number of hours a day and getting a full day’s I pay. If out of work, the applicant for employment must either accede to ’ the buyer’s demands, or look elsewhere, and generally in vain, for acceptance of his or her offer ; and if holding a situation and asking for a reduction of hours but continuance of the same pay, the petitioner, ninety-nine times in a hundred, will likely have asked what the em- ; ployer regards as impossible. Many such employers, naturally and genuinely good-hearted and fairly disposed toward their employes, and honestly believing that the present hours are not unreasonable, will take the petition good-naturedly and harbor no ill-will against the one making it ; but too many others will feel themselves wronged by the i request, will believe or profess to believe that the employe is ungrateful — a few even will look upon such conduct as approaching a sacrilege — and the petitioner must petition elsewhere for a new berth. In re Miller, 162 Cal., 68’/, the following statute was held to be ' constitutional : No female shall be employed in any manufacturing, mechanical or mer- i cantile establishment, laundry, hotel, public lodging house, apartment" house, hospital, place of amusement, or restaurant, or telegraph or telephone estab- lishment or office, or by any express or transportation company, more than eight hours during any one day, or more than forty-eight hours in one week. Besides Massachusetts, Oregon and California, many other of our sister states regulate the hours of labor that may be required of women, the most favorable of such regulations being in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Wisconsin, Nebraska, North Da- kota, Colorado, Washington, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Louisiana. Similar laws obtain in Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. The supreme courts of Nebraska and Washington have sustained the statutes in that regard. In a railroad case in Pennsylvania the supreme court held that the , state rriay impose such regulations upon the relation of master and servant as are conducive to the public welfare, health, comfort, safety and morals. The general eight-hour law of Utah has been declared constitu- tional by the federal supreme court. The bills or declarations of rights in the constitutions of Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Utah are virtually the same as those previously mentioned. 104 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee With but few exceptions, the rule obtaining in states where the statute fixes a maximum number of hours as constituting a day’s labor is that an employe who works in excess of such time is not entitled to extra compensation in the absence of any special agreement in regard thereto. It is not a stretch of imagination to believe that much of this overtime is not volunteered by the employes, and that many of them put it in because of apprehension of the result of declination or refusal. An eight or a ten-hour labor law, like any other stagnant law, is of but little value either to individual or community. The general rule appears to be different when the employe works less than the prescribed time in a day. In such case he is generally paid pro rata, although occasionally in some jurisdictions a jury may determine whether the work done in a day was by the understanding and implied agreement of the parties to be reckoned as a day’s work. It may be observed, in this connection, that the latter might reasonably be the rule in any jurisdiction or any state or country; and in spite of opinions along this line which indicate that the judges writing them really think that they may be stretching the law in favor of the claim- ants, it may safely be assumed that a valid contract, whether concern- ing the sale and purchase of labor or anything else, may, if established, be recovered upon in any decent court. However this may be, certain it is that where there is no special agreement, the saying that “it is a poor rule that does not work both ways” describes to a nicety the one in question. If the employe regularly works twelve hours a day in a ten-hour state he never gets pay for more than ten hours ; if, occasion- i ally, he puts in but nine and one-half hours, he need never expect more i than nine and one-half hours’ pay. It has been held in Illinois that in ' the absence of a special agreement “the per diem required by the stat- ute to be paid for the time actuallv employed is only one day in each twenty-four hours.” County of Christian v. Merrigan, igi III., 484. The Michigan statute, however, works both ways — sometimes. It j provides that “in all factories, vmrkshops, salt blocks, sawmills, logging I and lumber camps, booms, and drives, mines, or other places used for mechanical, manufacturing, or other purposes within this state, where men or women are employed, ten hours a day shall constitute a legal day’s work.” It is also provided that the statute shall not be construed I to apply to domestic or farm laborers, or other laborers who agree to | work more than ten hours a day. If, without special agreement to do | so without extra pay, the employe works more than ten hours a day, he i is entitled, the supreme court holds, to pay for all extra time at the reg- ular per diem rate. The court further holds that the statute does not apply to hirings by the week, month or year. Naturally, an employe working less than ten hours a day in Michigan, could not reasonably feel aggrieved if “docked” for the shortage, provided, of course, that he should always be paid for overtime. It is probable, however, that even in Michigan there are not many laborers who do not "agree to work more than ten hours a day.” The statute contemplates and legalizes such agree- ments ; and Michigan employers cannot differ radically from em- ployers in any other American state. Working of Present Laws 105 XXII. LABOR’S STRUGGLE IN ENGLAND. It has been said that “no science, no great truth, is ever permitted to find favor without opposition, or credence without contest ; that truth IS passed through the conflict of opinion, as the oaks of the forest are nursed by the tempest and the whirlwind, every storm extending the roots and adding vigor to the branches ; and that to oppose truth is to challenge attention, and to denounce it is to unfold its beauty and to establish its power.” So it has been in the case of justice to the common laborer, so in the case of the one skilled. In every land he has had to struggle from the beginning for the general recognition of rights, for humane treatment, for a decent status in the social order. Justice has always been on his side, but until comparatively recent years Injustice, far more powerful than Justice, rendered the latter powerless to afford the laborer the rights and the privileges it desired to bestow, and to which he was fully entitled. Even Magna Charta, so liberal in many respects, was silent as to labor. For centuries, whether freeman or slave, his hours of actual labor in practically every civilized and every half-civilized country and prov- ince were fourteen to seventeen hours the day ; and nowhere, according to Mr. J. E. Davis, an eminent English writer, did he fare worse than in England. Mr. Davis says : On the accession of Edward VI. (1547) a law was passed by which a serving man wanting a master, or loitering or wandering, and not applying himself to honest labor, might on conviction be marked with the letter V, and adjudged to be the slave for two years of the person buying him, giving him only bread and water or small drink, and such refuse of meat as the master should think fit, and causing him to work by beating, chaining, or otherwise. If he ran away he might not only be punished by his master in the same way, but the justices, on conviction, were to have him marked on the forehead or ball of the cheek with an hot iron with the letter S, and adjudge him to be the master’s slave for life. If he again ran away the offence became felony, and he was to suffer the pains of death “as other felons ought to do.” Any child of a vagabond, above the age of five and under fourteen, might be adjudged the servant or apprentice of any person willing to take it until the age of twenty-four if a male and twenty if a female; if it ran away slavery followed for life. The master might put a ring of iron about the neck, arm, or leg of his slave to prevent his running away, with a penalty on any person helping him to take it off, and if the slave resisted correction he was to be executed as a felon. The slave might be sold or devised by will as other goods and chattels. This statute was repealed three years after, but it re- mains on the rolls of parliament, and nothing can obliterate the fact and the consequent disgrace attaching for all time to the parliament that could pass such a law, and to the country that could endure it for a day. This reintro- duction of slavery in England by name, and in its worst form, is memorable, and serves to mark- the alteration of opinion and feeling that has since taken place, much more than any contrast between freedom of labor and wages in the sense of the political economist. Early in the reign of Elizabeth (5 Elizabeth, 1562) the statute commonly called “the Statute of Laborers” repealed all former statutes relating to laborers in husbandry and artificers or laborers engaged in particular trades, and consolidated and amended many former provisions. The statute draws a main distinction between artificers and laborers in husbandry. The former may not be hired for a less term than a year, and any unemployed person brought up in a craft or who had practised it for more than three years was bound, on pain of imprisonment, to accept service if required “by any person using the art or mystery wherein he has been exercised,” unless he had a farm in tillage, an estate worth 40 shillings- a year, or goods to the yearly value of £10. Similar provision was made in respect of service in husbandry. Every 106 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee person between the ages of twelve and sixty was in like manner bound to serve in husbandry unless possessed of property of specified amount, or em- ployed as a fisherman or mariner, or in mining, or in any of the arts or sciences previously mentioned, or unless born a gentleman, or unless a mem- ber of a university or school. Minute regulations were made with reference to the rights and obligations both of master and servant. No person retained in husbandry or trade was to go out of the county or shire w-here he last served, to serve in any other, without a testimonial. No person leaving his service could be taken into another without showing such testimonial to the authorities of the place in which he was about to serve. If he broke this regulation he was to be imprisoned till he could procure a testimonial, and unless he did so within twenty-one days he was to be whipped. Every person retaining a servant without the latter showing such testimonial forfeited £S. Besides empowering justices in session to make a rate of wages, the statute fixed with great minuteness the hours of labor. In the time of harvest, jus- tices or constables or other head officers might require artificers and persons meet for labor to serve by the day in mowing, reaping, shearing, getting, or turning of corn, grain, or hay, according to the skill and quality of the per- son, and upon refusal might put him in the stocks for two days and a night. Even single women between the ages of tw'elve and forty might be compelled to serve in such employment as the justices might direct, under pain of im- prisonment. CRIME TO ACCEPT HIGHER THAN PAY ESTAB- LISHED THREE YEARS AGO. Prior statutes were even more severe. One passed in 1349, after reciting the “unholy insistence of the working classes for higher wages,” and “the lusts of ploughmen and such laborers,” provided that “every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of threescore years, not living in merchandise, nor exercising any craft, not having of his own whereof to live, nor land about whose tillage he might employ himself, nor serving any other, shall be bound to serve any person de- siring and demanding his services, at the wages accustomed to be given for service of like nature in the twentieth year of this reign,” or three years before. No person was to pay more than the old wages, under penalty of forfeiting double what he paid ; and everj^ artificer or work- man accepting higher than the old pay was imprisoned. Beggars and vagrants, says Mr. Davis, had much to fear, as shown by this excerpt : In 1530 (22 Henry VIII.), any person, being whole and mighty in body and able to labor, found begging or being vagrant, and giving no satisfactor>- account how he lawfully obtained his living, might be arrested by a constable, and a justice might, in his discretion, cause every such idle person to be taken to the nearest town and there tied to the end of a cart naked, and to be beaten with whips throughout the town “till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping.” He was then required to take an oath to return to his home “and put himself to labor as a true man ought to do.” The whipping was to be re- peated as often as he made default ; but five years later the punishment for “rufflers, sturdy vagabonds, and valiant beggars” persisting in not working after a whipping was increased to having the upper part of the gristle of his right ear clean cut off. If still persistent he was to be tried, and executed as a felon. YOUNG SERVING MEN, OLD BEGGARS. Very interesting is Harrison’s description of the state of the labor- ing classes in England in the sixteenth century. He divided the Eng- Working of Present Laws 107 lish people into four classes, viz. : Gentlemen, citizens or burgesses, yeo- men, and artificers and laborers, the fourth class being described as follows : The fourth and last sort of people in England are day laborers, poor husbandmen, and some retailers (which have no free land), copyholders, and all artificers, as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brickmakers, mksons, etc. As for slaves and bondmen, we have none ; nay, such is the privilege of our country, by the special grace of God and bounty of our princes, that, if any come hither from other realms, so soon as they set foot on land they become so free of condition as their masters. * * ' * This fourth and last sort of people have neither voice nor authority in the commonwealth, but are to be ruled, and not to rule others ; yet they are not altogether neglected, for in cities and corporate towns, for default of yeomen, they are fain to make up their inquests of such manner of people, and in villages they are commonly made churchwardens, sidemen, ale conners, now and then constables, and many times enjoy the name of headboroughs. Unto this sort also may our great swarms of idle serving-men be referred, of whom there runneth a proverb, Young serving-men, old beggars, because service is none heritage. * * * This, furthermore, among other things I have to say of our husband- men and artificers, that they were never so excellent in their trades as at this present. But, as the workmanship of the latter sort was never more fine and curious to the eye, so was it never less strong and substantial for continuance and benefit to the buyers. Neither is there anything that hurteth the common sort of our artificers more than haste, and a barbarous or slavish desire to turn the penny, and by ridding their work to make speedy utterance of their wares; which enforceth. them to bungle up and despatch many things they care not how so they be out of their hands, whereby the buyer is often sore defrauded, and findeth to his cost that haste maketh waste, according to the proverb. Oh, how many traders and handicrafts are now in England where- of the commonwealth hath no need ! How many needful commodities have we which are perfected with great cost, etc., and yet may with far more ease and less cost be provided from other countries if we could use the means ! I will not speak of iron, glass, and such like, which spoil much wood, and yet are brought from other countries better cheap than we can make them here at home. I could exemplify also in many others. SHORT DAYS. There was one provision in the “Statute of Laborers” (1562), that seemed a Godsend to artificers and laborers. It reduced the hours of labor. Since then, as everybody knows, the number of such hours has been materially reduced in England and in all other countries, including our own. The ordinary pay at that period was tenpence a day. The provision read: All artificers and laborers being hired for wages by the day or week shall, betwixt the midst of the months of March and September, be and con- tinue at their work at or before five of the clock in the morning, and continue at work and not depart until betwixt seven and eight o’clock at night (except it be in the time of breakfast, dinner, or drinking), the which time at the most shall not exceed above two hours and a half in a day, that is to say, at every drinking one half hour, for his dinner one hour, and for his sleep when he is allowed to sleep, the which is from the midst of May to the midst of August, half an hour at the most, and at every breakfast one half hour ; and all the said artificers and laborers betwixt the midst of September and the midst of March shall be and continue at their work from the spring of the day in the morning until the night of the same day, except it be in time afore appointed for breakfast and dinner, upon pain to lose and forfeit one penny for every hour’s absence, to be deducted and defaulked out of his wages that so offend. 108 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee XXIII. TEN-HOUR DAY LAWS. In General. The Ten Hours Movement was inaugurated in dead earnest in England in 1832. It was bitterly opposed. Although debated in Par- liament for fifteen years, its advocates went to defeat year after year. Their opponents cried that such a law would paralyze industry, ruin the country. Even Bright and Cobden fought the measure with all the energy and capability and ardor these great leaders could muster on any occasion of moment. Hume, too, massive though his intellect and warm his heart, could discern nothing but disaster in the proposed reform. To him it portended bankruptcy to the manufacturer, stan^a- tion to the operative. The Ten Hours Bill, however, finally prevailed. The year was 1847. No British manufacturer was driven to the wall, no British operative suffered. To the contrary, the condition of each was radi- cally improved, and Great Britain’s welfare correspondingly promoted. Similar results were born of like legislation in other European coun- tries. Massachusetts fell into line in 1854; and six years later, al- though the factory hours in Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York ranged from 65}i to a week, and were but 60 a week in Massachusetts, both the per capita production and earnings of the Massachusetts operatives exceeded those of the operatives in any of the five other states. Equally favorable results have been observed wherever else the ten hour day has been established; and there is abundant evidence that in mines and shops and employments where custom has fixed the work- ing hours at eight the day, neither employer nor employe has sus- tained loss. In 1898 the congress of the United States appointed an industrial commission. The commission’s hearings continued for nearly four years. The following extracts are taken from its final report (1902) : The entire tendency of industry is in the direction of an increased exertion. This being true, there is but one alternative if the working population is to be protected in its health and trade longevity, namely, a reduction of the hours of labor. * * * ^ reduction in hours has never lessened the working people’s ability to compete in the markets of the world. States with shorter workdays actually manufacture their product at a lower cost than states with longer workdays. * * * In all cases where reductions have been brought about there have been strenuous objections and alarming predictions, but after a very brief period of trial these objections have disappeared, except where lack of uniformity remains a ground of complaint; and employer and employe, with this exception, alike have agreed upon the advantages of the change. * * * If it were a question of reducing hours to limits absurdly low, nothing could be said in favor of the movement; but where — as is actuallj- the case — the goal set up by the working people is the eight-hour day, and there is no proposition and no way for a five or a six-hour, the arguments for reduction need no qualification from the standpoint of the workers and little from that of employers. JOSEPHINE GOLDMARK’S GREAT WORK. A most valuable and interesting work was published in 1912 under the auspices of the “Russell Sage Foundation.” It is a study in indus- *xy, is entitled “Fatigue and Efficiency,” and its author is Josephine Working of Present Laws 109 Goldmark, secretary of the National Consumers’ League. “I am under great obligations,” reads the author’s preface, “to Doctor Fred- eric S. Lee, Dalton Professor of Physiology at Columbia University, for taking time, in the midst of his scientihc activities, to read all the proof sheets of my text and to give the benefit of his criticisms in the held of which he is a master.” Doctor Lee, whose fame is world-wide, wrote the introduction to the book, and paid rich and deserved compliment to the author’s “knowledge both of physiological laws and of the conditions of indus- trial labor,” also to her “keen vision and her capacity for critical analysis.” With regard to man’s endurance he wrote : Industrialism has been quick to accept the achievements of science in inanimate things, but slow to recognize the teachings of physiology with regard to the man himself. Methods and machines have been revolutionized, but the human element has not yet been eliminated. The man or woman or child is still essential to the method and the machine, and while the inanimate agent demands more and more of him, his fundamental physiological powers are probably not so very different from what they were when he built the pyramids and made papyrus. He may sharpen his attention, shorten his reaction time, and develop manual skill; scientific management may step in and direct his powers more intelligently; but sooner or later his physiological limit is again reached on the new plane. Try as we will we cannot get away from the fact that so long as machines need men, physiological laws must be reckoned with as a factor in industrialism. * * * This remarkable mechanism of ours, the human body, is capable of meeting enormous demands upon itself — it is long resistant to abuse. But if work is done, rest is ultimately imperative. Work and rest indeed are as close co-ordinates as are light and darkness. Without the one the other is destruction. Much remains to be discovered of fatigue and rest, and especially as to their relations in industrialism, but enough is already known to make clear that such knowledge ought to be recognized in and applied to the rational industrial procedure of the future. There is nothing more pathetic than to see an employer disregard the laws of physiology, use his helper to the breaking point, and then cast him aside. BRIEFS OF MR. BRANDEIS AND MISS GOLDMARK. Miss Goldmark’s book is in two parts, the second consisting of 557 pages, and being a reproduction of the briefs prepared by Mr. Brandeis and herself for use in the Muller cases, also in Ritchie & Co. V. W ay man and People v. Elerding. No such briefs were ever before submitted to a court of law. But little attention was paid to court de- cisions, only a few pages being devoted to them. The briefs were entitled “The World’s Experience upon which the Legislation Limit- ing the Hours of Labor for W omen is Based.” They contained the essence of reports of commissions and of inspectors the world over, of debates in legislatures, of opinions of eminent medical men and economists, and all pertaining to “the tangible human elements in- volved — health, welfare, and economic efficiency.” It was the presen- tation, as Miss Goldmark says, of “a new kind of testimony — man- kind’s experience, physical and moral, with respect to women in indus- try and the duration of their working hours.” This great work was done by Mr. Brandeis and Miss Goldmark without pay; and Mr. Brandeis argued all such cases without other compensation than the good-will of those for whom he labored and the pleasure that his labors and his victories afforded him. 110 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee NIGHT WORK IN MILLS SHOULD BE PROHIBITED. Perhaps the strongest chapters in Miss Goldmark’s book proper (Part I) are those which relate to the employment of women and chil- dren in factories and mills at night. She advocates the prohibition of such employment, and her argument is not only exhaustive and elo- quent, but is unanswerable. “It is a startling fact,” she says, “that only three American states (Massachusetts, Indiana and Nebraska) have prohibited women’s employment at night — a form of work which all the Christian nations of Europe have striven to abolish by inter- national treaty.” With regard to the regulation of the length of working hours, she says : The length of working hours has been bitterly contested by those who feared that any lessening of the hours of labor meant a corresponding economic loss. From the first dawn of protective legislation in England over a century ago to the present day, the rallying cry for the most diverse- minded opponents of legislation has been the threatened ruin of industry and manufactures. Solemn or hysterical, an honest conviction, hypocritical, pseudo-scientific, the cry has been more or less successfully invoked in every country, at every atternpted advance, bringing with it all the rancors and bitternesses through which the cause of legislation has been dragged. Yet the unconscious consensus of testimony from various states and countries on the economic benefits of the short day, recorded in official and unofficial documents, is in its turn as impressive as we found the unanimity of evidence on the physical effects of the long day. For the most part, however, all this body of information is ignored and allowed to fade into the limbo of forgotten things, in our practical efforts at legislation. We must keep reiterating that the unsolved questions and difficulties are of fundamentally the same general character today as in the past. Practically the world over, the state of the sweated trades in 1912 is “closely parallel to that of the Lancashire cotton mills in 1802.” To come nearer home, factory legislation in Pennsylvania, New York, and other American states has not yet reached the stage of British textile legislation of more than sixty years ago. And most significant of all, it is still the cry that industry will be ruined by protecting the workers, which most hampers our advance. PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE OF LOBBIES. It is the cotton lobby which throws its great influence against the work- ers in the cotton states, the glass lobby in the glass states, the laundrj-men’s association wherever legislation for laundry workers is proposed, the retail dealers’ association against an}- relief for shop girls. Individual emploj'ers, it goes without saying, are humane and enlightened, but their official organ- izations and representatives have won a sinister distinction in opposing labor legislation. Such associations of employers as those named above, are found officially in the field at every session of the state legislatures. It was, for instance, the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association which officially com- batted any restriction whatsoever of women’s hours in Ilinois, and, failing to defeat the passage of the ten-hour law in 1909, bent all its energies to have the law annulled by the courts. It was the laundrjTnen’s associations which played the same part in Oregon in 1907, and even carried a case against the Oregon ten-hour law to the United States supreme court. It is the Retail Dry Goods Merchants’ Association of New York City which by various means has succeeded in stifling all limitation of hours for adult women employed in department stores. It was the official Manufacturers’ Association of Colo- rado which issued a statement to the legislature in 1911, pointing out the dangers of the proposed eight-hour law, and denying its need by recount- ing the contributions of Colorado manufacturers to various charities. The universal argument which has so often crowned their official efforts with Working of Present Laws 111 success is the abject money-makers’ plea, the fear of loss — “Save us lest we perish.” As the authors of the standard history of factory legislation have said, writing with what Mr. Sidney Webb calls “commendable restraint,” as “his- torical students” : “In the beginning, the proposal to restrict children to a working day about 30 per cent longer than strong men now think good for themselves, was greeted almost hysterically, and the ruin of trade and commercial col- lapse of the country were freely prophesied as the necessary result. Inquiry after inquiry, commission after commission, have demonstrated the ground- lessness of these rather unmanly terrors, yet the Factory Code is still the barest minimum and scarcely ever is there a discussion in Parliament on the subject that does not reveal that the masses of information and material that exist for the full economic justification of further measures are prac- tically unknown to all but a select few of our legislators.” XXIV. WAGES PAID. In Steel Works, Etc. The best paid mill hands in America are those employed in our steel works and rolling’ mills. The average pay is $681 a year — $2.25 a day for 303 days. Divide $681 by 365, and the quotient, $1.87, rep- resents the average daily income of a worker in these establishments. Not much money, is it? The next best paid wage earners in the coun- try are the steam railway employes — $659 a year being the average. Including these steel workers and railroaders, the present average yearly pay of men wage earners in the United States (boys excluded) is $513.76 — less than $1.70 for every working day, and but $1.41 for each of the 365 days in the year. Not much money, is it? Especially not, when $1.70 today will do no more than could be done with $1.03 ten years ago. The cost of living has increased 59 per cent, since then, while wages have been advanced but 26 per cent. Can there be any doubt of this — either that workers do not receive enough for their labor, or that they are compelled to pay too much for what they must buy? Take, for instance, a family of seven — hus- band, wife, four children, and one grandparent. The children are small, the grandparent feeble, the wife has all she can do at home. The husband is the only wage earner. If he works in a steel mill and gets average pay he has 27 cents a day for each member of his famly — but 20 cents a day if he gets the average pay of a wage earner. With this he must shelter, clothe, feed and educate — must also pay for med- ical and surgical treatment, and must pay for the burial of his dead. Is this right? Remember, too, that $681 and $513.76 represent, re- spectively, average yearly wages. Thousands of men — foremen, skilled mechanics, and the like, receive from $2.50 to $3.50 and $4 a day. How many tens and how many fifties of thousands must work for much less than the average wage? And suppose that the bread winner should have a siege of typhoid fever, break an arm, or lose a leg ! In Massachusetts. A recent number of “The Public” contained an instructive article by Mr. Wm. E. McKenna on “Manufactures in Massachusetts.” Not- withstanding the proud boast of the statisticians of that state that its factory hands are paid more per capita for their labor than is paid for like work in other New England states, Mr. McKenna’s portrayal 112 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee of conditions is not flattering to employers, nor does it suggest that the workers in the mills of Massachusetts fare any better than persons employed in shoe factories and cotton and woolen mills west of the Alleghenies, whatever may be true of New England and the Middle states. He says: “Some time when you are in an arithmetical mood you might take a lead pencil and a large sheet of paper and the latest report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics, and do some figuring. The report will give you all sorts of information about Massachusetts manufac- turerers for the year 1910, with comparisons for the three preceding years. You will find that while conditions had improved in some re- spects since 1907, the panic year, they were not ideal at last accounts. “The average wages for 1907 for all wage earners were about $515, for 1910 about $527 — an advance of less than 3 per cent. “Taking some of the larger industries separately, you will find that in boots and shoes there was an increase of less than 1 per cent, in leather goods about 4 per cent, in paper and wood pulp 4 per cent, in woolens practically no change, in cotton goods a slight decline. “Now if you will turn to the U. S. Bureau of Labor report (Bulle- tin 106, part 1, page 14) you will find an estimated increase in the cost of food for an average workingman’s family from 1907 to 1910 of about 9 per cent. “These figures apply to all wage earners in Massachusetts manu- factures, men, women and ‘young persons under 18.’ Let us do a little figuring on adult males only — that is to say, males over 18. “The U. S. Bureau of Labor estimates the cost of food for an average workingman’s family as $423 in 1910. What it calls such a family is five and a decimal persons. Let us call it five, because, you know, if you have any more than five in the family you will have at least six. If you want to know what $423 a year means for a family of five, multiply 5 by 365 and the result by 3, and you will have the number of meals for a year, 5,475, assuming that they eat three meals a day each, which, indeed, may be unnecessary. Then $423 will mean something less than eight cents a meal. It does not seem extrav- agant. “Now if you look at the Massachusetts tables }mu will find that about 95,000 of the adult male wage earners out of about 420,000 could not pay for the food for such a family. If you figure rent for this average family at $10 per month and clothing at $10 more (figures which are justified by some other estimates of the Bureau of Labor) you will bring up the expenditure to $663, nearly $13 a week. If 3 mu call it $12 a week and look at your Massachusetts table again, 3 "ou will see that about 215,000 of those 420,000 adults, more than half, could not pay it. If you add $10 a month more for expenses other than food, rent and clothing, you will have $783 a year, about $15 a week. And then you will find that 300,000 of those 420,000 could not afford family life on that scale. We sometimes hear that the men do not stay in Massachusetts. Perhaps some of those who are still there are trying to save enough out of their meager incomes to get away. Working of Present Laws 113 |i “The above figures are based on the supposition that the adult I males are employed continuously during the year. As a matter of fact I there was lost time in almost every line. The boots and shoes concerns were operated on an average of 283 days out of 305, cotton 285 out of 305, woolens 271 out of 305, and so on. Just why any were shut down is not explained, but we may conjecture that it was not because every- body was too well supplied with boots and shoes and cotton and woolen goods. “Wages represented a larger percentage of the total product in I 1910 than in 1907 ; also a larger percentage of ‘the value added by I manufacture.’ You get this ‘value added by manufacture, by subtract- ing from the total product the value of stock and materials. Thus, in 1910 the total product was, in round numbers, $1,465,000,000; value of stock and materials $863,000,000; difference $602,000,000, of which $304,000,000 was paid in wages. Would it be unduly inquisitive to ask what became of the other $298,000,000? Ten per cent of the capi- tal (or capitalization) would be about $120,000,000, but that would leave a lot of money to be accounted for. [ “Let us hope that some day the progressive old Commonwealth of f Massachusetts will satisfy our curiosity on that point.” XXV. MINIMUM WAGE. The “Dark Ages.” Time was when a master might starve, torture or kill his slave at his own sweet will. He was privileged to act as judge, jury and execu- tioner. There were no bothersome details. There was no judicial inquiry, no official report to be made. Any such requirement, whether made by council or sovereign, would have been an unwarranted in- fringement upon his natural and inalienable rights. It was the right of every master to do with his own as he pleased. No color line was ^ drawn. The master had a conscience. It would be wrong to make : distinction because of race or complexion. Whether white, black, brown or yellow, the slave was entitled to no special privileges. No master had yet inventoried a red “chattel.” Conditions changed. Kings and cabinets, and even commoners, de- manded the change. Slave owners were compelled to recognize the strange and abominable dectrine, to them, that every state should have i, voice with respect to the welfare of all within its borders. In every l| civilized land where slavery existed it became the duty of masters to !' provide their slaves with proper and sufficient food, clothing, shelter, j and medical treatment. In common law countries, masters, despite I their protest that it would be an abuse of legislative power, were re- t quired to see that their apprentices were properly and sufficiently fed, I clothed and sheltered, and humanely cared for whenever sick or in- I jured. House servants were entitled to suitable and sufficient food and comfortable sleeping quarters. I Eventually, other conditions were bettered. The hours of labor were lessened by legislative enactment, statutes were passed requiring of employers and landlords safety devices and sanitary improvements. I Then came spread of the belief that man should be punished for cruelty 114 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee to his horse or his dog. Statutes followed accordingly. Ever}- owner or keeper was required to see that his domestic animals and fowls should be properly cared for as to food, water and shelter, and in no manner be cruelly treated. Such is the present law in Illinois. An- other of this state’s statutes provides that special officers, to be ap- pointed by the governor, shall see that all stock in certain stockyards and other designated places shall be “properly fed and cared for’’ at all times. Another change is impending. The feeling is rife in this country that the pay of his employes should not solely depend upon the will or the whim of the employer. The belief is wide-spread and deep-rooted that every capable and faithful employe should have not only a living wage but a fair one. The law aimed that the slave should neither starve nor go hungr}L The law’s beneficence did not result in all smiles and no scowls for the apprentice, but it shielded him from kicks, hunger and cold. Hard was the lot of the lad apprenticed to harsh master, but he at least had a living independent of charity — independent of a father’s earnings all needed by others at home. Whether in health or in sickness he knew that he would burden neither his home nor the parish. None will say that these bondsmen, whether full slave or half-free, did not earn their beds and enough to eat and wear. And who, unless heartless, would ask for repeal of the statutes protecting dumb creatures? Who would destroy these measures intended to prevent return of the cruelties so bitterly known by “Black Beauty’’ and “Ginger”? Fair Wage Demand Founded on Right. The popular demand for a fair wage is founded upon right. Surely what was right in the case of the slave, the apprentice and the domestic — what is right in the case of today’s horse and ox — would not be un- just or unreasonable in the csae of the employe who devotes to his or her employer full time and labor every working day in the year. The man, woman, boy or girl who does this earns his or her full living — has as much right to an honest wage as the employer has to his profits — and when in health should need no assistance from relative, friend, stranger or the poor fund. Gratifying results have sprung from the work inaugurated by this Committee. Its inquiries with respect to the wage question were searching, exhaustive and unparalleled. The committee did what had never been done in any state in the case of women and girls employed in stores — it held its sessions in public and required merchant princes to appear and testify as to wages paid. That many store employes have been poorly paid has always been known, but the extent of this wrong as brought out by this testimony was a revelation. The pro- ceedings challenged the attention and aroused the interest of people generally in every state in the Union. The press gave the testimony to the entire country. General agitation followed, and many employ- ers upon reading the startling developments, instituted inquiries of their own which resulted in the voluntary increase of pay. But for this Committee’s earnest and thorough work thousands and thousands of girls and women and thousands of boys and men in such employs would still be working for grossly inadequate pay. Working of Present Laws 115 Thousands of girls and young women in every great city in the United States are paid but from three to seven dollars a week. They work from eight to ten hours a day. Their work is well done. One need not go beyond the figures themselves to know whether these girls and women have a living wage. Room rent alone is three dollars a week — carfare at least sixty cents. Every one who works ought to have two or three meals a day, and an occasional change of clothing. A dime once in a while for Sunday or evening carfare; a few pennies for church ; a few for newspapers ; a little change for brushes, pastes and powders ; a little more for an apple or two or a glass of soda water once a week; a simple present now and then for parent, sister or brother; a few quarters a year to help along subscriptions for un- fortunate friends, even strangers — these, too, are items that may prop- erly be considered in estimating what constitutes a living wage. And what of books, magazines, lectures, amusements, night schools per- haps, and the probable calls for assistance from parents or other rela- tives? And what of the seventy-five cents or the dollar a week that she is anxious to set aside for use in case of unemployment, sickness or accident — or for procurement of modest burial in the event of her death ? Suppose that two or three of her family should sicken, and one or two die ! Payment of Fair Wage Must Be Compelled. Four of every five employers will never give their people increase of pay without compulsion. Five of the great stores in Chicago em- ploy in all 13,610 women and girls — the two leaders employing 4,732 and 4,222, respectively. The average pay is but $9.20 in the first store, $10.67 in the second. More than 7,000 in the five stores receive less than a living wage, ^he net profits for 1912 of one of these concerns was seven million dollars. One of the smaller establishments made a net profit that year of $2,370,000. The wages of 1,013 of its employes run from three to seven dollars a week. Had each of these girls and women been paid eight dollars a week the profits would have been re- spectable — $2,270,472. Four of these stores’ managers testified before the Committee that for themselves they had no fear of a minimum wage of even twelve dollars a week — that two dollars a day might be paid “without ma- terially affecting our profits.” It is the smaller merchants for whom these gentlemen are solicitous. One manager declared that five cents will buy a breakfast good enough for any working girl — a cup of coffee and three little rolls. Another manager, when asked whether he could live on eight dollars a week, answered : “I have never tried it.” Years ago employers cried unconstitutionality, confiscation, pater- nalism, and class legislation — cries no more heeded than those of the slaveholder in time’s misty past. The “obnoxious” laws were made. Men no longer were compelled to work sixteen or fourteen hours a day or go hungry. These cries will be heard again. Men may threaten to close shop. It will do them no good. The fair-wage law will come because it is right. It will stay. The world will move. The soil will 116 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee be tilled and cropped — goods will be made and sold. There will be less “philanthropy,” perhaps, but more justice. At the hearings held by this Committee the consensus of testimony appeared to be, that of employers as well as employes, that a woman or girl supporting herself should in any large city have at least $8 a week, the same to be applied as follows : Room rent $3.00 Breakfasts 40 Lunches 90 Dinners 1.40 Care fares 60 Clothing, etc 1.70 Total $8.00 Does any reasonable person believe that three dollars is too great an allowance for room rent? It does seem too much, but start out in search of a decent room in a respectable neighborhood, and the searcher will discover before the day is over that nothing better can be done. Forty cents for seven breakfasts, ninety cents for seven lunches, twenty cents for a dinner, ten cents for car fare six days in the week — not any for Sunday — are these figures unreasonable? And think of $88.40 for clothing, and washing, and medicines, and all inci- dentals for an entire year ! Do these workers receive enough for their labor? Are they compelled to pay too much for what they must buy? What About Funeral Expenses? And can any reasonable person believe it unreasonable that an in- dustrious, temperate and economical wage earner should have a wage that would enable him or her to pay for funerals in the family, to lay by sufficient to defray the cost of his or her own burial? In this con- nection, a few words regarding the potter’s field, for they are appro- priate : The body of Ida G. Leegson, who was murdered recently in Chi- cago, was buried at the expense of her former classmates. Her only near relative, a sister, lives in California and is poor. But for the classmates the body would have been buried in the potter’s field. An- other Chicagoan, John Kalasa, was killed about the same time as Miss Leegson. His mother, who is a widow and lives in Detroit, was asked by telegraph what disposition should be made of the body. “As you will,” was the mother’s reply. “I have no money and cannot pay for a funeral. My boy was killed in Chicago and Chicago must bury him.” The potter’s field should go. It is shameful that it has existence. A potter’s field was intended originally for paupers, unknown persons and criminals. It was never intended for persons like !Miss Leegson and this Detroit widow’s boy. It was not right to compel jMiss Leeg- son’s classmates to pay for her funeral. Some of them, perhaps, have but little money. The city should arrange for burials of destitutes in ordinary cemeteries, and no cemetery should have a certain part or section set aside for those buried at the public expense. Neither the location of the grave nor the grave itself should indicate that the de- ceased had died friendless or penniless. No stranger should be able to pick out a pauper’s grave. Working of Present Laws 117 The two persons in question were not unknown where they died. They were not criminals. They left no money or other property, but they were not paupers. If to be without property means that one is a pauper, every great city is filled with paupers — men and women who work every day in the year — “paupers” as good men and women as breathe. Even one who has become an actual pauper or a criminal may have been an excellent citizen. The potter’s field should go. It does not belong to this century. XXVI. WEEK IN A NEW YORK DEPARTMENT STORE. A week’s experiences of a young woman in a New York depart- ment store, published in the “Washington Post,” February 1, 1915, and copied from the “New York WYrld,” so closely resemble many testified to before this commission that the narrative is here repro- duced : Shop Girl Spends $6.61 a Week and Then Just Barely Exists. Natalie De Bogory recites her first attempt to live on $6.50 for seven days while employed in department store — scanty meals and no extravagances her daily program — eleven cents shy, despite tips and rigid economy. Work Is the hardest of all human needs to find — except before Christ- mas. Hence, it was that, clothed in my $8.17 outfit, nine days before Christmas, I was successful in finding- work in one of the largest depart- ment stores. Although it was not yet 9 o’clock when I reached the em- ployment desk there were several dozen girls waiting, and before 10 o’clock the number had swelled to 100 . By 10:30 I was already in my de- partment, hastily taken in hand by the aisle manager, who explained to me the complicated check and how it should be filled out. Ten minutes later I was in the vortex of the work, filling orders for the rush of cus- tomers. Hungry an Hour After Liunch. At midday I went to the lunchroom for employes of the store. Lunch cost me 16 cents — and I was hungry one hour later, for the food, although it sounds plentiful in description, lacked nourishment. The two frankfurters were boiled until they were a pale color; the saurkraut was only barely edible: the coffee was watery: only the rolls and butter were satisfac- tory. That whole day until 6:10 I was on my feet attending to customers. My feet burned and ached till the minutes seemed like hours. I lounged against the counters and tables in a vain attempt to rest, standing first on one leg, then on the other. Dinner and “Home.” Then I had a 25-cent dinner in a re^aurapt. There was apparently sufficient fppd, but it only allayed ■ 1 ELEVEN CENTS DEFICIT IN HER AITEEKLY ACCOUNT Wednesday — Breakfast. 15c; lunch, 16c; dinner, 25c; car- fare, 10c $0.66 Thursday — Breakfast, 15c; lunch, 14c: dinner, 25c: car- fare, 10c 64 Friday — Breakfast, 15c; lunch, 16c: dinner, 25c: carfare, 10c 66 Saturday — Breakfast, 15c: lunch, 17c; dinner, 25c: car- fare, 10c 67 Sunday — ■ Breakfast, 10c: lunch, 10c; dinner, 20c: washing, 43c 83 Total for five days $3.46 At an average daily expense of 65 cents, Monday and Tuesday would have cost me 1.30 On same basis, my room rent for week 2.00 Total for week $6.76 Received in tips 15 $6.61 Deficit 11 I hunger, for I was ravenous an hour after. The soup was too watery; there was only enough meat for a first “helping,” as it would be deemed in a household, and the two veget- ables were doled out in portions as small as they were tasteless. A des- sert, coffee, with bread and butter, completed the meal. And after that? Nothing, 118 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee It was only a little after 8 o’clock, and I had no place to go, only a hall bedroom to sit in. I dare not afford the money for a newspaper. There was nothing for me to do but go to bed. Her Second Day’s Schedule. Next day I had to be at the store counter by 8:15, and I had to work until 6:35, without a rest, except at lunch time. That second day I sold $35 worth of goods, which represented a large number of sales, for the articles were cheap. My highest sale record in one day reached $47, but the average was $30. That day I ate only a very unpleas- ant tomato soup, with rolls and but- ter and coffee; it cost me 14 cents. A woman gave me a 10-cent tip, which I had to take, but even this accre- tion did not justify me in any extra- vagance. Friday was just like the days be- fore and the days that followed. I rose, dressed, ate, worked, ate at the store a watery clam chowder, worked, ate, felt a little lonely, and went to bed. What else was there to do? Light Diet on Sunday, Sunday was a bright day. It was late when I got up. My breakfast did not take me long; I would have lingered, but you can’t linger over one egg. Then I made up my accounts for the week. My expenses came to $6.61, making a deficit of 11 cents, in spite of the fact that I had received 15 cents in tips. To balance my accounts I would have to do without my 20- cent dinner on Sunday: but crackers and milk are a frequent diet with the poorly paid woman. I had hoped to buy a paper, but I could not afford to do so. So the days went until Thursday. On that day everybody talked and thought only of the evening, when, with our pay envelopes, most of us would receive printed slips thanking us for our services. When evening came I was laid off, with many others. Chrlstma.s Day Lonely. Christmas day was just like Sun- day. Oh, the weary, lonely hours! It was 7:30 when I went to bed. On Saturday there was absolutely nothing to do. It was fruitless look- ing for a job. I spent the day as I did all other days of rest. I made up mv weekly account on Sunday. It was 11 cents short — ^just a chip off my lunch and dinner. I was elated. But I really would have liked a little supper before going to bed that night. XXVII. A PROGRESSIVE MERCHANT. Respecting minimum wage laws, the following appeared a few months ago in the first column of the editorial page of the “Chicago Evening American”: At a recent gathering of the National Dry Goods Association in the city of New York, representing with unusual force the business energj- and intelligence in the United States, an address was made by Mr. Arthur Letts, of Los Angeles. His subject was the progressive merchant. The extracts which follow, taken from his address, will interest thousands of other merchants, deeply anxious to do their full duty, and not limiting their sense of responsibility to merchandising or money making onlj-. Merchants and employes alike will be interested in what !Mr. Letts said about the minimum wage and the eight-hour da}'. The able merchant wdll welcome the minimum wage, wLich will com- pel all others to work on equal conditions with him as regards labor. The minimum wage and an eight-hour day wall hurt no merchant, when they are made compulsory for all merchants. No business man wants to concentrate his energies on overworking or underpaying women if he can help it. But when competition takes the form of wage-cutting and long hours then the man who hates it most may be compelled to cut wages and over- work his own employes — when failure is the alternative. The spirit of Mr. Letts’ intelligent and patriotic talk which we give here is an encouraging sign of the times, hopeful and inspiring. These are the extracts from the address of this broad- minded merchant that relate to the laws mentioned : My subject is the “Progressive Merchant.” Sometimes, as you all know, when we are taking our greatest steps, it is most difficult to see what we are accomplishing. We have to wait until the “smoke clears away.” In the midst of the present industrial unrest, with _ the tension existing between capital and labor, and the decided battle lines marked Working of Present Laws 119 out between them, we are found asking ourselves or each other : “Is life just the making of money?” “Are there no high ideals?” “Is the world dollar mad?” And while we are asking, a thousand voices are raised in .protest. One says, “We are seeking a minimum wage.” A second, “We are sharing our profits.” A third, “We are pushing the eight-hour law.” And still another, “We are recognizing a brotherhood with the people that serve us.” i.j There is a great cry ringing through our nation. It is a cry for better conditions for the working woman, the working man ; “Better pay for better service.” ! The progressive merchant is he who has a deep interest in his em- ployes. He gives the best sanitary conditions possible in his establishment. He provides the best food at the lowest cost to his employes in their lunch- room. He furnishes seats behind the counter. He has welfare workers in his establishment. He protects his female employes. He does not pay women dependent upon themselves less than a livable wage. He encourages mutual benefit associations. His interest in his em- ployes is humane and progressive. He encourages shorter hours of labor; he is ever to be recognized as favoring a profit-sharing plan. In consequence, he has the loyalty of his employes and possesses a soul that is above the dollar mark. The progressive is also he who believes in business associations ; and all cities should have their associations. I urge you to form local asso- ciations in your own town, composed of merchants in your own line of business. Cut out all prejudices and suspicions. Form a group of retail dry goods merchants for bettering conditions. Meet together semi- monthly or monthly, socially at luncheon. Discuss all matters of interest to yourselves. There is no better way of improving trade conditions than through such interchange of ideas and methods as business associations make possible. The movement for the establishment of a minimum wage for women and girls is a matter of intense interest to every retailer throughout the country. Many states have taken up the matter in all seriousness. New laws are being made, some rational, some irrational. In a measure, they are experimental, but the right angle will be struck and conditions will be adjusted. You have to meet these conditions; meet them in a spirit of mutual concession. Business men are proverbially averse to government dictation of their affairs in any particular. It is essential, however, to recognize the fact that “governmental interference,” as some term it, is a real development of the present day, and one that cannot be averted. The best and only course for every retailer, as for every other business man, is to realize the new tendencies and conditions, and gracefully to accept them — yes, and, better still, to anticipate the inevitable. Blocking investigations immediately arouses a suspicion that there is something to hide. The merchants of one great state, when the Governor announced that he was in favor of a minimum wage for women, telegraphed him that they were heartily in sympathy with the movement, sent delegates to the capital, and the spirit of mutual esteem and help was fostered. A commission was named, and is now adjusting a fair wage schedule. Frankly, gentlemen, the minimum wage for women has come. You will have to meet it. And why shouldn’t you meet it? What harm is it going to do you if every merchant has to pay the same wage? It becomes precisely the same as other expense accounts. A few years ago my superintendent told me that he had been able to cut down the wages of our employes lll4 per cent. At that time I thought it a fine thing, but I have come to see more clearly. With the minimum wage there will be no injustice and no advantage 120 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee taken. Hitherto the law of supply and demand fixed the wage schedule. Henceforth it will be efficiency, and if the cost of selling is increased the purchaser is the one who will pay. Of course, it is hard for the stand-patter to meet present conditions. He hates to give way. He likes to do business the same as twenty years ago. He doesn’t want these changes. Well, gentlemen, he must accept them or retire from business. We must be open-minded. The most reasonable legislation affecting wages which has yet been secured is that which allows a commission composed of employers, em- ployes and the public to agree upon a minimum wage, taking into con- sideration the financial condition of the concern it will affect, and making punishable a refusal to pay the agreed wage by the publication of the names of the employers refusing in the daily newspapers. We ought all to secure legislation as rational as this. When this law first came to our state we thought it very drastic, inasmuch as it provides that no 'woman or girl employe may work more than eight hours in any day. Time, however, has proved the wisdom of this law. Merchants have adapted themselves to it. Business proceeds wdth ever-increasing prosperity, and we are scarcely conscious of ever having worked without an eight-hour law in effect. What we need is co-operation, that spirit of getting together which has made the West what it is today. The dry goods merchants of one state organized a local association, met together at luncheon, and in dis- cussing matters of interest to them all decided to open at 9 A. M. and close at 5:30 P. M. Two years after this state passed an eight-hour law. M’hat a credit to these merchants to be not only in line, but ahead of progress! Anticipate the minimum wage by consulting with your school boards and arranging to install in your local schools vocational training or “mer- cantile efficiency.” That is the fundamental principle of a successful busi- ness equipment, the mercantile value of honesty and character as a business asset and the essential study of reading, writing and arithmetic, which are indispensable as qualifications for a position. Every person has something to sell, the product of his brain, the skill of his fingers or the strength of his muscles. He must become efficient, so as to render satisfactory service when selling his ability or his merchandise. Mercantile efficiency means the most finished form of salesmanship, the most enduring, the most honest, the most ethical, and the most profitable. It is here because there is a demand for it, a need for it — the world is thinking. Young people are beginning to demand sj’stematic instruction that will help them to meet the daily demands of life. Our boys and girls should be allowed an intelligent selection of a vocation, instead of the haphazard entrance into whatever position presents itself on leaving school. XXVIII. DESIRED REFORMS. Fair Pay and Fair Hours. Whatever the average person may believe respecting the number of hours a day a male adult may reasonably be expected to put in at manual labor, it seems improbable that in the year 1916 many may be found who advocate more than eight hours in the case either of girls, boys or women; and whether the worker be man, woman, boy or girl, surely it must be common belief that the wage should be decent. Secretary of Commerce Redfield strikes popular chord when he says : “Every employer, rich or poor, should be fair to his employes, and the time is coming when big dividends combined with low wages Working of Present Laws 121 will not be respectable. The idea that men rightly can profit out of conditions under which their fellows wrongly live will not last. It is uncertain how soon public opinion will say that a wage for working people in shop or foundry that is insufficient to maintain them in de- cency shall not go on side by side with a costly home for the owner of that business, and perhaps even with gifts on his part to charities and education.” Popular, too, and popular because it is right, is the statement in the opinion in the Harvester case that “if a man cannot maintain his enterprise without cutting down the wages which are proper to be paid to his employes— at all events the wages essential for their living — it would be better that he should abandon the enterprise.” A minimum wage for women and for girls should obtain in every American State. Legislation in that regard should nowhere be delayed ; and with such action should also come reformations regarding the four subjects next mentioned. Uniform Marriage and Divorce Laws. The present divorce laws of New York breed perjury and impurity. The causes for divorce are but five — impotency, consanguinity, bigamy, marriage by force, adultery. Most of the decrees granted, naturally, are for the fifth cause mentioned. It is seldom that any of the other causes exist. Consequence? That a husband or wife, in order to be divorced, either sins or pretends to have sinned, or conspires with the other to sin or to make showing of it. Scores of decrees are granted every year for infidelity when there has been no infidelity at all — noth- ing but make-believe infidelity. It is outrageous that either man or woman should feel compelled to resort to such conduct, or to counte- nance it, that he or she may be divorced from spouse who is cruel, a deserter, a felon, or an habitual drunkard. Divorce laws should be uniform throughout the entire country. The causes for divorce should neither be too few nor too many. In- compatibility of temper and kindred trivialities should find no recogni- tion, but in addition to the five causes recognized in New York, there should be added extreme cruelty, desertion, habitual drunkenness, fail- ure to support, imprisonment in a penitentiary, marriage by fraud, insanity existing at the time of marriage. Our statutes should also be uniform throughout the United States. A marriage license should be obtained at least ten days before the marriage. Publication of the license should be made immediately upon its issuance and such publica- tion should never be suppressed. From 1887 to 1906 American courts dissolved 955,535 marriages — one divorce to every thirteen marriages. There is something wrong. What is it? Is the fault that of legislators or judges? Both; but most of it lies with the latter. It is the administration of the laws rather than the laws themselves that ordinarily invites censure. Our judges, too many of them, have been careless and indifferent. They have winked at “residences” that were not bona fide residences. They have accepted as true that which but slight effort would have shown to be perjury. The testimony has gone in one ear and out of the other. They have done practically nothing to reunite the parties. Too many of the cases have been tried as police court cases are tried. 122 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Judges have granted decrees when they knew that there was collusion — knew that one of the parties, perhaps both, contemplated another mar- riage that very week, or even day. It is this practice, rather than the laws, that has cheapened divorce. The supreme courts, too, have cheapened it. Many a circuit or district judge, starting out in the right way, has in time become indifferent because of the supreme court’s reversals of his divorce cases. A judge is not very apt to deny decrees when he knows that the supreme court will grant them. EMPLOY COMMON SENSE. What should be done? Insist upon bona fide residences. Require personal notice or service upon the defendant whenever possible. Erown upon collusion and perjury. Weigh the evidence as it is weighed in ordinary cases. Employ common sense. Refuse to grant a decree for things that have happened time and time again in the judge’s own home without breaking up his household. Provide for the appearance of the public prosecutor in every case in which there are minor chil- dren — not a nominal or perfunctory appearance, but an honest one. Strive for reconciliation. Do away entirely with the taking of proofs before commissioners or referees, except the depositions of witnesses beyond the jurisdiction. Grant no decree until six months after the filing of the bill. Pro- hibit remarriage of either party before the end of the ninth month. Take no testimony in private. Provide that the questions of alimony and of the children’s maintenance shall be open during the husband’s lifetime, whether he remarries or not, nothing to cut off additional alimony to the wife, in case of subsequent fortune coming to him, but her remarriage. Make it clear to every man and woman that his or her right to a divorce must be as clearly established as the right to recover for the loss of an arm ; that marriage contracts are at least as binding as any other contract; and make it impossible for any person to marry legally in any other state during the prohibited period. Judge Joseph Aspinall of Brooklyn put it nicely two years ago when discussing an abuse that has so long obtained. “It is idiotic,” he said, “that I should solemnly hand down a decision in the supreme court of New York forbidding a man to marrj^ again in the lifetime of his wdfe from whom he has just been divorced, when in ten minutes and for ten cents he can go to New Jersey and be legally married.” MONEY NO MORE SACRED THAN MARRIAGE. Wildcat money had to go. People tired of it. They would no longer tolerate currency that was not current. The system became intolerable that made it possible for “money” good in Illinois to be worthless in Indiana. It was at least exasperating for a man to have his wallet stuffed with bank notes and yet not know whether he had a cent or not. The people demanded a change and they got it. Ever since the change, paper money, so-called, has been of no greater value at home or forty miles from home, than in any other part of the L^nited States. No matter in what section he may be, a man usually can tell without consulting either banker or lawyer whether what he carries is mone)' or not. Working of Present Laws 123 Not so in the case of marriage. With forty-eight different sets of divorce laws it is not surprising that complications exist. As things stand, A may be married in one state, unmarried in another. B, although not a veritable Mormon, may have two living wives — one in Illinois, the second in some other state. So, of course, may it be with women. And occasionally, even a good lawyer finds it impossible to state with certainty whether A or B is legally married or not. As a consequence, children frequently are illegitimated — practically bas- tardized. Nine-tenths of these children, too, are born to parents who have never intended to violate the laws of either state or society. There is no cure for this evil except uniform marriage and divorce laws. Forty-eight states would not come into this union of laws in forty-eight years. The national congress and the president could give the desired relief inside of forty-eight hours. Surely, money is no more sacred than marriage. Indemnity for Unjust Imprisonment. Wherever the common law has obtained damages have always been recoverable for slander, libel and false imprisonment. Any person slandered, libeled or inexcusably deprived of liberty has had right of action against the guilty person or persons. Unfortunately, however, no provision has ever been made in any English-speaking country or state for the recovery of damages from the state by one wrongfully imprisoned for crime. Legislatures have granted indemnities to innocent persons released from wrongful im- prisonment, but such grants have been made as matter of grace rather than of right. No matter how long the imprisonment, how great the pecuniary loss, the wronged individual has been without legal right to demand indemnification by the state. The allowance of an indemnity has depended entirely upon the mood of the legislature. A bill is now before the congress to provide for the recovery of damages by federal prisoners wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. The bill should prevail. A similar law should be enacted in every state in the Union. It is not enough that the law affords the injured party a remedy against the person or persons whose perjury brought about conviction. The perjurer or perjurers may be execution-proof, may be dead. In a majority of cases, too, the false testimony proceeds not from perjury, but from mistake — mistake for which there is no legal liability. Various laws looking toward the relief by the state of persons wrongfully imprisoned have been enacted in Austria, Hungary, France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Mexico. The bill now before our congress should become a law. Every state in the Union should hasten to do what should have been done long ago. The examples set by the peoples of Europe and of Latin- America should be followed by our people without further delay. The denial of justice to an innocent prisoner was a wrong in any of the past centuries, is not short of a crime in the twentieth century. Think of it! Years in prison, loss of home, friends, earnings, name, health — absolutelv innocent — and then be turned adrift without a dollar. Or, sadder still, perhaps, return to loyal but destitute family. 124 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee XXIX. THE STATE CONSTITUTION. A number of men got together forty-six years ago and framed a new constitution for Illinois. The people of the state ratified it and it became of force August 8, 1870. This constitution provides that if two-thirds of the members of each house of the general assembly shall so order, the question of holding a convention for the purpose of revising, altering or amending the constitution of 1870 shall be sub- mitted to the people at the next general election. If a majority of the electors voting at such election shall favor the holding of such convention, the same shall be held and its final action be submitted in due time to the state’s electors for ratification or rejection. Unless a majority of the electors voting at the election shall vote in favor of the convention’s work, nothing can be done toward a change until the next session of the legislature or general assembly. Then the same performance may be repeated if two-thirds of the members of each house shall be agreeable. Should two-thirds of all the members elected to each of the two houses elect not to call for a convention, but to submit amendments directly to the people, provision is made for such action; but the general assembly is prohibited from proposing “amendments to more than one article of this constitution at the same session, nor to the same article oftener than once in four years.” It would have been just as competent for the constitution makers of 1870 to provide that the question of holding a convention should only be submitted when demanded by nine-tenths, or by an unanimous vote of the members of the legislature, as it was to provide for a two-thirds vote ; and equally competent to provide that the work of the convention should be ratified only in case of an unanimous vote of the electors to that effect. Think of the absurdity and the injustice of declaring in 1870 or any other year that the work of such year should and must stand without change for an hundred or a thousand years unless two-thirds of the members of each house of the legisla- ture shall consent to have the question of such change submitted to the people ! And what is to be thought of an ironclad provision that at no time, no matter what the exigencies, and even though every man voting for the constitution containing such provision may have been in his grave half a century or more, but one article can be amended by the people at the same time? A constitutional convention may not be necessary; but when the legislature next convenes in general session, steps should immediately be taken to amend the article in which appears this unreasonable, uniust and abominable restriction. The people of 1870 had no more right to tie the hands of the people of 1916 than we have to tie those of the people of 1957 or 2000. Suppose that this constitution should have provided that women should have no vote at any election; that railway charges should never be the subject of legislation; that a legal day’s labor should not be less than twelve hours ; that the constitution should be subject to change or amendment onty once ever}" fift}- years; and that it could be changed or amended only by an unanimous vote ! W^ould not courts, prone though they be to find constitutional objec- tions, find room for the holding that such provisions were too un- Working of Present Laws 125 reasonable to be upheld or sustained in the twentieth century? May not there be room for such finding with respect to the constitution as it is? A constitution is not a statute, but it is nevertheless a law. Is it not still the rule that when the reason for a law ceases the law itself should cease? Judge Cooley and other law writers in his class have all agreed that the legislature of an American state, unlike the national congress, has unlimited power in regard to legislation, except where it is ex- pressly restrained by state or national constitutional provisions ; that the presumption is that it can make effective any measure passed by it, which presumption can only be overcome by indisputable showing that the enactment is in direct violation of either the state or federal constitution, or both; that the courts will always incline toward the upholding of the act’s validity; and that in case of doubt it will be resolved in favor of the legislature’s power. All judges, however, have not the inclination so to act; and no American constitution has yet pointed out way to punish, other than at the polls, the authors of an unconstitutional decision of a final court. Impeachment no more applies to such case than to one in which the legislature has passed an unconstitutional act. The only way to wipe out an unconstitutional decision of a final court is to get the judges to change mind, or to wait until the election of judges of another mind. But it is or should be manifest to all that under the state constitution as it stands not any of the certain greatly needed leg- islation for Illinois could consistently be sustained by any supreme court justice worthy place in the judiciary; and that the only remedy for cure of the existing defects is either a new or an amended constitution. XXX. MINIMUM WAGE LAWS ENACTED IN NINE STATES — All Passed After Investigation Conducted By This Committee. In 1913 minimum wage laws were enacted in nine states — Cali- fornia, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. With the exception of Utah, where the administration of these laws is confided to a single commissioner, a commission or board for that purpose is established in each of such states. In California the law relates to all industries, and covers women, also minors under eighteen. The wage established is determined by ascertainment of the “necessary cost of proper living.” All industries are also covered in each of the other states excepting Colorado. In that state the act is confined to women and to minors under eighteen employed in mercantile and manufacturing establishments, laundries, hotels, restaurants, and telephone and telegraph offices, etc. The rate of pay is determined by “necessary cost of living” and “financial condi- tion of the business.” In the seven other states the persons protected and the principle of wage determination are, respectively, as follows : 126 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Massachusetts — women, minors under 18; “needs of the em- ployes” and “financial condition of the business.” Minnesota — women, all under 21 ; “living wages.” Nebraska — women, minors under 18; “needs of employes” and “financial condition of the occupation.” Oregon — women, minors under 18; “necessary cost of living.” Utah — females; “experienced adults $1.25 a day.” Washington — women, minors under 18; “necessary cost of living.” Wisconsin — women and minors; “a living wage.” OREGON. The Oregon commission prescribed a minimum scale of $8.25 a week for all women employed in industrial occupations and set fifty- four hours as the maximum they may be employed in any one week. The time of employment before a woman shall be considered an expe- rienced worker and entitled to the minimum wage is one year, and the wage for the apprentice period is $6 a week. “We deem that the sum required to retain a self-supporting woman in frugal but decent conditions of living is an absolute minimum of $8.25 a week,” said the report of the conference on which the commis- sion’s ruling was based. The conference was composed of three representatives each of the employes, employers and the general public. In advocacy of the commission’s finding, its distinguished chair- man said : “An industry which does not pay its employes enough to cover their necessary costs of living is a parasite on the homes of the poor and is subsidized by its employes. If any industry is so impor- tant to the community as to deserve to be sustained by a subsidy such a subsidy should come from some other source than its working girls. “The principle on which the act is based is that the welfare of women must take precedence over any commercial consideration. The mothers of the future generation should not be sacrificed to industrial gain.” In the first case brought to test the act’s constitutionalit}^ the trial judge, in sustaining its validity, expressed the opinion that it is in the interest of health that a working woman or child should have enough to eat and wear, and a decent bed. WASHINGTON. At six different conferences held in the state of Washington testi- mony was taken by the commission touching the average annual ex- penditures of self-supporting women. The testimony was confined to six classes, and showed as follows : Mercantile, $520; factor}'. $462.80; laundry, $468; telephone and telegraph, $468; hotel and restaurant, $ 572 ; office, $ 520 ; general average, $ 501 , 80 . Working of Present Laws 127 The items entering into the general average were as follows : Meals and room $273.25 Shoes and rubbers 9.86 Repairing of shoes 2.01 Stockings 2.86 Underwear 4.91 Petticoats 3.80 Suit 22.77 Coat 13.45 Dresses and aprons 15.24 Shirtwaists 7.61 Handkerchiefs 1.52 Corsets 4.34 Corset waists 2.03 Gloves 3.17 Neckwear 1.38 Hats 9.22 Umbrella _ 1.55 Repair of clothing 3.29 Laundry 21.73 Medicine and dentistry 14.96 Street car fare 26.62 ^Newspapers and magazines 4.55 Stationery and postage 3.61 Association dues 3.39 Insurance 5.91 Vacation expenses 12.21 Amusements 9.80 Church and other contributions 5.43 Incidentals 11.23 Total $501.80 The commission fixed minimum weekly wages for women as fol- lows: Mercantile, $10; factory, $8.90; laundry, $9; telephone and telegraph, $9; hotels and restaurants, $11 for waitresses and $9 for other employes; office, $10. XXXI. CONCLUSION. The members of this Committee regard with contempt the cry raised by a few employers and their paid emissaries that the public hearings conducted by it tended to asperse the integrity of the women and girls of Illinois and of the entire country who work for a living. Small and miserable though her pay may be, the average woman or girl worker in the United States is not surpassed in virtue by any of her sisters, rich or poor, in any country. But a starvation wage has never yet promoted virtue in any land, and thousands of girls and women in our own country might today bless happy homes had they been paid a decent wage by those whose fortunes they helped to build. A mini- mum wage law will not prevent all from going wrong, but it will leave no girl or woman to suffer from hunger and cold and absolute misery, and will save many indeed from the sad fate that has come to so many of that sex because of a system captained by Greed and Inhumanity. Many good men and women profess to believe that the world would soon go to smash if every person, whether fond of work or play, should always have sufficient food, clothing and shelter. Other good men and women think that the world would not be bettered were sunlight, pure 128 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee air and good water to be had only by the industrious and the rich — be- lieve that the world would be better than it is if no innocent person should ever know from experience the suffering and the mortifications born of want in the midst of plenitude. Their doctrine is that neither misfortune nor improvidence should deprive any man’s dependents of enough to eat or to wear, of either comfortable fire or decent roof — that the right to such is not subordinate to the untaxed and unre- stricted privileges of natural light and heat, of air and water. Their theory is that hunger and cold breed misery, that misery breeds crime. This does not mean that all persons should be on perfect equality, that all should have the same of everything, that all should share alike, think alike, act alike, look alike. No, we do not want all of these equalities — we want joys, distinc- tions and triumphs, we want rivalries, jealousies and sorrows, that may be our very own. But there are inequalities that should not exist, injustices that should die. There is too much food, fuel, wealth and humanity in every land to leave room for hunger, cold, and the heart- aches of poverty. A man’s misfortune should not bring absolute want to his household, his wife and children should not suffer for his wrongs. Every able-bodied man unwilling to work outside should be compelled to work inside the public workhouse and his earnings go where they belong. And no man, woman, boy or girl willing and anxious to work should be expected to work for less than a decent wage. PUBLIC MEETINGS AND TESTIMONY Stenographic report of the proceedings of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee, as transcribed and compiled by Thomas J. O’Neill, official reporter of the Com- mittee; Corris & Corris, Fuller & Meanor and C. F. Trick. NOTE: In studying the testimony herewith presented, the reader should bear in mind that the Committee was a legislative, and not a prosecuting or judicial, body; that its sole function was to investigate conditions which, in its judgment, were associated with the general subject of vice, its cause and effect, and thereon to report to its crea- tive source, the upper house of the legislature. Names of girl wit- nesses are used only where no moral stigma attaches. In other cases the publication of the names of the unfortunate victims is not de- manded by the public interest and certainly would not be justifiable from the viewpoint of humanity and the golden rule of consideration. ih SESSION I The Vice Committee begins, in Chicago, a series of public meetings and summons as witnesses several women and girls whose experiences, recounted in their testimony, reveal some of the perils by which girls are beset. Testimony given by: R H ; Mrs. Z M- ; E B ; Mrs. Susan B. Adams, settlement worker; Mrs. Ellis Phillip Aldrich, representing Chicago Law and Order League; Mrs. Josephine Schell, representing The New Future Home. Friday, February 28, 1913. THE ILLINOIS SENATE VICE COMMITTEE met today, at 2 o’clock P. M., in the La Salle Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, to take testi- mony regarding “THE WHITE SLAVE INDUSTRY,” in accord- ance with a Resolution of the Senate adopted Eebruary 4, 1913. Members Present: Lieutenant-Governor Barratt O’Hara (Chairman), Chicago. Senator F. Jeff Tossey, Toledo. Senator Edmond Beall, Alton. Senator Niels Juul, Chicago. Senator D. T. Woodard, Benton. The Committee having been duly called to order, the following proceedings were had : R H- ’s Testimony. R H , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: THE CHAIRMAN: Q. What is your name? A. R H . Q. What is your age? A. I am 19 years of age. THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Juul, will you examine the witness, please. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Where were you born? A. In Brooklyn, New York. Q. Up to what date did you remain in Brooklyn, New York? A. Up to two years after. Q. Then you moved to where? A. Erie, Pennsylvania. Q. Then, how long did you stay in Erie, Pennsylvania. , A. Until 1 was 14 years old. ' Q. How long is that since? A. Five years. Q. At what time in your life, if at any time in your life, were you induced to leave your home to become an inmate of any institution? A. You mean, why did I leave? Q. No; what date was it? A. I was about 15 years of age. 131 132 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Where were you at that time? A. I was at home. Q. In Erie, Pennsylvania? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where were you brought to from there? A. To Buffalo, New York. Q. What inducements were offered to bring you there, if any? A. Money. Q. Do you know the party that made the inducement? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who is the party? A. One that I went with at school. Q. Do you know the name of the party and the address? A. Yes, sir. (Giving name of man, and his address.) Q. What inducements did he offer you? A, My mother told him that she would get the constable after him; and he gave me fifty dollars to go away from home; and I went to Buffalo, and I told my mother that there was another fellow. I went to Buffalo, and I stayed there for perhaps ' three months; and my mother got hold of me again, and put me in an institution; and I was there a year and a half. Q. At the time you were taken away from home, you went with him to Buffalo? A. No; 1 went by myself. Q. Did you make any efforts to meet him? A. No; I never seen him before. Q. In what manner did he place you in an institution in Buffalo? A. He didn’t place me there. 1 didn’t go in any institution. Q. But did this man, who gave you the fifty dollars, this man whose name you just gave us, did he place you in a house of evil repu- tation? A. No, sir; he did not. Q. How did you come there, if at all? A. With my husband. I have been married since that time. Q. Go ahead and tell your story in your own way. A. Well, I went away, and after I left the institution, I started nursing, but gave it up because it was too hard for me, and 1 wasn’t old enough any way, and I went to Cleveland, and there I met my husband through a friend of his. There I was introduced to him, and he was going to Detroit the next night; and he wanted me to go along, and I went with him, and lived with him from May until July. SENATOR BEALL: You were married then? A. No; I wasn’t married. I went with him, and went home in July, and he had a quarrel with me, and I went to Youngstown, and wrote to him that I needed money; and he sent me some. SENATOR JUUL: When you say you wrote to him, to whom did you write? A. My husband, Victor. He sent me money and I went back to Cleveland, and lived with him from September to November; and I was taken sick and had to have an operation. He put me in a hospital and paid my expenses, and when I come from the hospital, he didn’t want to live that way any more, so I felt under obligations to him. He worked steady and good all the while we were in Cleveland. Then we went to Buffalo, and he started to work there in July. I took him home and introduced him to my people. When we went back he claimed he couldn’t get work again; he would go around and try hard. So I got in need of money and in need of clothes and things I wanted, and I went out with fellows, and he didn’t find this out for about a week. Finally, we began getting in debt for our room and board, and I sug- gested to him that I should go out; and he wouldn’t let me, and we had a quarrel. I had an aunt, and I went to her, and we borrowed money from* her. I told them a story, that he was mean to me, and wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to. So they stuck up for me._ I was working then, and he came down the next day where I was working, and wanted me to go back and live with him. I went back and we got another room. He couldn’t get work, so I kept going out right along, and he knew it. Finally I ran away to New York from him; and I got sick, and I sent for him, and told him to come to New \ ork. He come there and brought me back to Buffalo. We stayed there about four weeks, and we had quite a little money together then. He worked, and Public Meetings and Testimony 133 we went to Cleveland, and he was going to work at the new hotel there. It hadn’t opened, and he was waiting for it, and there was so many other waiters going to go to work there that he got discouraged, and he said we must go to Chicago, as “there is work there, and I know I can get work.” Q. About what date was that? A. That was in October. Q. That is October, 1912? A. Yes, sir. We started for Chicago. Q. He didn’t bring you here for the purpose of placing you in a house of evil reputation? A. Not that time, no, sir. He looked around, and couldn’t get anything, and I went out on the street several riights, and I met Detective O’Connor. He asked me different things. I lied to him, and told him I was working, and told him I had a friend that gave me money every week; but he was out of town. He said, “Well, you go home.” I went home that night, and I wouldn’t go out on the street at night. Next day I met a fellow, and he asked me if I would go and have a drink with him, and I said “Yes.” He took me in Tuckhorn’s. There were several girls sitting around there, and I asked a fellow what kind of a place it was; and he told me. He said “Do you want to live here?” I said “Yes.” Q. You might state to the Committee where Tuckhorn’s is? A. At 23 Quincy Street. The waiter come to me and asked what I wanted. I told him I wanted to speak to the manager. The manager come to me and asked me where I was from. I told him, from New York. He said, “they must be quite tough off if you came from New York.” He said I could stay there, however, and put me with another fellow, and he sat down with me. Q. This man told you that he was employed in Tuckhorn’s place? A. He was manager, yes. SENATOR BEALL: Do you know his name? A. Dave Wetzel. THE CHAIRMAN: Was any arrangement made for you to get fellows? A. Yes, that I should take all my fellows to their hotel. ' SENATOR JUUL: What was to be his share? A. Not any; but every waiter that served us with drink, if I got five dollars, I had to give him a dollar. Q. To whom did you have to pay that dollar? A. To the waiter that had introduced me to the fellow. Q. Did you ever pay anything to the manager? A. No; I did not. Q. Did you ever pay anything to the proprietor? A. No, sir. SENATOR BEALL: You paid the waiter, did you? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: You took your company then to what place? A. To the Vista Hotel. Q. That was owned by whom? A. Mrs. Tuckhorn. Q. That is where the compensation came in to the Tuckhorn’s? j A. Yes, sir. j Q. All right; go ahead. A. He said, if the fellow would not go , there, I must stay with him as long as I could, and have him buy drinks. We were not allowed to take less than a 20-cent drink, j THE CHAIRMAN: What drinks were sold at 20 cents? A. Creme 1 de menthe. Q. Did you get any percentage on the drinks? A. No, sir. Q. That all went to the house? A. Yes, sir. So we lived on the North Side. SENATOR BEALL: Who are “we”? A. My husband and 1. Mrs. Tuckhorn wanted me to move to the hotel, and we both moved there, f and we lived there for three weeks, and I had a dog; and they wouldn’t I let me stay there any longer with it. Then we moved out on Fortieth " Street, but we were only out there one week. The woman did not know that I had a dog; and the next morning she told me we couldn’t stay there with it. The next morning we moved back to the hotel; and I sold j the dog. The next day in the afternoon two government men came in and took me and put my name in a book. 134 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR JUUL: Where was the place on Fortieth Street? A. Airs. Black’s. Q. What was the number? A. 411, I think. Q. What kind pi a place was it? A. A very respectable place, because she asked me if I was working, and I told her, yes. She in- vestigated, and found out I wasn’t working. She said we were not characters to be there; and another thing, it was on account of the dog. Q. Your husband knew all the time how you were making your money? A. Yes; he did. Q. What did he ask the waiter, if anything? A. He never talked to anyone there. Q. What did he tell the waiter? A. That was a man in Buffalo. I met him on the street since this trouble, and he said he had seen of the trouble we had, and he said he tried to get him a position, but he said he didn’t need to work, that I was making enough money; and he didn’t have to work. Q. That is your husband? A. Yes, EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Were you turning over your money to your husband? A. No; I kept^ the money, but I gave him money when he needed it, and for his meals; I gave him money right along. Q. Was he around the Tuckhorn place on different occasions while you were there? A. Yes; he would take me down there sometimes; I)ut not very often. Q. You never saw the proprietor of the place, or any of the waiters give any money to your husband? A. No; I did not. Q. You don’t know whether he received money from the Tuckhorn place, or not? A. No; I do not. EXAAIINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. In what manner did you break loose from this life — who caused you to break away from it? I understand you are away from it now; is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now then, who counseled you to break away from it? A. The Government. SENATOR BEALL: Y^ou mean the State Government or the Fed- eral Government? A. The Federal Government. THE CHAIRMAN: What is your husband doing now? A. He is in the county jail. Q. On what charge? A. The White Slave trade, under the Mann Act. Q. Are you living a respectable life now? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are you doing now? A. I am working in a bank. SENATOR JULTL: IMr. Chairman, if you will permit me to say right here that these witnesses that we have brought here have come under the impression that they were to submit to an examination in executive session, and while I have in mind a great many questions, I shrink a little bit from putting them, and I think the other members of the Commission feel the same way about it. There will be a number of executive sessions later on about matters about which it is pretty hard to go into details in a meettng of the size of this. THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair feels as you do, Senator Juul, that it is far from our desire to embarrass the witnesses. We wish to thank Mrs. H for coming here, and hope that her life in the future may he happier, and that she may live a respectable life. THE WITNESS: I thank you, gentlemen, and will try to do so. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Chairman, we have Dr. Quales, and we nave Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell, from whom we may get some in- formation. Public Meetings and Testimony 135 THE CHAIRMAN: We are glad to have them with us. Mrs. Z — M —’s Testimony. MRS. Z M , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. What is your name? A. Mrs. Z M . Q. What is your birthplace? A. Torrance, Mississippi. Q. How long have you been in Illinois? A. Since January 18, 1913. Q. Will you tell this Commission under what circumstances you were brought to Illinois? A. I come here with the intention of marrying, and I was carried down here to a house, 1625 Wabash Avenue, and lived with the expectation of this man coming back on Saturday. Q. This party whom you intended to marry? A. Yes, sir, the party I expected to get married to here. He didn’t come back, and on Sunday I discovered the place wasn’t eactly what it should be; and in fact, the lady comes up and had some very bad talk with me. Q. Where is the man that brought you to that house? Have you his address? A. No, sir. Q. Do you know his home town? A. He lived right around Chicago. Q. Where did you get acquainted with him? A. In Water Valley, Mississippi. Q. He induced you to come to the City of Chicago, under the pre- tense that he wanted to marry you? A. Yes, sir. Q. You were placed in what house, you say, in Chicago? A. 1625 Wabash Avenue. Q. Why didn’t that marriage take place? A. He wrote to me in Memphis, and told me to come on here. I met him in Water Valley, Mississippi. I left there, and came to Memphis, and he kept writing me and told me to come right on here, and he would get a nice place where we could live. I came on, and it was in the morning when he carried me to this place. I said “That is no kind of a place for anybody to live and keep house.’’ He said “Yes, but you stay here, and I will come back Satur- day. I am going to East Chicago, to get work, and I will get a nice house out there, and come back to you Saturday.” He went away and didn’t come back at all. Q. What took place between you and the landlady of that house? Tell us what transpired between you and that landlady? A. I never had but very little to say to her, from the time I went there on Sunday morn- ing until the next Sunday. I got a newspaper, and when I was going up the steps I was crying. She said “What are you crying about.” I said “I don’t know; I have got the blues.” She said “You have no right to have the blues, a woman like you. What have you got the blues for?” I said, “I come here and didn’t find anything like I expected.” She said, “You are very foolish.” She said, “A woman like you should go out and make your living here.” She told me she came here with two children, one a boy and the other a girl; and now she had diamonds and ever3Thing else. That was Sunday morning. Q. About what date? A. I came here on the 18th. Let me see. I left Memphis on the 18th, and I got here on Saturday, if I am not mis- taken, and I think this was the 18th — I got here Sunday morning, and this was the next Sunday morning. Q. That would be about the 25th? A. That was the next Sunday morning. There were people around I didn’t like, and I went out and asked a policeman to tell me where to get a nice room. I didn’t know anything about rooms or anything about Chicago, I had never been here before; so then they helped me to get a room. Q. Nothing transpired in that house; this woman did not induce you to follow her suggestions? A. She did not. I left there on Sunday afternoon. 136 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Where did you go? A. I went out and asked a policeman, and he told me where to go. He told me to go to the Salvation Army, and I could get a nice room. I went there, and they told me there was no room for anybody except men. I went back and told the policeman. I said, “My things are in the house, and I am_ afraid to go back in the house and get them.” He said “Go to the station, and I will send and get your things.” I went to the station, and stayed there until I got a room. Q. There was no attempt on the part of the landlady to interfere with your leaving? A. She didn’t know that I was going to leave. A man came into my room. He came and pushed my door open, and asked me about the paper; and he came into my room and sat down. He stayed for a while and finally went out of the room and come back in with some chewing gum. I had two little boys, one six years old and one seven years old. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. The children were with you? A. Yes, sir, they were with me. Q. Didn’t you have a home in Mississippi? A. Yes, sir. Q. You sold your home, didn’t you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did this man get the money? A. No; he didn’t get it. Q. He persuaded you to sell the home, didn’t he? A. Yes. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. What were you doing in Mississippi? A. I was keeping boarders for a while and taking in sewing and had some money loaned out. Q. What became of the man that induced you to come here, do you know? A. I don’t know where he is. I left that house Sunday morning, and the next Saturday night he came back looking for me; but I don’t know where'he is. Q. You are satisfied his intentions were evil in bringing j-ou here? A. He lived right here in Chicago for years. Why shouldn’t he know what the place was? THE CHAIRMAN: Do you remember the name of the policeman who aided you? A. No; I don’t know his name. THE CHAIRMAN; The Committee would like to put his name in the record because so much criticism has been made of policemen, and in this case the policeman who -befriended the woman is entitled to plenty of credit. THE WITNESS: I couldn’t tell you his name, but I went to him and told him I was really afraid to go back to the house after that man had acted as he had, and this woman had talked as she had. I had two big trunks and two suit-cases. I think I would know him if I could see him. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Was there any drinking in this house you speak of? A. That morning she asked me to come back in the dining room where she was, I went back into the dining room, and there was a lot of emptj' beer bottles which they had opened up the night before. Q. Were there any women in the house besides you? A. "ies; there were girls there. Q. Do you suppose it was a sporting house? A. I suppose it was. A woman was fined twenty-five dollars and was ordered to get out of the house. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. You have always been a respectable wmman? A. Yes, sir. I have all kinds of letters of recommendation from my own home town which I have got since I have been in Chicago. SENATOR JUUL: Q. You think it is easy to go wrong when one goes to a big town? A. Yes; I think so. I never knew of these things until I struck Chicago. Q. The landlady at this place on M’abash Avenue, when she said Public Meetings and Testimony 137 she was practically penniless, and had made lots of money, did she go into details, or just insinuate? A. She just insinuated. Q. She didn’t leave you in doubt as to what she meant? A. No, sir. MR. FARWELL: Q. Mr. Chairman, can I suggest that a description of this man may be obtained, so that the police officers may find him? SENATOR JUUL: You mean the man who brought the witness to Illinois? MR. EARWELL: Yes, sir. (Witness describes man.) THE CHAIRMAN: Q. What are you doing now? A. I am not doing any work at all. I have worked since I have been here, worked in a restaurant and worked in a bakery. Q. Who is supporting you and your children now? A. I have a little, means of my own. I am not working; I am staying off now getting my children ready to put them in a boarding school. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Are you being aided by any institution of good people, charitable workers? A. No, sir; not right now. Q. Didn’t you stay in the New Future Home for a while? A. Yes, sir; I stayed there for about two weeks. Q. Then the matron there did befriend you? A. Yes; I thought you meant right now. SENATOR JUUL: We only want to find out who the people in this city are who are helping people who have been led astray, and when we find who they are, we want to give them credit for it. THE CHAIRMAN:. We want to assure you of the best wishes of the Committee for yourself and your children. An honest policeman helped you in Chicago, and the New Future Home followed it up. SENATOR JUUL: They apparently are not all bad in Chicago. THE WITNESS: O, no; there are good and bad everywhere, I guess. G F ’s Testimony. G F called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Just state your name? A. G F . Q. What is your age? A. Twenty-one years old. Q. Where were you born? A. At Perry Sound, Ontario. Q. How long did you live there? A. Thirteen years. Q. How long is it since you came to Illinois? A. I came here the latter part of October or the first of November, I am not sure which. Q. Who, if anybody, brought you here? A. No one; I was’ sent here by the people I was working for. Q. Who were they? A. I would rather not give the people’s names. Q. For what purpose were you sent here? A. To work for the same firm I was working for in Canada. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. What general business were they engaged in? A. In the restaurant business. SENATOR JUUL: When, if at any time, did you meet anyone who apparently took an interest in having women go astray? A. When I come to the parties. Q. Do you know who the parties were? A. Yes; the one they took me out to Gary, Indiana. Q. What month did that happen? A. I guess about the first or middle of November. Q. Do you know the name of that party? A. I do, yes, sir. Q. Will you give it? A. No; I really will not. Q. You wouldn’t give the name? A. No. 138 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Have you any reason why you want to shield that party. A. No; I don’t want to shield them but I don’t want to have the name published. SENATOR BEALL: The name will not be published. THE CHAIRMAN: Will you give it to the Commission in private? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Very well. When and where did you get acquainted with this man? A. I went to a hall with a girl there at the place I worked; and met him. Q. What inducement did he offer to you to go astray? A. The money that could be made. Q. What W'as his interest in having you go astray? A. To give him the money. Q. What arrangement did he propose with you? A. I met another friend of this friend, and they made arrangements with the landlady in Gary, Indiana, to be sent there. Q. They proposed to take you to Gary, Indiana? A. Yes. We went to Gary, Indiana; we went in the evening about 6 o’clock; and they come down later about 11 o’clock. Q. Did he take you along? A. No. Q. He induced you to go there, however? A. Yes; and bought the tickets. Q. Then where did he place you in Gary, Indiana? A. I don’t know the number of the house, because I wouldn’t stay; I turned around and left the next day. Q. We haven’t any doubt you mean to be a good girl. After that, you didn’t want to lead a life you ought not to? A. No, sir. Q. Then where did he take you, or where did he send you? A. I don’t know the house, but it was down on Jefferson Street in Gary, Indiana. Q. Do you know the name of the landlady that kept the place? A. Her first name is Ray; I was only there one night. Q. What if anything happened there? A. Nothing happened there. I left the next day. I simply refused to do anything when I found out what the place was like. Q. Didn’t you know what the place was like when you went there? A. I hadn’t any idea where I was going. Q. What representations did he make to you? A. Only the money that could be made. Q. Did he suggest the amount of money that could be made? A. Yes; he gave me an outline of it. Q. Did that outline conform to what you found when you got there? A. Yes; but this other girl that went with me knew all about it. Q. She was an older girl? A. She was a younger girl, but had been down the month previous. Q. What were the conditions that disappointed you? Why was it different from what you thought it was? A. Because when we got there I didn’t have the nerve, and I simply picked up and left. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. THE CHAIRMAN: Did this girl who went with you advise you to stay? A. No, she did not; she told me I wasn’t a girl for that business. She said, “You are no girl for this business.” Q. What was the name of the dance hall at which you met? A. The Dearborn on Clark Street. Q. You met in that dance hall the young man that induced you to go to Gary? A. Yes. Q. You had known him how long before you were induced by him to go to Gary? A. A couple of days. Q. Do you know what his business is? A. Yes; I do. Public Meetings and Testimony 139 Q. What is that business? A. He is employed in a liarher siiop. SENATOR BEALL: He really induced you to go to Gary? A. Yes, sir. He told me of another girl he knew that was making good money at the same thing. She was at that time supposed to be his wife; but since I have learned was not. Q. The next day you left Gary and came back to Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are in a position now where you can make honest wages? A. I am in a position now where I can make an honest living. Q. How much money did this party say you could make? A. He said I could make $50 to $75 a week. Q. This woman in Gary didn’t attempt in any way to detain you? A. No, sir. Q. She practically let you attend to your business and go back home? A. Yes. E — B ’s Testimony. E B , a witness having been first duly sworn, testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. What is your name? A. E B . Q. Do you mind giving us your age? A. I am 23 years old. Q. What is your birthplace? A. I was born in Sweden. Q. How long have you been in the United States? A. Five years. Q. Where have you spent these five years? A. I was in Milwaukee two years and I was in Boston two years, and the rest of the time I spent in Chicago. Q. Where were you first, if at all, induced to enter into a life that was not as it ought to be? A. In Chicago. Q. Tell the Committee what the details are as far as you remember? A. I got acquainted with a gentleman in Milwaukee, and he took me here. Q. What was his name? A. I don’t like to give his name. Q. Did he induce you to come to Chicago? A. Yes. Q. What is your reason for wanting to shield him? A. I have no reason. Q. Was he the man that induced you to go wrong? A. Yes. Q. Now tell us what he tried to have you do? A. Well, we com.e here to Chicago; and he told me he wouldn’t marr}^ me in Chicago. Q. He offered to marry you in Milwaukee? A. Yes, and to come to Chicago, and he didn’t marry me, and we got out of money. Q. How long was it before you got out of money, how many days before you got oilt of money? A. A week. Q. He had promised to marry you while in Milwaukee? A. Yes. Q. He told you if you would come to Chicago with him he would marry you? A. Yes. Q. Then in Chicago the money was gone, and he wouldn’t marry you? A. Yes. Q. Then what took place, where did he take you? A. He took me out to a lady. Q. Where was that lady? A. I don’t remember; it was on Dear- born Street. I think it was Twenty-second Street. He asked her to take me in there. She said she would. Q. What arrangements did you make? A. I didn’t make no arrange- ment at all. Q. You remained there? A. Yes; I remained there, and he went away. Q. Do you know if he got anything for it? A. I don’t know anything about that. 140 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Did he come afterwards to collect any money from your landlady? A. Not that I know of. Q. How long were you there? A. They broke me in, and then they come and took me to Mrs. Adams’. Q. Who is Mrs. Adams? A. She has got a home for girls. Q. The police took you out of the place on Dearborn Street? A. Yes. Q. How long had you been in the place when they took you out? A. I was only in there two hours. Q. After this man had left you in the place you stayed there only two hours? A. Yes. Q. Did you know what you would be expected to do there? A. Yes; I knew. Q. What did he say he wanted the money for? A. He was studying to be a doctor. Q. How much money did he have when he was arrested; he was arrested, wasn’t he? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much money did he have? A. He told me he didn’t have any. Q. How much did he have? A. The officer told me he had $450. Q. Where did he get this money? A. I don’t know where he got it. Q. He wanted you to work to give him a medical education. A. Yes. SENATOR BEALL: Q. Did he know the place was a sporting house when he took you there? A. Yes. Q. Did he tell you that? A. Yes; sure he told me. E T ’s Testimony. E T , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Will you give us your name? A. E T . Q. What is your age? A. Fifteen years old. I was 15 on the 2nd of October. Q. What is your birthplace? A. Montreal, Canada. Q. How long have you been in Illinois? A. It will be eight years in July. Q. You may tell the Committee when, if at any time, anyone induced you or attempted to induce you to lead a life of shame? A. On the 16th of October Q. The last 16th of October? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who was that party? A. Shall I give his name? Q. You may if you care to. A. Eugene Nani. Q. Do you know his whereabouts now? A. In the county jail. Q. Tell us what took place, what he attempted to do or what he advised you to do, and what it resulted in? A. He advised me to go out to a certain house in South Bend, Indiana. Q. Did he take you there? A. Yes, sir. Q. What date did he take 3 'ou there? A. The 17th of October. Q. He bought a ticket for you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he attempt to make any arrangement between you and the landlady or between himself and j'ou and the landlady? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were you present when he did that? A. No, sir. Q. You don’t know what arrangement he made as to getting pay- ment for bringing you? A. No; I don’t think he got an^- pajmient for bringing me there. Q. Hctw did he expect to be compensated for the trouble he took in bringing you over there? A. I don’t know. Public Meetings and Testimony 141 Q. How was he interested in bringing you there? What did he say to you? A. He wanted me to make money for him. Q. Did he say what proportion of the earnings you would have to give him? A. I had to give him all. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Did this man ever abuse you? A.- Yes, sir. Q. What did he do to you? A. He beat me. Q. What for? A. Because I wouldn’t hustle for him. Q. Did he give you enough to eat? A. No, sir. Q. He starved you? A. Yes, sir. Q. He beat you and starved you because you wouldn’t hustle for him? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you are only 15 years old? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Do you think he had other girls the same way? A. Not as I know. THE CHAIRMAN: It seems to me that for a fellow like that the gallows would be better than the whipping post. EXAMINATION RESUMED BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. How long were you in that house? A. About four weeks. Q. In that time did you furnish him with money? A. About two weeks. Q. How much did you send him. A. $35. Q. How did you send it to him? A. He was out there. Q. He came over there and remained there and got your money? A. Yes, sir. Q. How did that stay over there terminate or how did you quit and come back? A. He was chased out of town. Q. By whom. A. Some Italian people up there. They claimed to be Black Hand; and he had to leave me out there or give so much money; he had to sign a paper to give so much money in three days. Q. That you don’t know? A. Yes; I was there when he signed the paper. Q. What was on that paper? A. In three days he had to give so much money or leave town. Q. You don’t know what for? A. Those people claimed he was able to make money. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. You remained there four weeks? A. Yes, sir. Q. What caused you to leave there? A. Because he couldn’t make the money to give them people. Q. Who took you away from there? A. He did. Q. And brought you back to Chicago? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Dailey is here and would like to ask a few questions. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR DAILEY. Q. What is the age of this man? A. He was 20 in January. Q. He lived in Chicago, a native here? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know whether he had been in the habit of doing the things he had done to you to other girls? A. No, sir. 142 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION RESUMED BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. You came back to Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. He didn’t release you and let you try to make an honest living after that? A. No, sir. Q. Did he still pursue you and try to make you earn money for him? A. Yes, sir; he did. Q. Where did he place you in Chicago? A. On Wabash Avenue and 12th Street at 1230 Wabash Avenue. He had that room for me to make money for him in, but we were living in another room on State Street. Q. But he still kept collecting from you, he still continued to collect? A. Yes, sir. Q. What proportion of your total earnings do you think you handed over to him? A. I gave him all of it. Q. What induced you to take orders from him to that extent? A. He had promised to marry me before we left home. Q. And it was under that promise you did all these things for him? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: How much do you suppose you gave him a week on an average? A. I couldn’t tell. THE CHAIRMAN: You didn’t even count the money j'ou handed over to him? A. I gave him as much as $35. SEXTATOR DAILEY: Did he return any money to you at anj- time? A. No, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Did you at any time refuse to give him mone}-? A. No, sir. Q. If you refused to give him mone}" what happened to j^ou? A. I never refused to give it to him. Q. You didn’t dare to? A. No, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Suppose you didn’t give him any, because you hadn’t it, what then? A. He beat me. THE CHAIRMAN: Every time you hadn’t any money to turn over to him he would beat you? A. Yes, sir. SEXTATOR BEALL: Was that every day? A. Pretty near every day. THE CHAIRMAN: Where are you living now? A. In Mrs. Adams’ home. Q. That is a charitable institution or an institution supported by good people? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: How were you taken into Mrs. Adams’ home; did she get hold of you and bring you there? A. The Government had me. Q. The Government placed you there? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the address of Mrs. Adams’ house? A. 2119 Calumet Avenue. Mrs. Susan B. Adams’ Testimony. MRS. SUSAN B. ADAMS, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Please state your name? A. Mrs. Susan B. Adams. Q. Where is your residence? A. 2119 Calumet Avenue, Chicago. Q. Tell the Committee in your own way, Mrs. Adams, what your work consists of, and what you are succeeding in doing, doing it like you would write a telegram, briefing it? A. I have been in girls’ work for the last twelve years. Mrs. Clark of the Pacific Garden Mission and myself opened a home on Federal Street, and the work was a success. We had to give up that building, and then we reunited with another home in the city, and opened this one at 2119 Calumet Avenue. Public Meetings and Testimony 143 Q. Would you mind telling the Committee how you finance that home? A. By the wealthy ladies of Chicago. Q. How many girls can you afford shelter for? A. We can accom- modate comfortably 25, but we would rather not have quite so many. We take them in to work. We have had some girls, however, a longer time than others. They follow up the work for two years. Then we place them to work, and they report to us once a week. Q. What do you find as a general result of that labor? A. About 90 per cent have made new connections. We don’t handle girls that have been down in sin for a long time. Q; You don’t believe it is successful? A. I don’t believe in mixing them. I suppose it is successful. We have handled more than 125 since last May, and I have handled between 600 and 700 in the past six years. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. You believe what is commonly termed as White Slavery exists? A. I certainly know it does. Q. Do you think that the reports, the common newspaper reports concerning White Slavery are exaggerated? A. No; I do not; I do not think there is any exaggeration. Q. It has been underestimated if anything? A. Yes. Q. Do you believe any girl coming to a large city is under a certain disadvantage? A. I do most emphatically; and girls who have homes out of the state who come here, we try to warn them. Q. Did you read a story in one of the magazines during the last few months, entitled “My Little Sister?’’ A. No; I did not. Q. The story purported to be an English story of two girls of very good family, who had gone to the city of London and had found homes in a house of ill repute; and one of them was forced into a life of degra- dation, and the other escaped. Do you believe that condition exists in Chicago? A. I believe it has. I don’t know that it does at the present time, but I know of such things having occurred. Q. May I ask you, madam, if in your ten or twelve years expe- rience in this kind of work, you think any woman can be redeemed re- gardless of the depth to which she has fallen? A. Yes, sir, I do. Q. Is there such a system as booking these girls? A. There was such a system. Q. And the adoption of that booking system has increased the safety of our girls? A. Yes; I think so, very much. SENATOR BEALL: Anything you could give us which you think would benefit the investigation or any witnesses you may produce would be acceptable. A. I can produce plenty of girl witnesses. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR DAILEY. Q. Your Home is a voluntary association? A. Yes, sir. Q. Maintained entirely by charity? A. Yes, sir; by subscription. Q. It is not incorporated? A. Not yet; but it will be after the first of May. Q. You don’t receive girls who are committed from the County Court? A. Yes. Q. You are recognized for that purpose? A. We take all young girls we feel we can help. Q. Girls that are found to be dependent by the County Court? A. No; we take delinquents. We also take girls through the Police De- partment and take care of them until their relatives come for them or they can be sent home, and we have handled quite a number of pure girls, but most of our girls are delinquent. Q. Your effort I understand is to take ^rls before they have ad- vanced very far in immorality, and attempt to save them? A. Yes. 144 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. Q. Do you ever take girls who have been to Geneva? A. I have been an officer for that purpose for about six years, and of course I choose the girls I take. I have any number of girls sent out there. Q. What becomes of the girls for whom no home can be found? There must necessarily be a large number of girls who would be unable to care for themselves? A. We place them to work. We have accom- modations for about 25 and we have handled 125 in nine months. We find a great many ladies in the city of Chicago in moderate means, who are perfectly willing to place their lives right alongside of these girls; and they take them. We have more demand for girls than we hive girls. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR DAILEY. Q. Mrs. Adams, will you pardon a question I desire to ask you. In certain cases where girls are prosecuting witnesses against a charge of the commission of crimes against girlhood, outside of those cases that come under your purview and observation, is it the policy of your home to protect the girls from publicity? A. Yes; it is. It is a great detriment. Q. I have observed in some of the courts as to the character of these girls that there is a great deal of publicity given to the cases of girls where no crime necessarily is involved. You think those girls should be protected from public gaze and public comment? A. Cer- tainly we should protect them. When girls are taken into court they usually give a name other than their own; and when they come to us we learn from them their own name. Q. But in a case where crime has been committed, you believe, no doubt, that the public good requires such publicity as is necessary to obtain the ends of criminal justice, and such information as might be desirable from a sociological standpoint? A. I do, where it is even faint. Of course, if they proceed in crime, I think it should be made public, to protect the public. Mrs. Alice Phillips Aldrich’s Testimony. MRS. ALICE PHILLIPS ALDRICH, called as a witness, being first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. State your name, please? A. Mrs. Alice Phillips Aldrich. Q. What is your address? A. 19 La Salle Street, Room 1303-5, Chicago Law and Order League. Q. State to the Commission what if any connection you have had with reform work? A. For fifteen years I have been in reform work here, and I have been giving my whole life to it fo’r 23 years, and always worked with girls. I did that work long before the agitation of White Slavery came up. I had to handle a great many cases before it was really called White Slavery, so that I am quite conversant with it. I have been in Chicago not quite three years, though I _ have worked in Canada and the southern states and eastern states and in Michigan; but I have been here only about three years, and I have handled a good man3’’ hundred cases in connection with my work in the Chicago Law and Order League. Q. Do you maintain a home in Chicago for girls? A. No; I did that years ago. Q. Would you mind stating to the Committee what you think is the underlying cause of the evil, low wages or domestic troubles in the home — to what do vou attribute the condition, and wffiat would you say would be the remedy? A. That is a different question. Q. I will change the question. What do you consider the cause of the evil chiefly? A. I think one of the causes of the evil is young girls who want to wear diamonds and wear fine clothes, from the standpoint of dress, and more than she has to do it wdth. The poor working girl wants to dress the same as the millionaire’s daughter, and wants fine Public Meetings and Testimony 145 clothes; and so if a man comes up to her and says, as I have heard them say in stores, “How much are you getting a week here?” The man will talk to her and she will stand and listen to him if she likes his ad- dress; if she does not, she will say, “That is none of your business,” and shut him off. I have heard them talk to good-looking girls, and tell them “I can put you in a place where you can earn a good salary, and don’t have to work so much.” I have known cases where the girl has turned away and where the man would come back three days in succession to the department store, to get hold of the girl, and after he had touched her pride, to take her out to dinner and get her to drink something, and the next thing he began going with her, and the next thing she was gone. Either he was supporting her in a room or she was in a room and going out for him, or she was in a flat where she paid so much for her board and room. Then there are other cases. I am speaking now from personal experience where the girl has been deceived perhaps and doesn’t know where to go or what to do. I would be glad to give the Committee some illustrations in more refined form. I know one girl who was sold three times in the city of Chicago. Q. Do you know where that girl is, where we may get her? A. I can get her; she is in the city. Q. You do not maintain her yourself? A. She is maintaing herself. When you get them in a proper place, you don’t have to maintain them. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Madam, do you know positively that the White Slave Trade exists in Chicago, where girls are sold? A. Yes; I have one particular case. Q. Anybody here in Chicago that you know? A. Yes, sir. Q. Could you get her before the Committee? A. If she would consent to come. I think she would. Q. If she doesn’t wish it in public, will you say we might have an executive session? A. She was sold three times. THE CHAIRMAN: Madam, there is one question I would like to solicit your judgment upon. What do you think of the whipping post as a means of punishing men engaged in such traffic? A. I think it would be fine. SENATOR TUUL; Of what church are you a minister? A. The Congregational Church; I haven’t a pastorate here. Q. But you have had one? A. I am a regularly ordained minister, and have been for years. SENATOR TUUL; Representative Miller is sitting here, and he would like to ask a few questions. REPRESENTATIVE MILLER; I would like to ask you whether you have any remedy you could suggest? A. I have thought of a great many things: and I really believe it is a vexed problem. I wouldn’t like to give the Committee right off-hand an opinion. It is too serious to give right out without wording it just right, but I think there are some things whereby it might be a help, some ways in which it might be a help, but I would hardly know just how to word it so as to give you a satisfactory answer. MR. FARWELL: Mrs. Aldrich had quite an experience in the red- light district after Wayman shut it up, and as to those girls, and therd might be something she could tell. SENATOR BEALL: She is going to give us ail that. SENATOR JUUL: We would be glad to have you arrange your data and give us a list of witnesses, and would be glad to have you come with the witnesses to protect them against anv unpleasantness. Mrs. Josephine Schell’s Testimony. MRS. JOSEPHINE SCHELL, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: 146 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Please state your name? A. Mrs. Josephine Schell. Q. Where do you reside? A. At 556 East Thirty-seventh Street. Q. I take it for granted you have served in rescue work of some kind? A. Yes. Q. Tell the Committee your experience? A. We have many girls in i the New Future Institution. Our home has a two-fold scope. We pro- tect women that come to the city, and those that have no place to go to and no one to protect them, and also women or girls that are brought into court perhaps for the first ofifense and in every way we try to protect them and keep them from going down, so our work is both preventive and j curative. It perhaps may be some case of larceny where the judge puts them on parole and they are left to our care and charge by the probationers from the Probation Office. Q. What do you think is the underlying cause for this evil of White Slavery? A. I, have cases that I have been able to investigate oftentimes. One of the causes is low wages, and I think that is one of the first causes, that most of the girls working are underpaid, and especially where girls have to look after themselves, where they have no families or relatives to live with, that do not generally get sufficient to pay their expenses. Q. In what lines of industry is this insufficiency of wages most notice- able as far as you know? A. The department stores is one, and some factories. Q. Would you consider that the average wages paid to the girls in department stores is sufficient to maintain them? A. I don’t think it is. Q. Do you consider that the low wages paid in the department stores causes the downfall of the girls? A. I do; I know it. Q. Have any of those cases come under your observation? A. ^^’e have had cases. Q. Where the girls directly attributed their condition to low wages? A. To low wages. Q. Have you any idea on the subject of what wages ought to be paid in order to keep a woman straight if she wishes to keep straight? A. Well, no. Q. What would you consider to be starvation wages? A. We had a girl about t\j '0 weeks ago in our home, and she was offered three dol- lars a week and commission; and she was put in one line where she was to get a commission of one per cent on what she was selling, and the stock she was selling was a very inferior one, and at that rate she wouldn’t make enough to cover her expenses. Q. This salary this munificent firm offered her was $3 a week? A. $3 a week. Q. Did she attempt to estimate what her commission was? A. Yes. Q. Did she tell you what commission she had earned in a week? A. No; she did not tell me very much, but she could not make much over, and in fact we maintained her at our home during that time. She couldn’t possibly pay her room and board from what she could make. I don’t think her commission exceeded three dollars. Q. You think then that low wages is one of the underlying causes of the evil? A. Yes. Q. Tell the Committee what you think is the remedy for this condi- tion. We are investigating the question of selling girls and of making it a commercial transaction. What remedy have you to suggest, if an}'? A. I haven’t any exactly. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. May I ask one question. Madam, along the line of the question of Senator Juul? From your observation and e.xperience, what do you estimate the lowest wage upon which a single girl can live in the city of Chicago and live honestly and retain her virtue? A. The lowest wages Public Meetings and Testimony 147 I should think would be about $10 a week. That covers it very closely. Q. Then in your judgment any amount less than $10 a week would be contributing to the cause indirectly of White Slavery? A. I think so. That is counting it very closely, putting it at $10. Q. You think that estimate would be light and $12 would be a more reasonable estimate? A. Well, perhaps a little better. Q. That is, any girl could live honestly and decently on $12 a week? A. I think she could; that is, if she wasn’t too extravagant in her ideas. Q. That would remove one cause, that of low wages. Then if she went wrong it would be because of her innate desire to wear fine clothing and imitate those in more prosperous circumstances? A. Yes. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR DAILEY. SENATOR DAILEY: It is evident that there are very many good ladies here, looking after girls and seeing that protection is thrown around them, these underpaid girls who are pure girls, to prevent them from falling, in the city of Chicago. What protection or care or solicitude is extended in behalf of these girls, say a girl dependent on her own wages fpr sup- port, getting $6, $7 or $8 a week, what organized effort is there in Chi- cago to look after those girls, watch them and care for them, give them a helping hand and prevent them from falling? In other words, you are engaged in what you might call protecting girls after they have fallen. What prevention in the form of organized effort is there in Chicago to prevent these girls from falling? THE WITNESS: We have what they call the social clubs or homes for working girls, where they are taken in, and they pay just a minimum price for their room and board, and have the privilege of doing their own laundry, etc., and I think many girls have been protected from going wrong. Q. How many institutions of that kind are there? A. There are very many. In fact, I don’t think there is a sufficient number, in accord- ance to the proportion of working girls that really need that kind of pro- tection. Q. In other words you feel that that is a field of endeavor that has not been sufficiently developed in Chicago? A. It could be enlarged upon very much. Q. Don’t you think after all that the question of wages has a great deal to do with the White Slave traffic or the traffic in immorality? A. Yes; I think the Social Settlement had done a great deal along that line in educating young girls and women who have not the right homes and influences and environments. Q. Have you given any thought or attention to the question of the preventive work in Chicago? A. I did in proportion to the work done. Q. Have you given any thought or attention to the extension or the enlargement of that work, as to its purpose of watching and caring for girls who are earning starvation wages, to look after them and take an interest in them before they have fallen? Have you given any special thought or study as to the best means to enlarge that work? A. I think that the idea of institutions or homes for poor working girls is a very splendid one, and I think it ought to be broadened and there ought to be more of them. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Madam, how many girls have you had under you. say in the last two or three years? A. The last eight months we had 150 girls. Q. Do you know whether the White Slave traffic as a commercialized business exists in the city of Chicago? A. I do; we have had several cases in our home. Q. Do you know of any case positively of girls in Chicago that were bought or sold? A. Yes; we had a case in our home. This girl lived 148 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee in South Chicago, I think it was, and a young man got hold of her, and put her in one of these houses. Q. You believe then as a fact that the White Slave traffic has been going on in Chicago? A. Yes; I do. Q. This Commission was appointed especially for the purpose of investigating^ that matter. In your judgment you know it to be a fact? A. I know it, yes. Mrs. Alice Phillips Aldrich Testifies Further. MRS. ALICE PHILLIPS ALDRICH was recalled and testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: Is there anything else you wish to say? A. I know the White Slave traffic is carried on, because I know of a case that came under my observation, the case of a girl in Connecticut that was murdered. I was down in her district, and found her going out, and she seemed very much intoxicated, and I said I wished I could speak to her. There was a great big burly man there, and he said, “Go on.” I went over to speak to the girl and talked with her quite a while. The girl spoke to me. She said, “What could you do for me?” I said, “I will take you to a place where you will be taken care of, and will be helped into a nice good life; and be kind to you.” She said, “My God, that is what I want.” Q. Madam, we want to find out if you know of an organization exist- ing of that kind? A. I was telling you that there must be an organized society. This girl was induced to go away from a home. She was born there in Connecticut. She was taken out, and was murdered. So it must have been because they thought she was going to tell some things; so there must be an organized force. Q. You don’t know of your own knowdedge of such an organization? A. I don’t know, but there must be an organized force. THE CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Schell, do you know whether there is an organized industry in the White Slave business? A. I couldn’t say posi- tively whether there is. I have an idea there might be one. SENATOR JL^UL: But you don’t know. A. I have heard so. SENATOR BEALL: I move that we go into executive session. The motion was duly seconded and carried. Thereupon the Commission went into executive session, after which an adjournment was taken to Saturday, March 1, 1913, at 10 o’clock A. M. SESSION II H. R. Frank, a former resident of the Chicago levee district, appears before the Committee and recounts personal observa- tions of white slavery transactions. Mrs. Anna Stevens of the Illinois Training School for Girls at Geneva testifies to the reformation of A O , who, under oath, tells the story of her downfall. Miss Virginia Brooks of West Hammond, Illinois, examines a witness (E F ) and then reviews her experi- ences as a social worker among girl victims of vice. Testimony of: F L ; Mrs. Mary Collins, special officer of the Juvenile Court. Saturday, March 1, 1913, 10 o’clock A. M. The Committee met pursuant to adjournment. Present: Lieuten- ant-Governor Barratt O’Hara (Chairman), Senators Niels Juul, Ed- mond Beall and J. F. Tossey. Whereupon the following proceedings were had : H. R. Frank’s Testimony. H. R. FRANK, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testi- fied as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. State your name? A. H. R. Frank. Q. What is your age? A. Twenty-seven years. Q. Where were you born? A. In Russia. Q. How long have you lived in Chicago? A. About 24 years. Q. State to the Committee if you know anything about the traffic in females? A. I believe it exists, but at this present time, how much I can’t state. Q. Tell us what you know of it in the past? A. In the past, during my time around the levee — THE CHAIRMAN: What was your occupation? A. I had an ice- cream parlor around the levee, and I used to coiue in contact with them. SENATOR JUUL: What do you call the levee? A. The red-light dis- trict of the City of Chicago. Q. You had an ice-cream parlor? A. Yes, sir; I had an ice-cream parlor in the levee, and then I went to the South Side. I used to go out and take orders, and 1 used to see these women, and they made good money, and I would see them come down, black and blue. Q. Black and blue from what? A. From beating, for not giving any money. Q. Are you a married man? A Yes, sir. Q. You haven’t anything to do with that traffic now have you? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever have anything to do with it? A. I did. Q. Can you tell us any single instance of your own? A. In the case of my own before I was married, I was picked up on a charge of pandering. Q. Tell us about that case? A. I was arrested, November 18, 1910, in the City of Chicago, on a charge of pandering. I was sentenced to one year and a thousand dollar fine and nine dollars costs. I stayed at the House of Correction until December 24, 1910, when I got out on a writ of 149 ISO Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee error, and stayed out two years and some months, and the case was brought up before the Appellate Court, and was sent back, and I took out a writ of habeas corpus, and showed there was a flaw in my indictment, and 1 was discharged. Q. What are you doing now? A. I am not doing anything. I w'as in the business of exposing the white slave traffic by pictures until they put a ban on me. Q. When you say “they,” whom do you mean? A. The Police De- partment. SENATOR BEALL: You say you were making pictures? A. Ex- posing the traffic. The first picture was that of a traveling man who was doing business in a legitimate way, who goes into a small town and gets acquainted with a young lady, who wdshes to be in a higher life; and they leave the town and go to a larger city. They claimed that my pictures were immoral. If those pictures were immoral, the Board of Censorship would not have passed them. SENATOR JUUL: You showed them in the nickel shows? A. Yes, 1 showed them at the theaters. Q. You showed these pictures of the White Slave evil in the nickel shows? A. Yes, sir; and showed places where children had to go by, and showed how hard these panderers worked. SENATOR BEALL: What do you mean by “panderer?” A. A panderer is a man dealing in women. THE CHAIRMAN: How many cadets or panderers are there in the city of Chicago? A. At least 1,500. Q. You mean there are 1,500 men who are selling women? A. A cadet is not a man who sells women. A cadet is a man who lives off the earnings of the woman. REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Q. What is the difference be- tween a pimp and a cadet? A. In the rough they are about the same; and in general there would be no difference. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you know of any case where women have actually been sold by men to a bouse of prostitution? A. Yes; and the men were convicted for it. Q. That practice has been carried on? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was that practice known to the police? A. Yes. Q. Are there many colored men included in this 1,500? A. I wasn’t considering them among the white; I am saying there are about 1,500 white. Q. How many colored cadets? You could find at least two or three hundred, if not more. Q. Do these colored cadets deal with white women? A. Some of them; yes. Q. Largely or very slightly? A. Very slightly. There are certain places where there are colored women and white women. Q. Have you any suggestions to make to this Cornmittee as to a remedy? A. The only remedy I can see is, with the Police Department’. If they were on the square and would do what is right. Q. You do not know of your own knowledge that the Police De- partment is not on the square? A. That is something I wouldn’t want to say because I don’t -want to get in bad with anybod^^ I don’t want to say anything to get in bad. I know it exists all over. If a man takes a respectable girl and makes a friend out of her, in the long run that respectable girl will be doing the same as the others are doing. Q. You have known of such cases? A. Yes, sir. Q. You say, if the police were on the square. There have been rumors in the levee that the police sometimes have not been on the square, have there? A. There have. There has been known such a thing as police graft. SENATOR JUUL: Gentlemen, I think we should keep a little closer Public Meetings and Testimony 151 to statements of fact than matters of opinion, because we will get the record full of stuff that isn’t germane. THE CHAIRMAN: At the same time, Senator Juul, it seems to me that the opinions we get m^y be of value to us when we go through the 1 record. ' SENATOR JUUL: An opinion is always good if any specific .case is stated on which the opinion can be based. This gentleman doesn’t want to state any facts, but is giving us a lot of opinion, for instance, as to the inability of the Police Department for the suppression of vice. If he will lay a foundation for anything he states, it would be all right; but he apparently refuses to do that. REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: When you were indicted, was there any person that furnished you with aid in your defense? A. No, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Who paid your lawyers? A. My father did. I , was told at the time of my arrest that if I would be willing to hand over $250 to a certain party, there would be nothing to my case. SENATOR BEALL: Do you care about telling who that certain party is? A. Ellis Marsh, a saloon-keeper on the West Side. A certain party came up to me and said: “Harry, if you can raise $250, bring it in, and there will be nothing to your case.’’ THE CHAIRMAN: Who was the party that came up to you? A. I didn’t know him; he was a stranger. He came up to me and said if I could raise $250, there would be nothing to my case. I spoke to Mr. Marsh after that, after I appealed my case; and he said “I never heard anything of it.” Q. Who was it that told you if you gave $250, there would be nothing to your case? A. The man was a total stranger to me. Q. How did he approach you? A. He walked up to me and said “Is your name so and so?”* I said “Yes.” He said “Have you got a case of pandering going on — coming up?” I said “Why?” He said “If you have, you can beat it.” I said “I haven’t done anything.” SENATOR JUUL: I know, Mr. Witness, the Committee appreciates your being here this morning, but we want real information. You are challenging the good judgment of this Committee. It is inconceivable that a stranger should come up to you and say that. A O ’s Testimony. A O , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: You may state your name? A. A ^ — 1 ° • Q. Where were you born? A. Rockford, Illinois. Q. Are you in a state institution for girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old are you? A. I am 18 years old; I was 18 last Novem- ber. Q. Were you committed from Rockford to the institution? A. Yes, sir. Q. What charge was brought against you there; for what reason j were you sent to Geneva? A. Delinquency. Q. Of what did that delinquency consist? A. Disobedience to my parents, and bad company. Q. Had you been led into any immoral act by any man in Rockford? A. No, sir. ; Q. You had not?' A. Never. O, I beg your pardon. I misunder- stood you. I have been. Q. How old were you then? A. Fifteen years old. THE CHAIRMAN: Will you tell the story of your life from the time you were fifteen^ years old? A. It was in Gary, Indiana. I came |! from Rockford to Chicago alone. Q. Where did you go in Chicago? A. I went to the Carlisle Hotel on North Clark Street. 152 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You stayed there how long? A. One day and one night. Q. Tell us aljout what date that was? A. The 28th of December, 1912. Q. What took place at the Carlisle Hotel? A. Nothing took place there. I came that evening. 1 came in on Saturday evening, and I went to the Dearborn Dance Hall, and I met this fellow at the Dearborn Dance Hall. Q. Which fellow do you mean? A. The fellow that took me to Gary, Indiana. Q. What is his name? A. Charles Sansonio. Q. Do you know his address? A. No, sir. Q. What did he suggest to you? A. He asked me to dance, and 1 danced with him two or three times, and we went downstairs and got some soft drinks; and he asked me where 1 was staying, and I told him; and he asked me my name, and I told him my name was Stella Nelson. Q. Were you out at various times with this man? Tell us what took place and where you went? A. That night 1 went back and stayed at the hotel, and the next afternoon at 3 o’clock 1 met him. Q. By appointment? A. By appointment, at Huron Street; and he was rooming at 118 Huron Street. 1 went to his place, and he said he was going down to the levee and was working in a cafe down there, and then he was going to Gary, Indiana. Q. What did you do? A. I went to Gary, Indiana, with him and another fellow. Q. Do you know the other fellow? A. Ben is his first name, I don’t know his last name Q. Do you know where he lived? A. He was staying in Chicago; he had a flat on Milwaukee Avenue. * Q. You don’t know the number of that flat? A. No, sir. Q. They took you to Gary, Indiana? A. Yes, sir. Q. And bought you a ticket? A. Yes, sir. Q. Both went with you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where did they take you? A. They took me there and a taxi came up and they put me in the taxi and said they were going to a hotel. When we got out the door opened, and I was in this immoral resort. Q. Did they make any arrangements with the landlady in j'our presence? A. Not in my presence. Q. What do you know about any arrangements they made? A. Benny went on ahead and made the arrangements with the landlady, and Charlie got the taxi-cab. Q. Do you know what arrangements he made with the landlady? A. They told me I was going there, and I went down there, and they got $15— $14 or $15. SENATOR BEALL: From this landlady? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JULL: In your presence? A. Yes, sir. Q. You say they got that money? A. Yes, sir. Q. You knew it was for bringing you there they got the monej'? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know the woman’s name? A. Yes, sir. •Q. You haven’t given the name, have you? A. No; it is Eva Allen, or Eva Collins. Q. Do you know her address? A. Her adciress is 929 Jefferson Street, Gary, Indiana. Q. How long did you remain there? A. I went there September 29, and it was somewhere along in the last of October, I don’t know exactly the date, I come back to Chicago. Q. You were there about one month? A. Yes; about one month. Q. In that length of time did you see this man that brought you there — these men? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 153 Q. They continued to call there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you have to pay them any money outside of this $15 the landlady gave them? A. Yes, sir. Q. What amount did you pay them? A. Half of what I made. Q. Was that the arrangement you made with them? A. No; it was turned in. The first time I got my envelope, I had bought some things I from a peddler, and when I was upstairs there was a mistake made, and the landlord and his wife were in the room where they pay off the girls; and he told me I had no business to open that, and I gave it to him. Q. The landlord told you you had no business to open your own envelope until you had handed it. to this man to see what was in it? A. Yes, sir. Q. When you opened the envelope did he take part of it out? A. He took it all. Q. What were you down there for? A. Making money for him. Q. How did it strike you that you were profiting by this? A. I wasn’t profiting by it at all. Q. Couldn’t you get away from it? A. I didn’t have any money to get away, and he wouldn’t give me any. Q. Had they taken your clothes? A. No; not the first time. I Q. Were you in a position you could leave if you wanted to? A. Yes; . if I wanted to; but I had no money, and they hadn’t any respect for any- * thing like that in Gary, Indiana. Q. Did it ever strike you it was a bad thing that you were there working for this man? A. Yes, sir. Q. You continued to do that for a month? A. Yes, sir. Q. Tell the Committee how you quit there and how it came you quit there? A. Thursday afternoon there was a drunken fellow came in there. He was one of these rough-necks on a steamer on Lake Michigan. He grabbed me by the arm and almost jerked my arm out of place, and I slapped him. Then he was going to kick me; and another girl came in. Then he went over to the other side, and he came and grabbed me, and I hit him. Then the landlady told me, if anything like that occurred again I would have to get another house to go to. The next afternoon — there was an Italian girl there, and she was taking things of mine, and we got into a conversation; and the landlady told us we both could get another place. So I got dressed, and they told me not to go, but I went downstairs and asked for my money. Q. How much money was coming to you at that time? A. Thirty- five dollars. Q. How much did you earn in the month you were there? A. About $250. Q. How much of this $250 did this cadet get from you? A. Half, and half went to the landlord. SENATOR BEALL; Are you certain you saw this man or this woman pay this man $15 for bringing you there? A. Certainly I did. It was Sunday, and Monday morning, she handed him money right in front of me. SENATOR JUUL: You came back to Chicago and went to the place where this man roomed? A. I went to the landlady. She wanted me to go back home. That was the only place I knew. She wanted me to go back home. I told her I was from New York, because I didn’t want people to know where I was from. She told me to go back home and not have anything to do with him. Then she called him out; and he came out, and I was there. Q. After you came back to the city of Chicago, how long was it when you vrere sent to the state institution? A. I had been in the state institution before. _Q. When were you returned to the state institution? A. November 22, just a week after I was arrested. 154 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You were arrested shortly after you came back to Chicago? A. About a month afterwards; almost a month. SENATOR TOSSEY: Where were you sent from? A. From Rockford. THE CHAIRMAN: How old w'ere you when you were first sent? A. 16 years old. SENATOR JUUL: How are they treating you at the state in- stitution? A. They are treating me fine out there. Q. You think you are on the road to become a good girl? A. Yes, sir; I am going to try. This experience has settled me. SENATOR JUUL: What is your name, madam? (Addressing a lady present.) A. My name is Mrs. Anna Stevens, of the State Training School for Girls at Geneva, Illinois. I know this witness and she is a good girl. SENATOR JUUL (to the witness): You got back into old asso- ciations, and then didn’t get along at home? A. I got along with my parents, but my uncle I was paroled to. SENATOR BEALL: Are your father and mother living? A. Yes, sir. MRS. STEVENS: Then she left and came to Chicago, and got into this trouble. She has never given us anj^ trouble. SENATOR JUUL: You consider the State Training School for Girls at Geneva is doing you a world of food? A. Yes, sir, I do. SENATOR BEALL: How many do you have there, madam? MRS. STEVENS: A little over 100. Q. Are they sent to you from all over the state? A. From all over the state. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY SENATOR TOSSEY. Q. Miss, w'here did you go from Gary, Indiana? A. Then he got me a place on 21st and State Street, Chicago, in a cafe. Q. How long did you stay there? A. I was there from Saturday night to Tuesday; then I went to 22nd Strret. The same man owned the place. I was there a week and came back and went to Gary, Indiana. Q. You went to Gary again? A. Yes, sir. Q. To this same house? A. No, sir. Q. To another house? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did you stay there? A. I went there M''ednesday night and came back Friday morning. Q. Did he get any money for taking you there that time? A. No; he tried to get money from the landlady but she wouldn’t give him anj-. Q. After you had had that experience with this man, who merely had you for money-making purposes, did you leave Gary and come back to Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why did you go to him again? A. I don’t know why I went to him again. Q. Did you know an 3 ’bodj- else in Chicago, did you have any friends here? A. No, sir. Q. You had no friends here at all? A. F(o, sir. Q. That is the reason you went to the only place I suppose that you knew? A. Yes, sir. Q. After you went there the second time and left there, then where did you go? A. WT came back and went to the landlady, and he had been there and got a room there, and they asked for the money back. So I stayed there, and I went out on Clark Street and I met him. He had been looking for me. Q. Who were “thejG” A. I was with another girl, a girl I had met on the South Side. Public Meetings and Testimony 155 Q. Whom do you mean by “they?” A. Her and her fellow and the fellow I was with. Q. That is after you came back to Chicago? A. Then there were i two other fellows, this Benny and Bill. Q. How long did you stay after you came back the second time? A. I was only back one day and was arrested that night. Q. You were arrested here? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Your mother and father are both living? A. Yes, sir. Q. Your mother was a good mother? A. Yes, sir. Q. And your father was a good father? A. Yes, sir. Q. To what do you attribute your first fall? I take it you had I fallen before you left Rockford? A. Yes, I got married, i Q. You were how old when you were married? A. IS years. I Q. You married some one to whom your father and mother ob- t jected? A. They objected W it. Q. You ran away with him? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why did your folks object to him? A. Because he wasn’t the ! right company, and he didn’t treat his parents right, and he was lazy and didn’t care to work. Q. He was a Rockford boy? A. He had lived in Chicago when a young man, and then his folks went to Rockford. Q. You had known him how long before you married him? A. Half a year. Q. Did he after you were married to him, try to get you to go to a house of evil repute, or anything of that kind? A. No; I never did anything like that for him. Q. Did he suggest it? A. He never suggested it to me, but his uncle told me afterwards that he took me to Chicago for that. I think he was scared. He never said anything to me about it. Q. What was your husband doing during this time you were at Gary? A. He is a married man. Q. You were divorced before you came here? A. Yes, sir; he is living in Chicago; at least that is what he said; I don’t know anything about it. Q. Do you know his address? A. No; I know his wife, though, is the same kind of a woman as I was. SENATOR JUUL: Representative George A. Miller is present. REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: I am very much interested in this subject of the girls, the care of the girls. This girl has very marked characteristics which make for good; and I want to know what is the future for her. Q. Do you think about the future for yourself, as to the right thing to do to make yourself better? A. Yes, sir, I do. Q. And you will try to do what you think is right, and try to make a better life for yourself and make the future better for yourself? A. I should say I am going to try. J M ’s Testimony. J M , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified: i SENATOR JUUL: It is expected, gentlemen of the press, that there are no names to go in the papers. If you gentlemen put the names in your papers, we will simply ask for initials. We do not want any names in any newspaper reports. Q. State your name? A. J M . Q. How old are you? A. 18 years old. Q. Where were you born? A. I was born in Chicago. 156 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How long is it since you went astray? You know what I mean by that? A. Yes, sir, it is about a year and a month. Q. Tell this Committee if any man brought you to any place of ill-fame in order to make money out of you in such place? A. The per- son that I was up against was running the Exchange Hotel. Q. Give us the name of that person? A. Mr. Thomas Newbold. Q. Where was Thomas Newbold’s place? A. Exchange Hotel. Q. Where was that? A. On Van Buren Street; it is between State Street and Wabash Avenue. Q. How did you come to be acquainted with Mr. Newbold; how did you come to go there? A. I didn’t know how it was. A private detective took me there. Q. What was his object in taking you to that hotel? A. I don’t know. Q. What did he tell you was his object? A. He asked me to go to the hotel; I didn’t know what he wanted, so I went up there with him. Q. Tell us what happened. A. We stayed all night and left the next morning. Q. Then what? A. Then we went to live on Monroe Street. SENATOR BEALL: Are you positive he is a detective? A. He said he was. His friend lived near my sister at the time, and introduced me to him, and I got acquainted with him in that way. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Did you go to live there? A. We went to the Cole Hotel. Q. Did he support you there? A. Yes, sir. Q. He paid your hotel bills and your board? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did you remain there? A. We remained there about a week. Q. Then where did you go? A. Then he was sent out of Chicago to St. Louis, and I stayed in Chicago. Q. How did you make your living, staying in Chicago. A. Hustling on the street. Q. Did any man at any time attempt to place you in a house of prostitution, in order that he might profit by it? A. Several men have broached the subject, but I told them there was nothing to it because I wasn’t going to make a tool out of myself for anybody. Q. Did anyone ever place j^ou in any place and get part of yovr earnings? A. No, sir. Q. You are at Geneva now, are you not? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did you lead that life before you were sent to Geneva? A. From the middle of January to the 26th of June. Q. January, 1912? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. Until the 26th of June, 1912? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then what happened? A. Then I was sent back to Geneva. Q. Had you been to Geneva before? A. Yes, sir. Q. You were paroled? A. Yes, sir, paroled to my sister. Q. When were you first sent to Geneva? A. June 28, 1908. Q. In 1908 you were about how old? A. Thirteen years. Q. What had happened in 1908 when you were sent to Geneva? A. I wouldn’t go to school; and one of mj^ girl chums was a bad girl, and a party had a horse and buggy, and we put it in the barn to take care of it, and the next day we went out riding all day and I stayed out of school. My father didn’t want me to go with this girl; but I didn’t see anything wrong. Q. Who brought you into court and had you committed? A. !\Iy father went to the police station. Q. Then you were sent to Geneva? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then you were paroled? A. Yes, sir, I was paroled to my Public Meetings and Testimony 157 sister. Q. Then you met this man? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN; Is your mother living? A. No, sir; my mother is dead. Q. You have a stepmother? A Yes, sir. Q. Have you any sisters older than yourself? A. Yes, sir. Q. You were under the care of your older sister? A. Yes, .sir. Q. That was the only mother you knew? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Did you ever work in a store in Chicago? A., Yes, sir; I worked near her home. Q. What did you get a week? A. I got five dollars a week. Q. What did you ,pay for your board? A. I gave it all to my sister, and she paid my expenses. SENATOR BEALL: What do you think you could live on and live an honest and straightforward life, what do you think it would cost you to pay your board and other expenses? A. It would take at least $12 a week to live riglit. O. Do you think if you were getting that much you could live a good straight life? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: Suppose you were getting $5 a week and had to pay for everything, what would you do? A. Well, I don’t know. SENATOR BEALL: The reason I am asking these questions is that there is a bill to fix the minimum wages at $12 a week. I haven’t read the bill, but I’m beginning to think it must be a pretty good measure. THE CHAIRMAN; When you were hustling, you met quite a number of other girls hustling, did you? A. Yes, sir. Q. You came to know them pretty well? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were any of those girls former clerks in our big stores, that is, did you meet girls who said they had taken up that life because they couldn’t make a living and because they were paid starvation wages? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: I think. Governor, it would be an excellent idea to get some of the employees of certain of the big stores in Chicago, and have them subpoenaed and brought before this commission. There is no use beginning at the top and nibbling off the top, but I think it better to devote a w’eek to that kind of work. THE CHAIRMAN: I think that is a good suggestion, and in com- pliance with the request, the chairman will authorize our investigator to subpoena some of the large employers who are charged with paying small wages, and have them brought before this body. SENATOR JUUL (To the Witness): How are you getting along at the state institution? A. I am getting along fine. Q. What was the cause of your downfall — because you wanted better clothes? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Do everything you can to be a good girl and lead a good life, and you will turn out all right; don’t let them lead you astray again. E F ’s Testimony. E F , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testi- fied as follows: EXAMINED BY SENATOR JUUL AND MISS VIRGINIA BROOKS. SENATOR JUUL: Q. What is your name? A. E F . Q. Where were you born? A. Roselawn, Indiana. Q. How old are you? A. Twenty-two years old. Q. How long have you been in Illinois? A. About 6 years. THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Juul, I will suggest, if agreeable to 158 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee you and the other members of the Committee, that this witness be examined by Miss Virginia Brooks, who accompanied her? SENATOR JUUL: Very well. Governor. MISS VIRGINIA BROOKS: Will you tell about the time you were in Roselawn and before you went to West Hammond, where you met Henry Foss? A. I had been living on Indiana Avenue in Chicago, and went home. It was in May or June, 1912. I was in the river, fishing at Water Valley. I was with a school chum, Johnny Fluellej'. SENATOR JUUL; Where did he live? A. He lived at Water Valley, Indiana, with his mother. MISS BROOKS: Did some one come up there? A. An automobile came up, and I wasn’t dressed so I cared to have any people see me, so 1 started to get behind the trees. SENATOR JUUL: You were bathing in the river? A. No; we started to go fishing; and we were at the edge of the river, and the machine came up and stopped, and a fellow jumped out of the machine and came over to where we were, and told me he knew me, and asked me if I wouldn’t take a ride, and he would bring me right back. I told him, No, I couldn’t, 1 didn’t have any coat and 1 wasn’t dressed just right an3'way. He begged of me to go, and I asked my friend, and there was some more friends of mine there where we were standing, and I asked them if I should go, and they told me sure, to go ahead. He said he would bring me right back. He said he would only take me a little w'ays and be gone half an hour; and he would take me right home. So I got into the machine, and they drove a little way, and there were three other men in the machine; and he pushed me down on the seat, and after we got to the next little village, Shelby — SENATOR JUUL: Shelby is also in Indiana? A. Yes; two little towns right close together; they are not half a mile apart. He pushed me under the seat. I thought it was just because they didn’t want anybody to see me, because I didn’t care to have anybody see me. I had on an old straw hat. He said one of the fellows was married, and his wife lived at Shelby. Q. He tried to hide you in the automobile? A. Yes. MISS BROOKS: Did you go to Hammond after that? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you go right to Henry Foss’ place? A. Yes; we went to his place; the machine took me there. MISS BROOKS: That is on Plummer Avenue in West Hammond, 121 Plummer Avenue, West Hammond, Illinois. SENATOR JUUL; She was taken out of Indiana and brought to Illinois? MISS BROOKS: Yes. Q. Did he want you to stay there that night? A. Yes; he tried to get me to stay there. I didn’t have an3' mone3' and no coat. SENATOR JUUL: Tell us what inducements he offered, what was the manner he pursued to have you stay there? A. He told me I wouldn’t have to be like the rest of the girls; that he was going to fire the landlady he had, and I could have the house. Q. Who was it that said that? A. Henr3' Foss. Q. That was the landlord of the place? A. Yes, sir. Q. He offered that inducement to 3'ou to become the landlad3-? A. Yes, sir. He said he would pay me $15 a week, and all I would have to do would be to look after the girls. MISS BROOKS: Did you stay there that night? A. No; I went back to my place in Chicago on Indiana Avenue, and I had his coat on; and my clothes were all in Indiana. SENATOR JUUL: Did you have to run awa3- or did 3-ou go will- ingly? A. No; I had to sneak out from the place. I had to tell a lie and I told them I was cold. I was all wet as it rained. I told him I was Public Meetings and Testimony 159 just going to the restaurant to get something to eat. He Avouldn’t give me any money, just enough to eat with. MISS BROOKS: You finally got away and went over to Hammond? A. Yes. Q. And from there to Chicago? A. Yes. Q. Did you go back from Chicago? A. Yes; I went back to take his coat to him. I took the train to Hammond. I thought I would take his coat to him. That is when he enticed me to stay there. Q. Then he prevailed on you to stay there? A. Yes. I stayed that night, and that afternoon I was to go home and get my clothes. All my clothes were at this friend’s house where I had been staying, and I had to get them. I spent the night there and come back the next morning. He said he would send and get my clothes for me. I didn’t have very much money. He bought me a few little things and coaxed me to stay. He said I wouldn’t have to do nothing, and he fired the house- keeper. SENATOR JUUL: To install you in her position? A. Yes; and after that he wanted me to do the same as the rest of them did. Q. How long did you remain there the second time when you came back? A. I couldn’t say how long, about six weeks. Q. They used you just the same as the other girls in the place? A. Yes, sir, any time anybody would come in he would always call me from his room and say this was a friend of his, and wouldn’t have any- thing to do with any of the other girls; and I would go with them. Q. What this Committee is anxious to find out is, did you have to share your earnings with any man? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did this man come back to this place in Indiana to collect part of your earnings? A. Mr. Foss took my earnings. Q. There was a man that brought you there in an automobile? A. That was Mr. Foss. Q. That was Mr. Foss that drove up to the river there and brought you there? A. Yes sir. Q. Did he pay you whatever it was you earned? A. We were sup- posed to give half of what we made. He kept all of the money and never paid me any money. He said he was going to keep it for me. Q. You said you were in that institution for a month? A. A little over a month. Q. Did you have to go out of the house to eat? A. No. Q. You ate in the house? A. Yes; we had to pay our board, though. Q. How much did you pay? A. Each girl had to pay a dollar a week. This dollar a week we paid made the expenses of the table. Q. You have quit that life? A. Yes. Q. How did you come to quit out there? MISS BROOKS: It was after the Messmate murder, and Mr. Foss drove them away. Q. She left them and quit and came to Chicago? A. Yes; she is ' trying to lead a clean life. SENATOR BEALL: This murder was while she was in the house? A. Well, he died from the efifects; he was taken to the hospital, and the i; same day he drove her away. He didn’t want her to wait for the ambulance. He threw her SO cents and said “Get across the state-line, if the authorities ‘ find you here, it will make it worse for me, so keep out of here entirely.’’ THE WITNESS: I didn’t even get my clothes. SENATOR JUUL: He gave you 50 cents? A. Yes; and told me to get out of town. i SENATOR BEALL: Are you working anywhere nov/? A. I have I been sick, for the last four weeks. Q. Have you been working? A. I have been helping the landlady for my room and boara. 160 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Miss Virginia Brooks’ Testimony. MISS VIRGINIA BROOKS, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: State your name? A. Virginia Brooks. Q. Where do you reside? A. At 26 155th Place, West Hammond, Illinois. SENATOR JUUL: Miss Brooks, I think I will ask you to state to this Committee in a 10-minutes’ talk what you know about the conditions in West Hammond or around there, such conditions as have a bearing upon the sale and barter of women. The subject matter we are especially investigating is whether or not men are profiting by the sale of women. Just proceed, please. MISS BROOKS: The first time I ever became interested in this matter in West Hammond was through Mr. John Betzner on Wilcox Avenue, in Hammond. He said his daughter Lucille had been led from home, with a promise of work. There was a Mrs. Forsythe and Mrs. Cherry, who now live on the state line; that time they lived right in Indiana. They were cooking for Mr. Foss and Mr. Moore, two of the dive-keepers, and they persuaded this Lucille Betzner to go across the state-line into Illinois and come over there as an inmate in Mr. Foss’ resort. That is the first time it was called to my attention. He asked me to get her out and I appealed to the federal court. They take girls and bring them across the state-line, and they brought her across the line and put her in that place, and she couldn’t do anything. The next case that came up was that of Esther Harrison. There was a man in East Chicago, Indiana, and he is said to be Cornelius Moore’s procurer in East Chicago, and they get girls and bring them to Hammond and West Hammond. This man came across and placed Esther Harrison in Foss’ dive, and then Esther Harrison died there, and they refused to pay money to bury her. The next case that came up was that of two young girls, who were brought there, and I asked the police to go down there with me. Mr. Moore was very much excited and he said the girls would have to stay there, and work. He brought them over from Des Moines, Iowa, and paid $75, and they had to stay to work it out. He brought them over through a booking agent at Des Moines, Iowa. Q. Did he state who this booking agent was? A. He didn’t state his name, but he said the booking agent was in Des Moines, Iowa. These girls came there and were staying at Mr. Foss’s. SENATOR BEALL: They were brought there from Des Moines, Iowa, did you say? A. Yes, to West Hammond. They came to me to get their trunks. Mr. Foss told them they couldn’t have them, that they were to work there. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Coan, get those two girls. Will you give the names of those girls? MISS BROOKS: I have a list of them and will furnish them. There was another girl brought in Hammond by the name of Anglin. Her father is Marvin Anglin. I received several letters from him which I can furnish. They are brought from East Chicago over to West Hammond across the state-line. Q. Do you know of your own knowledge that such a wrong exists? A. Only inasmuch as the girls have been brought to us, and we have come in close contact with them. Q. There must be a source of supply? A. The source of supply is East Chicago and across the line. Q. You know. Miss Brooks, that would be no protection as far as the federal authorities are concerned. . MISS BROOKS: If they walk across you can’t do anything under the Mann Act. As I stated before, in the case of Lucille Betzner, we prosecuted the case, but the Court decided that it was not a violation of Public Meetings and Testimony 161 the Mann Act, as the girl walked across the state-line; and was not taken by a public carriage. Q. If girls are brought across the state-line into the state of Illinois, for immoral purposes, we have a law here, we have a pandering law? A. Yes. There must be a clique. In West Hammond, there is Cornelius Tolty and Cynthia Lump at 20 State Street, West Hammond, Illinois. This Cynthia Lump is all the time on the train between Chicago and iWest Hammond, with young girls that don’t look to be over 13 or 14 Tjyears old; and the people down there talk very freely about it. They (have never done anything to find out where she is getting these girls. Id jbut she takes them to this dive in West Hammond, Illinois. DS j THE CHAIRMAN: What dive is that? A. That is Tolty’s dive. ]j There is a Mrs. Leber in West Hammond, who will testify, Mrs. Henry ly j Leber. 1'' SENATOR JUUL: She is in the state of Illinois? A. Yes, sir. j! SENATOR JUUL: We had better bring Mrs. Henry Leber in before lii ithe Committee at the next session. “'f MISS BROOKS: Her address is West Hammond, Illinois; 1200 State ® iiStreet will get her. THE CHAIRMAN: Can you get Mrs. Henry Leber before this Com- '?"mittee at this time? A. I don’t think I could get her at this time, jj DR. QUALE: This woman that is taking these girls to Chicago, do |j you think it would be likely they could get her? A. Yes; I certainly do. Ill :1 believe it would be easy to catch her if a good detective were put on ™ the case. SENATOR JUUL: Have you had any aid from any of the authori- ties in Illinois in that work? A. No; it has been impossible to get it. There is a girl who is a telephone operator there, called Lillie, and she has given us information of things over the ’phone. We are right on the state-line. Then I went to the State’s Attorney’s office with these different cases. Of course that was under the other administration, and we were anable to do anything. The assistant there was acquainted with the Street Commissioner, and he would give him information, and we were unable o do anything. Q. You know that? A. I know it through Mr. Burres, the attorney; he told us about it. Q. Of your own knowledge do you know it? A. The only thing I ji^now is, from Mr. Burres, who is a respectable attorney, ii Q. You have had in your own life experience enough to know the difference in value between what you yourself know and what somebody las told you? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL: What we are particularly interested in in a wit- less of your character, is to find out what you know. Then we would get iji foundation to build on. ’ MISS BROOKS: In a question of vice of this kind, my only object is ;o see that right is done, and that the law is in force. SENATOR JUUL: That is the question before us, as to what you :know from coming in contact with girls that have fallen and gone astray. Lj MISS BROOKS: Yes: I understand. . Q. What would you say was the underlying cause of this evil? A. I i’hink there are two things especially. I think the first thing is the improper iconditions at home. If they do not have proper accommodations at home, |f;he girls will go out to the dance-halls and fall into bad company. I |i:hink that is an important matter. I think another thing is the question bf wages. I don’t think they get enough to live on. Q. What do you think about the wage question? A. I think the juestion of wages is perfectly terrible. There are girls working out there or $4.50 a week at the Conkey Bindery plant. Q. What did you say their wages are there? A. About $4.50 a week, Vlr. Henderson told me. They have the cards, showing what the girls earn. THE CHAIRMAN: Is that a union or non-union establishment? A. think it is non-union. 162 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR JUUL; Is Mr. Conkey’s place in Illinois? A. No; it is in Indiana. THE CHAIRMAN; You think it is a non-union establishment? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL: Does Mr. Conkey maintain his plant in Ham- mond, Indiana? A. Yes; girls come from Illinois to work there. Q. Where does Mr. Conkey live? A. He lives in Hammond, Indiana, and his office is in Chicago. I Q. You say from information that you obtained, that the wages oi the average girl out there is $4.50 to $5 a week? A. Yes. Q. They get no board or lunch or anything like that? A. No; the girls told me they have a little cafeteria there, but it costs them more to buy their food there than it would downtown. Q. In other words the cafeteria is run for profit? A. Probabl 3 '. SENATOR BEALL; What is the general character of those girlj as far as you know? A. The majority of them are Polish girls who live at home under poor conditions which causes the same trouble as thej go to the dance-halls. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe from your observation and expe- rience, Miss Brooks, there is such a thing as White Slavery? A. I air. quite sure there is. Q. Do you think the newspaper report^ are exaggerated or under- stated? A. 1 wouldn’t like to state. Q. That would be merely your judgment? A. I think all things ir the press are fixed to read well and look well, and also to help along a little bit. Q. Take in your town, the town you have labored so hard to redeem and in which you have done such splendid work, work which challenges the admiration of the entire countrjq what remedy would you suggest; You would suggest perhaps the enforcement of the law rather than th« making of new law? A. I think I would. REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD: Wh^- would jmu think the whipping post would not act as a deterrent? MISS BROOKS: I don’t know; it seems to me as soon as they go over if they would start up again, after they got over the effects of th« whipping. It seems to me it would be going backward instead of forward As soon as they got over the pain from the whipping, they would go righ back into the old life again. I favor, instead, the rigid enforcement of thi law. I would like to see the cheap hotels cleaned out. In my opinion however, economic conditions are largeh^ to blame, and you should remove the cause of the trouble. Q. Wouldn’t you agree with me that such phj-sical castigation woulc act as a deterrent? A. No; I don’t believe it would THE CHAIRMAN; You think the whipping post itself would no have the desired effect? A. I don’t know; the whipping post does no appeal to me. It is too much like going backwards rather than forwards REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD: You know that in England the whip ping post has been in use for some time as to the White Slave traffic and England is not a backward nation, and is not inclined to go back wards towards barbarism, and there has been a bill introduced into th' Illinois legislature for the establishment of a whipping post for this kinc of an offense; and I am inclined to think it would meet the difficult}-. SENATOR JUUL: Doctor, the witness has ruled against a-ou. (T< the witness.) You think the economic condition is the root of the eHl A. Indeed I do — pure and simple. Q. You don’t think that girls go astraj- simph- for the reason tha they want to do so, do jmu? A. No; I heard a girl sa}- one time tha she couldn’t get along on what she made, and she had to do something Q. What do you think should be the minimum wage of women t' live under proper conditions? A. I would like to see $12 a week fo every girl that works. Public Meetings and Testimony 163 Q. Would you say that ought to be the minimum? A. I think so, or at least $10. Q. Do you know anything about women and girls who are earning these low wages? A. Yes; some of them earn as low as $5, $6 and $7 a week. Q. Do you know this of your own knowledge? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: I think we have your ideas on the subject. Miss Brooks: MISS BROOKS: If there is anything I can do, I will be glad to do it. THE CHAIRMAN: Miss Brooks, we are very much obliged to you and certainly appreciate your cooperation. F L ’s Testimony. • F L , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? A. F L . Q. How old are you? A. 18 years of age. Q. Where were you born? A. Chicago, Illinois. Q. Where are you now? A. In the House of the Good Shepherd. Q. From what court were you committed to the House of the Good Shepherd? A. From the Juvenile Court. Q. How long has that been, about what date? A. August 23rd. Q. What for? A. Being in a disorderly house. Q. What was the address of that house? A. 2033 Armour Avenue. Q. Who induced you to go there? A. Nobody. Q. Tell us how you came to select that house of all the houses in Chicago, to go to? A. I went to a dance one evening, and was standing in a crowd and they were talking about disorderly places, and I was out of a position at that time. Q. How long ago is that? A. That was about 9 months ago. Q. You were out of a position? A. Yes, sir. Q. Before that what were you doing? A. I was a tag stringer at the International Tag Company. Q. Tags to tie on goods? A. Yes. Q. What were you earning there? A. I was earning $5 a week. Q. Did you get your board in addition to the $5? A. No, sir. Q. You had to make your living out of this $5? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you live with your parents? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was your father employed? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were your brothers or sisters employed? A. No, sir. Q. You were the only one working besides your father? A. Yes, sir. ■Q. You got out of employment there? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long were you out of employment? A. I just quit that Friday, and this was on Saturday night. Q. When you quit how much money had you saved up out of your $5 a week wages? A. I didn’t have anything. Q. Didn’t have a cent? A. No, sir. Q. You felt you had to have some money? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who told you about this disorderly place? A. Nobody told me. I was standing in the middle of the floor in the crowd in the Colonial dance-hall on North Clark Street and I heard someone talking about it. Q. You went to the place on your own account? A. Yes, sir. Q. What arrangement did you make with the landlady? A. This 164 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee seemed to be the first place I come to. I didn’t know whether it was a disorderly house or what it was. Q. You found what you were looking for? A. Yes, sir; I didn’t ask anybody anything. A man named Sydney met me at the door and asked me in. I told him I wanted a position. He said I should sit down; so I sat down on the hall-tree. He said “Wait here, until I call the bookers.” I didn’t know what he meant, but he told me they were detec- tives, and he called Mr. Howland Ryan. Q. From the Detective Department? A. Yes, sir; the 22nd Street station. Q. And did they book you? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did they do when they booked you? A. He asked me where I was born, and I told him; and he asked if I ever hustled, and I told him I did, and I told him I was 22 years old. Q. When you said, you were 22 years old did you tell the truth? A. No, sir. Q. Then you started in this house? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you have to pay any of your earnings to any one on the out- side? A. No, sir. Q. You kept all your earnings? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long were you there? A. Two weeks. Q. ‘How much money did you have when you left? A. I spent it every week. I bought my clothes, and paid for my board and my laundry. Q. So, between working there and working in the other place, you were not much better off? A. No, sir. Q. You were worse off? A. Yes, sir. Q. You wore better clothes and had better food? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: How much money did you earn a week? A. The first week I made $35 and the second week I made $52. Q. You gave the landlady half of the money? A. Yes, sir; I gave her half of it. SENATOR JUUL: Was that your share of what you earned? A. Yes, sir, $35 for me and $35 for the landlady. Q. What caused you to leave there? A. A man come in there that knew me, one of our neighbors, and he told my mother where I was, and my mother had me arrested. Q. Your mother didn’t approve of this life? A. No, sir. Q. Then you were sent to the House of the Good Shepherd? A. Yes, sir. Q. During the time you were there you never paid any monej’ to any man outside of that house? A. No, sir. Q. No man brought you there? A. No, sir. Q. No man was guilty directly or indirectly of bringing you there? A. No, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: How much did j'ou get from each man? A. Sometimes I would get $1, sometimes $5, sometimes $10; it just depended. SENATOR JUUL: Are you in charge of this young girl. Madam (addressing a lady present)? A. I am. SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? A. Hilary Collins. SENATOR JUUL: Will 3 mu please come forward and be sworn. Mrs. Mary Collins’ Testimony. MARY COLLINS, called as a witness, having been first duh- sworn, testified as follows: ' SENATOR JUUL: What is your occupation? A. I am with the Juvenile Court, am an officer. Q. You are a Juvenile officer for the Juvenile Court of Cook Count!'? A. Yes, sir. Q. How are these girls committed to the House of the Good Shep- Public Meetings and Testimony 165 herd? A. The Catholic girls — the preference is given to religion, and whatever religion governs the parents disposes of the girls, unless on request of the parents they want them sent to Geneva. Q. The House of the Good Shepherd is practically a charitable insti- tution? A. Yes. Q. And it is kept up by the officials of the Catholic Church? A. Yes, sir. Q. Does the state or the county pay them anything? A. I believe they get 30 cents a day for each girl sent there. Q. And while they are there they are just the same as if they were in jail? A. No; they go to school. Q. Outside of the institution? A. No; inside of the institution. They go to school and they are taught sewing and laundry work. Q. How long are they kept there? A. Whatever time is necessary, sometimes six months. Q. Who determines when they are to be let out? A. Judge Pinckney of the Juvenile Court. Q. Dofes he send them on a definite sentence for any period of time? A. Yes; usually. Q. Are there records kept of their being paroled to anybody? A. Sometimes there are and sometimes there are not. Thereupon a recess was taken to 2 :30 o’clock P. M. SESSION III I The Vice Committee issues a public announcement that begin- 1 ning with its next session its inquiries will be temporarily di- verted to investigate the matter of wages paid to girl workers and the possible connection of low wages with the spread of ^ immorality. Further testimony concerning existing conditions I given by the following witnesses; Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell; Mr. William H. Dunn, attorney; Mrs. Belle Buzzell, social worker; Mary M. Ballam, representing a juvenile temperance society. The Committee reconvened Saturday, March 1, 1913, 2:30 P. M. Present : Same as at previous session. ! Whereupon the following proceedings were had : THE CHAIRMAN; The Committee has prepared a statement to be ■given to the press; and which will be read into the record. The statement ,:is as follows; ! “From the testimony heard by the Committee, at the sessions on Friday and Saturday, it appears that one of the apparently vital causes of the industry of the White Slave is the low wage paid to women workers. The Committee in executive session this afternoon, in view of this testi- mony, voted to postpone all examination of the victims of the industry ;until full investigation has been made of the wage question. : “For this purpose the next meeting of this Committee was ordered jcalled for Friday, March 7, at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago, at 10 A. M. “The Committee is deeply desirous that this meeting be attended by all members of the State Senate and House of Representatives who can so arrange their affairs to be present at that time. “The request that all legislators be present at this meeting is espe- Icially prompted by the fact that a bill is at present pending before the 'legislature establishing $12 a week as a minimum wage for women workers i in Illinois. “The Committee guarantees a full and fair hearing to all persons in- literested in this subject, and earnestly invites the cooperation of employers 'and employees alike. (Signed) “BARRATT O’HARA, Lieut. Governor, Chairman. “EDMUND BEALL, State Senator. “F. JEFF TOSSEY, State Senator. “NIELS JLWW, State Senator. “D. T. WOODWARD, State Senator.” SENATOR BEALL; I make a motion that the Serg can: a: /vrms be .instructed to subpoena such people as we think will be desirable to appear I before this Committee and testify in regard to the wage question, and I, such managers and proprietors of large stores in Chicago, j SENATOR JUUL: I suggest that we limit the number of witnesses' ! to say fifteen. !i SENATOR BEALL: I would change that to stores, factories and ■'mail-order houses. I would suggest about ten or twenty of them. THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair will entertain the motion, with the imnderstanding that it is not necessary to have more than twenty perhaps, t The motion, after being duly seconded, was put and carried, i SENATOR BEALL; I will make another motion, that on Saturday [next, March 8th, we visit the House of the Good Shepherd, as we have ; 167 168 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee been invited to do, and spend as much time as we find it convenient. The motion was duly seconded and carried. THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any further business. If there is not, the Chair will state that there are some gentlemen present who have devoted considerable time to the matter in which the Committee is con- cerned; and we would like to hear from them. Their time will be limited to fifteen minutes. Each gentleman will be given not to exceed fifteen minutes. Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell’s Testimony. ARTHETR BURRAGE EARWELL, having been duly sworn, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: Q. What is your name? A. Arthur Burrage Farwell. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Farwell, you are so conversant with the various phases of the situation that this Committee is investigatine. I think the best way of proceeding is, to let you tell your own story. The Committee wants to elicit from your testimony to what extent, if any, the business is carried on of the sale of women in the State of Illinois, and as to the making of a profit out of the sale of women. You may tell your story in your own way. MR. FARWELL: Well, gentlemen, I became interested in this matter especially in 1907 when I was asked to address a gathering at Battle Creek, Michigan, on the relation of the selling of liquor to vice; and it was the first time I went into a house of ill repute in the red light district. I went there for the purpose of getting the price they would receive for liquors, and then I became interested in the whole question; and since that time I have put in a good deal of study as to the cause and the remedy. I believe it is a matter of record, according to the Vice Commission report, that fifteen million dollars a year is spent on vice matters in the city of Chicago alone. I remember of a case where two girls were shipped to Springfield. We communicated with Chief Schuettler. and those eirls were located. They had escaped, and the case was in court. That is twenty- five years aeo. That case was in court twenty-seven times, and those girls had to go through the awful experience of telling their story, before the Municipal Court, then before the Grand Jurv. and then in the Criminal Court. A man named Henderson took the eirls to lililwaukee. The result was that one of those girls married honorably, and the other went to a house of ill-repute. I am convinced, gentlemen, that this ouestion is so hie that one of the remedies is. the teachinq- of the sex-relations in the public schools. I believe every boy and girl in this country has a right to be taught that. I have here a letter written to me in 1910 by CharUs W. Eliot, the great President of Harvard College, and one from John D. Rockefeller. Jr., advocating that. We have a large number of wrecks which would be taken care of. W found a woman down in the red light district and took care of her for eight weeks, and now she has got a joh. We believe in taking care of the wrecks, but we believe more in nre- venting them. Another way is to suppress the dance halls, and especially to prevent the sale of liquor in dance halls. Of course men and women do things when drinking they would not do when sober. Here we have in the city of Chicago an ordinance allowing the sale of liquor from 3 o’clock in the afternoon to 3 o’clock in the morning in dance halls. I believe another thing is that every case of contagious disease should be reported, so that these people could be located. Another thing, gentle- men, is that there should be a law in the State of Illinois, that a public official who willfully refuses to enforce the law should be removed from office. Another thing, the State of Illinois should pass an injunction law like one passed by the United States Senate a few days ago. Another thing is, the teaching of the awful effects of these diseases. There is a book of Fornier of Paris, translated from the French, in which Fornier speaks of 4,400 cases of syphilis. Another thing is living in cheap hotels, where girls go when they come to the city. John D. Rockefeller’s reports of his experience with the grand jur^' I have read with interest. Then there is the question of segregation. Public Meetings and Testimony 169 j I think you are doing one of the finest things that has ever been done jby the State of Illinois. I believe you are trying to get at the bottom of this thing, and it will not only help the present generation, but it will generations yet to come. ’ j REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD: Could you give us any specific names ■ |of men who have been living off the earnings of these unfortunate women; ' |if so, it would be a great help. MR. FARWELL: The details of these cases Mrs. Aldrich has. She has a memorandum of it. SENATOR JUUL: Your time is running out, and we would like : to get your ideas of some of the causes that have been mentioned here as underlying causes of this entire trouble. What do you know about the - wage question being one of the chief underlying causes of white slavery? MR. FARWELL: I think that is one of the underlying causes. I . have been over it. I believe nothing is more sacred than a pure life. i SENATOR BEALL: You are right as far as you go, but you know that girls like some of these girls that have no mother or father and no home, and who want to go to work, and they come to Chicago or some ' city to seek employment and get work at $4 or $6 a week, and they want i good clothes to make a good showing, what do you say about that? MR. FARWELL: There are cases of that kind, of course. In our I work we come across a great many different cases. I SENATOR BEALL: Don’t you believe that if these girls were re- ceiving a living wage they might lead a good life and not follow the life J they do now? A. Yes; and one of those cases we had to do with came J from Grand Crossing, where a reputable man, supposed to be a reputable , merchant, had ruined a young girl; and the thing came to our attention, and we investigated the matter, and there were also about ten to fifteen j other young girls there he had ruined. We found also a place in South J Chicago where there was a dance hall and rooms, and this man’s business J was to get hold of girls and put drink into them and ship them into the city of Chicago and to East St. Louis and to Rock Island and other J places. I asked the Committee to investigate the matter. It was found J he got these girls and would get them full of wine and ruin them. I am I talking about the general run of things in a large city like Chicago, New York, St. Louis and Kansas City. We are not as well posted as you on these matters; but don’t you believe the main thing is, they do not have money enough to live on? A. No; I don’t. Senator. I think that 'is one of the serious things, however. SENATOR JUUL: What amusements would you suggest for these girls where they have no place to receive any visitors? MR. FARWELL: The state can open the public schools for centers. Here is a million dollars worth of property. The City has taken care of the wrecks of buildings, and why shouldn’t it take care of the wrecks of girls? The_ conditions ought not to be as they are. Take Freiberg’s dance hall. Girls go on duty at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and stay there mtil 4 o’clock in the morning, and then they are taken to the Cadillac ind other hotels. Mr. William H. Dunn’s Testimony. WILLIAM H. DUNN, called as a witness, having been first duly iv/orn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Q. State your name? A. William H. Dunn. Q. You live in the city of Chicago? A. In the Village of Brookfield ust outside of Chicago. Q. What if anything have you observed in regard to the subject natter of the investigation of this Committee? A. I have had business lere jn the courts of Cook County for many years. I have made a study )f this subject. i;o Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do you know of your own knowledge of any case where women have been sold or delivered to houses of ill fame by men? A. Not through court procedings, but I have been in trials where they were sent to the penitentiary. Q. If you have any information of this kind give us a brief state- ment of your experience. A. My own experience has been in the courts of Cook County. For many years I have seen children brought into the Juvenile Court, which I have been fighting in Chicago for twelve years, which I believe is one of the greatest causes for the red-light district. We have numerous Child-Care societies. Under the system of the Juvenile Court they can go in and take the children from the parents and take them to a private corporation and deliver them to any man who will make an application for them. Where a good man can get a girl, the most depraved man can get one. I called to see Air. Roe at 66 La Salle Street, but he was in the western states, so the lady at the place told me. They had delivered a young girl to some people, and I sent a lady to get the girl. Q. For what purpose? A. As a housemaid. They can take them out, take them away from the mother, and she loses the identity of the girl, and she is turned over to a foster-parent; and the mother will not know where her daughter is. I knew of a case of a young girl who was turned over, and she became the mother of a baby at 12 years of age. What we want are reforms to save these children. The great trouble is, they do not get at the root of the evil. One evil is the lack of wages and the poverty in the mother’s home. One case is that of the Alahony girl. She was the only support her mother had. They came there, and the mother said “If you take my oldest, take the others.” I sent over for one of the blanks of the Children’s Aid Society. A Air. O. P. Sharp, 151 Main Street, Dubuque, Iowa, was there for a girl; and the lady said she didn’t need any recommendation. I got the man outside and got his name. That was right in the city of Chicago. Q. Let us get this straightened out. You maintain there is such a society in the City of Chicago? A. Incorporated under the laws of Illinois. Q. What is the name of it? A. The Illinois Children’s Home & Aid Society. Q. Located where? A. In the Unity Building, Chicago. Q. What do you charge that they do? A. I charge that under the state law it permits them to take children from their parents and deport them to any city of the Union or any foreign country. Q. Do you charge they deport them for immoral purposes? A. I don’t want to charge that; but I charge they deport them. These children are taken from their parents and given to others without their consent, and this is done in the city of Chicago. FORAIER CONGRESSAIAN WHARTON: Taking the _ proposition you have just spoken of, if everything you say I will assume is true, how would that affect the situation that this Committee is tr 3 -ing to get at as to what are the underlying causes of these things in large communities? A. I will answer you by stating that there are people scouting around for those girls, and they bring those girls into court on trifling matters, and they take them from their parents, and thej^ are placed in these homes; and their parents have no control over them. Then they are turned out and then go to the red light district. You have a law to protect j'our laborers, and you should have a law to protect those girls. Q. Supposing what you say is all true, as to the Juvenile Court and this society or organization or whatever 3 fOU want to call it, coming back to the proposition that concerns this Committee, what are the causes which lead to this? A. Povert 3 f at the home and loose laws. SENATOR BEALL: What is 3 ^our reason as to why girls turn out to be common prostitutes? A. Povert 3 ', that is, where the mother is poor; and the girl has to go out and earn a living. Q. Suppose she goes to work in one of the department stores for Public Meetings and Testimony 171 four to six dollars a week, that would not support the mother and the family? A. No. Q. Then she has to get money to live on? A. Exactly; yes, sir. Q. Is that your reason? A. That is one reason. There are hundreds of cases where girls come in here, and there are people scouting around this city to find good-looking girls. SENATOR JUUL; What do they use them for when they get them? A. Put them in houses throughout the country. Q. Mr. Dunn, you are an attorney? A. I am not practicing now. Q. What do you suggest as a remedy? A. I would suggest a law in Illinois to provide for reasonable wages. Q. Do you know now whether anybody has traded in White Slavery? A. All I want to say in that respect is, I notice in Cook County, where children were brought to a home that was unworthy. SENATOR JUUL: Where is that Home? A. It is out on the West Side, where girls were taken. Q. The Juvenile Court placed children in charge of the home? A. Yes. Q. You mean to state to this Committee that the home is entirely unworthy? A. Yes. Q. You don’t object to these girls being placed in reputable families in Illinois? A. No; if they are placed there under the proper protection of the law. That is where you get your housemaids. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Mr. Dunn, let me understand, your testimony is along what line? A. It is this, that under the present system of the Juvenile law, it makes it possible for anyone in the White Slave traffic to get girls and take them away under the pretext that they want to make a home for them. Q. That there are private institutions parading under the cloak of charitable institutions, to give out girls to anybody? A. Yes, sir. Q. I want to get this clear. Do I understand it is permissible in Chicago for any number of people to get together as an association or a charitable institution, and give out girls for domestic service? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you in mind any such cases? A. Yes, sir, I know of cases. THE CHAIRMAN: I wish you would give all those cases to our investigator. It is a serious matter. We might call in the witnesses and get their testimony as to these conditions. SENATOR BEALL: Can you tell the Committee of any society that has charge of a girl, that will just turn her loose? A. Turn her loose? Chicago is full of them. Our reports show it. I have trunks full of reports; and while I was in this office this Mr. O. P. Sharp of Dubuque, Iowa, got this girl without any references. I think the practice should be stopped. SENATOR JUUL: We will stop it if you can make good on your facts. THE WITNESS: I will bring the proofs. SENATOR JUUL: Will you furnish this Committee with a list of associations to whom the Juvenile Court of Cook County assigns girls; will you furnish us a list of those institutions? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will you get one or two or more respectable citizens to join you in backing the statements you have made here today as to the character of those societies and the use made of the children after the Juvenile Court has so assigned them? A. Yes, sir, I will bring specific cases at your next meeting, and I will bring documentary evidence. Q. Then will you pencil down what in your idea is the remedy for this evil in your own way, give us what in your idea ought to be the remedy and to what extent the law governing juveniles in this state should 172 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee be changed? If you will bring us that, there will be no necessity for keeping you here today. SENATOR JUUL; I suggest in fairness and in justice to the judge of the Juvenile Court of this County, that he be given an opportunity to appear here. I NOTE: This line of inquiry was subsequently taken up by a special legislative investigating committee on “Home-Finding Societies,” with Representative Thomas Curran as chairman. The committee made an exhaustive report in January, 1915. The report is printed and copies are available to those interested.] Miss Belle Buzzell’s Testimony. MISS BELLE BUZZELL, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: State your name? A. Belle Buzzell. Q. You live in Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you lived here? A. I have lived here since 1900. Q. Are you engaged in reform work in the city of Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your address? A. 6 East Chicago Avenue. Q. You may tell the Committee what information you possess as to the question of the traffic of selling females, which is chiefly what we are investigating. Tell it in your own language. A. When I came here in 1900 I had never seen a street-walker before in my life. Q. Where did you come from? A. From Lawrence, Alassachusetts. I became interested in girls, going back and forth, and when I was in the training school I started to work wuth them. I found there were girls supporting men, the pimp and the cadet. They were selling their bodies and supporting those men. I also know that women have been sent out of the city," and are being so sent now. I have had personal cases where women have gone out of the city. I might cite a case if you do not mind. There was a young man that went to Milwaukee that brought two girls here, and brought them to Dearborn Street. Q. What is the system of booking maintained in the city of Chicago — I don’t mean the liouses but as to the girls? A. Inspector AIcCann was the one who started the booking system, because of this reason, that so many girls came here, and their people didn’t know where they were; they were lost, and there was no way of finding them; so Inspector McCann felt that by booking girls, if their people came here, the father and mother or relatives, they could easily locate the girls. Thej’ also introduced the Bertillion system. When Inspector AIcCann was at the Desplaines station he sent 400 girls home that came into that district. I worked a great deal in the station, and I know about that. There were two girls that were brought there from Green Bay, Michigan, and went around in the Red Light District, and they were taken to the Harrison Police station. Q. What year did this take place? A. It is about a year ago. I talked to the girls on Sunday, and on Monday I went down to the court. One of the girls was turned over to me, and the other girl was held. The judge asked the young man that brought them here how much money he earned, and he told him he earned $18 a week and that he was a paper- hanger. I took the girl up to the federal people, Mr. Parkin and Mr. DeWoody, and they talked with her. Q. The gentlemen just mentioned are attorneys of the federal court? A. Mr. DeWoody is an investigator and Mr. Parkin is Assistant United States District Attorney. Q. You met them in the federal building? A. \ es. That night at 5 o’clock they had this boy arrested. He was indicted by the federal grand jurv and convicted. He got three years in Ft. Leavenworth and a $500 fine. The case was taken to the United States Supreme Court, and it is pending now. There have been other cases where men have taken girls Public Meetings and Testimony 173 from other states to this state. I have had them in my own room and in my own bed with me, weeks at a time. I know this thing does exist. There are hotels — I could take you to some of them where young girls go and sell their bodies to men. There are many such places in Chicago. Q. Outside of these cases pending in the federal court, do you know of any others? A. I have had many cases come under my work. SENATOR BEALL: Do you know the names of any men who in your judgment have been engaged in the White Slave traffic? A. I know of a girl whom I had in my home for about three weeks. The man in the case was a Persian. Q. Do you know his name? A. I don’t just remember his name now. Q. Or his address? A. I think he is in Gary or maybe in South Chicago, in the steel works; the last time I heard of him that is where he was. This little girl was only 15 years old. This man married her. She didn’t have any mother. Her father and mother were both dead and she came here and met this man at a dance one evening. The landlady where she roomed had a daughter and she went to this dance, and this girl went with her; and they met two men there that night. In fact this Persian roomed there. It was on the North Side I believe, on Erie Street. He came home with her and he asked her to marry him, and they were married. He took her to Gary, Inidana, and she went through terrible tortures of selling her body to men. They got a flat, and the Persians would come up there, and she sold her body and got money for it. Q. Do you know whether the woman got that money or the man got that money? A. I wouldn’t be sure. I couldn’t swear to whether they gave the money directly to him and she turned it over to him after- wards, or whether they gave it to her. Q. You think he got the money? A. O, yes, but whether it was paid directly to him, I don’t know. She Anally left him and came back to Chicago. She came back here and went out on Clark Street to sell her body, and then he was arrested. The next day the case was brought into the federal court, and he was discharged. As soon as they discharged him they called me up and I came down to the federal court and took the girl home. Had they let me know, I would have turned the case over to' the state authorities and prosecuted him under the state law. He learned she was at my house, and he came there many times while I was out. Then I had some people locate him, and they finally located him in South Chicago in a steel mill. He left there and I lost track of him. Q. As far as you know she has reformed? A. As far as I know, she has. Q. What do you now say as to the underlying cause of the White Slave traffic, do you think it is poverty or the wage question? A. I think the wage question is one. Q. Store girls, factory girls, shop girls, girls in different walks of life — what do they earn? A. They make from $4 to $6 and $7 a week. Q. What is your idea as to the possibility of a girl sustaining life and keeping respectable on four dollars a week? A. I don’t think she could do it. Q. What would you say she could live nicely on? A. I think she ought to have $12 a week. Q. You think that where they get $4, $5 or $6 a week, that the present state of prostitution is due to this? A. It has a great deal to do with it. EX-CONGRESSMAN WHARTON: Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question? THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. MR. WHARTON: Along this line, have you ever learned in your experience, that girls who are employed in the different stores are on call at some of the flats, and sent for in the evening,- after their work? A. Yes, sir. I may tell you of a flat of 74 apartments in the Ridgewood on the South Side, I think it is something like 28th Street and Wabash Avenue. 174 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee MR. WHARTON: 28th Street and Wabash Avenue? A. 1 have been there a good many times. MR. WHARTON: I never have been there. THE WITNESS: I should hope not. There were two flats with women in them. These women were booked by the Police Department, and under the Bertillion system to show how many girls they had in the flat; and men that came into the flats would be asked by the landlady what they wanted. The landlady would tell them how much it wmuld cost, and then these girls that worked down-town were called in, and the men would pay for the treatment. SENATOR BEALL: You don’t think that is so of most girls that work in the large stores in the city? A. No; I wouldn’t say that. A great many of the girls that work in the stores live at home or live with relatives. But I believe a great deal of prostitution is caused from low wages. I don’t believe any woman, if she got reasonable wages, would do that. SENATOR JUUL; You think it is the wages that has something to do with it? A. Yes. I am a woman myself, and I know there is no woman that would go_ out, who was decent, and sell her body, if she could earn enough to live. Then there are girls who want a little decent amusement. What would be enjoyment for me wouldn’t be for some one else. I don’t believe women will sell their bodies if theA' could earn enough to live respectable and nicely. So many young girls go wrong because they can’t afford to dress well. REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD: Do j'ou think the dance hall is largely responsible? A. I don’t think it is such a large percentage as a great many people think. I have investigated some of the dance halls, and especially the Dearborn on the North Side. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. What do you know about the Dearborn Hall? A. I have been there several times and I have known it to be all right. Q. Have you ever heard of any girls meeting so-called cadets at the Dearborn Dance Hall? A. I don’t know that they ever do; I don’t think they would do that there. Q. Of your own knowledge is the Dearborn Dance Hall connected with the saloon? A. I don’t think it is. MR. WHARTON: You have made some investigation and done some shadow work and probably have found out some of the conditions under which street-walkers or hustlers, as they are generally termed, live, and the influences surrounding them? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever found any percentage of those women who are protected by the different police officers, who act in the capacity of pro- tectors, and perhaps sweetheart? A. I think I could say so. I wouldn’t want to swear to it, but I know those things exist. I have known of it. Q. That is one of the conditions this Committee is trying to get at. A. At the time they closed the red-light district two weeks ago I went down in the district with some of my friends. It was supposed to be closed. We walked through, and I saw a man going into a house, knocking at the door, and I made an affidavit. I spoke to the officer there. I think it was about the 15th of October. I said to Officer Jones, “I thought these houses were closed down here.” I saw a man going in. He shrugged shoulders like this (indicating). He said “We have had no orders to close the district; Wayman closed it.” I said “You are from the 22nd Street station and had no orders?” He said “No, we have had no orders; we only do what we are told to do.” I told Mr. Farwell, and he asked me if I would make an affidavit, which I did. He sent a cop 3 ’ to Mr. Wayman and Chief McWeeney, and two friends of mine made affidavits. SENATOR JL^UL: In other words the district was not closed? A. No. Q. Do you know of anj’- one engaged in the White Slave traffic under police protection? A. I wouldn’t say that, but I can cite the case of a girl where the man must have had police protection, or where she had police protection. Public Meetings and Testimony 175 i . Q. You don’t know whether she had police protection. A. I think she had. MR. WHARTON: Just one more question. You have testified as to girls being sent for from “call” flats? A. I couldn’t swear to it. Q. You state in your testimony that girls were sent for? A. Yes, I know the Ridgeway. Q. These flats are used for the purpose of prostitution? A. Yes, sir. Q. Patronized by men in good circumstances? A. They must be from the prices they charge. ; Q. Don’t 3 rou think that if those flats were known, it would be a igreat deal better than to have them scattered around? A. I don’t believe in segregation. Mary M. Ballam’s Testimony. MARY M. BALLAM, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, itestified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: State your name? A. Mary F. Ballam. ' Q. What is your address? A. 301 Security Building. I hardly think II can give much information. I hadn’t intended to come here. I am [interested more in our organization. ! Q. What is your organization? A. It is sort of a clearing house [for temperance and citizenship work for young people of the city, that |is, getting young people who have pretty good consciences, to awake to better conditions. Of course I have been intensely interested in all these questions, and have kept my eyes open and my ears open, and have talked with a great many different people. I have been to that Dearborn dance hall that has been talked about. ! Q. What do you know about the Dearborn dance hall? A. I know 'the Dearborn dance hall two months ago was running in connection with !a saloon. Q. What do you mean when you say running in connection with a |i saloon? A. Why, there was liquor there. They would go down on the Inext floor. There were about 500 people there, and about 400 or 500 went down and drank. Q. What do you know about the traffic in women? A. I have done no particular investigation. f Q. Do you know anything about the subject? A. You mean of ‘my own first-hand knowledge? « Q. Yes. We have got several volumes of rumors. A., I say I don’t [have very much to say about it. Q. Do you know of any woman who has been placed in any house ],of ill fame in Illinois? A. Against her will? ' Q. By any man who derived profit through the placing of her; do you know of any cases? A. I was talking with a woman that was so placed, but she wouldn’t come in to testify. Q. Do you know of any institution or body of men in this community or any other place in Illinois, deriving a profit from shipping girls outside [of the state? A. Not first-hand, no. Q. Do you know of any institution of any men in the state of Illinois, [ organized for the purpose of shipping girls for that purpose? A. Not . first-hand. I SENATOR BEALL: Madam, you said you knew of a case. Let us ! have that. ( SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Chairman, I maintain that this is going to lumber our record. The amount of testimony we have been putting in the record is lumbering the record. THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair rules on the presumption that we are k going to get at the bottom of a good deal of this vice in permitting this IJestimonir. We are not working under the necessary rules of court pro- cedure. Any member of the Committee has a right to ask the witness 176 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee any question that that member desires to ask, and the questions and answers will be put into the record. Every member of the Committee must be accorded full_ opportunity to inform himself on an}- point within the scope of our inquiry. SENATOR BEALL: Madam, you say you know of a lady that did furnish money or give money to some man at some place or other; is that correct? A. Yes. There was a young man came from the East and said he wanted to marry a girl, and wanted to know if I couldn’t get her off the police records or any other records, that he wanted her record clear. I told him I would try. I did talk to different people I knew, I did promise to have her record wiped clear. I said I thought he had better bring the girl in, and she came in and I talked with her. She said she wasn’t forced to do anything, and she felt she had better spend a year in work, and get entirely free, and give him a chance to get some money. She said she was $200 in debt. Q. Did she say whom she owed $200 to? A. To the people in the house. Q. Did she say how she got in debt to them? A. She said she bought things — her clothes. SENATOR BEALL: You don’t care to give those names? A. No; I promised them I would not. There was another little girl that was brought in. There was a young man and of course I had to promise him I wouldn’t tell. He is married. This little girl was 17. Q. What reason do you give for this girl being on the street? A. She said she had been getting $8 a week; and her parents died when she was a baby, and she was raised by an aunt until she was 14, and that she had been kind of knocking around. REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD. Q. You think it was because she didn’t have sufficient to live on? A. I wouldn’t say that. SENATOR BEALL: What do you think as to the question of wages as one of the causes? A. That opens up a very big question. Of course, I don’t think a girl can live well on less than $10 or $12 a week; but when you come to consider a minimum wage, then you have to take into consideration as to whether or not the girl is capable of earning that; and that is a pretty serious proposition. THE CHAIRMAN: Possibly, Madam; but somehow we feel that in safeguarding our womanhood, the cost is not of primarj- consideration. A. No doubt about that. I am not giving my opinion of what ought to be done. Another thing is the question of amusement. I think that is fully as large as the one of wages. Then there is the question of the demand of men for women. Q. What would you state to this Committee is the principal causes for the White Slave traffic? A. Well, unquestionably the wage proposi- tion in regard to girls; questionable amusements and the demand on the part of men for indulgence, and the desire on the part of unscrupulous men. Q. There may be abnormal cases. A. Yes, abnormal viewpoints. I knew of a woman who told me of her conditions. She was a nice-looking woman. Of course, she may have colored it for me, I don’t know; but she talked quite freely. She said “I don’t mind this life, I know how to take care of myself. I know very well how to take care of myself.” She seemed to think it was a necessity on the part of men, and that she was doing some good. THE CHAIRMAN: We thank you, Madam. The Commission will stand adjourned until next Friday at lO o’clock A. M. Thereupon an adjournment was taken to Friday, IMarch 7, 1913, at 10 o’clock A. M. SESSION IV. Summoned by the Committee, several representative em- ployers appear before it to give information concerning wages ptud to their employes and their opinions as to the actual living ex- penses of self-dependent girls. Testimony of: Mr. Julius Rosenwald (president), Mr. G. H. Miller (man- ager employment department) and Mr. Lessing J. Rosen- wald (department manager) of Sears, Roebuck & Co.; Eleanor Benson, office clerk; Emily Houck, office clerk; Mrs. P — M . Chicago, Friday, March 7, 1913. BE IT REMEMBERED, That the ILEINOIS SENATE VICE v'OMMITTEE reconvened at ten o’clock a. m. today, Eriday, March 7. A. D. 1913, at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago. Members Present: Lieutenant-Governor O’Hara, Chairman. Senator Niels Juul, Senator Edmond Beall. Senator F. Jeff Tossey. Owing to illness, Senator Woodard was not in attendance. Whereupon the following proceedings were had : THE CHAIRMAN: The members of the Senate Vice Committee will now come to order. The Sergeant-at-Arms will please read the list of witnesses summoned. THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS (reading list of names): James Simpson, Edwin F. Mandel, Roy M. Shayne, George Lytton, W. C. Thorne, Joseph Basch, John T. Pirie, Edwin Hillman. A. Ellinger, Henry C. Schwab, E. J. Lehman and Julius Rosenwald. THE CHAIRMAN: The Sergeant-at-Arms will please see that those gentlemen are summoned who are not here. Mr. Julius Rosenwald was then called. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Rosenwald, will you please be sworn? Mr. Julius Rosenwald’s Testimony. JULIUS ROSENWALD, having been first duly sworn, by the secre- tary, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. What is your name, please? A. Julius Rosenwald. Q. What is your occupation, Mr. Rosenwald? A. I am president of Sears, Roebuck & Company. Q. That is a company or a corporation? A. A corporation. Q. Will you please state to the committee in brief the scope of your authority as president of this corporation? A. My authority is the same as that of any president of any corporation, I imagine. I am at the head of the organization actively. 177 178 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. And you have within your scope of authority the right to hire and discharge people? A. I have the authority, but I do not exercise it. Q. Will you state, Mr. Rosenwald, how many people are employed by this corporation to the best of your memory? A. Is there any objection to my referring to notes, because I want to be accurate? THE CHAIRMAN; No, not at all. THE WITNESS (Referring to memorandum): Our pay-roll for the week ending March 8, 1913, showed 4,732 women and girls; I might say female employes. Q. What is the average wage paid woman workers by your cor- poration? A. The average pay-roll — that is, the average salary on this pay-roll is $9.12. Q. What is the lowest wage paid any woman worker in your employ? A. The lowest wage paid to a girl under sixteen years of age is $5.00 dollars per week for the first three months or less, and $5.50 per week if she has been in the employ of the company not to exceed three months. Q. You have no woman in your employ getting less than $5.00 a week? A. No; we have no woman in that sense of the word getting as low as $5.00 a week. Eor help under sixteen years of age we have no female employe who receives less than $5.00 or any employe over sixteen years of age who receives less than $CO0 a week. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. You have no female employe over sixteen years of age at less than $5.50 a week? A. There is no female employed over sixteen years of age or up to sixteen and a half years of age who receives less than $5.00. Tlie starting wage is $5.00 and the advance is made up to $5.50 within two months, and if she is between sixteen and sixteen and a half years of age she receives $5.50. Q. How many in your employ are receiving $5.00 a week? A. On this pay-roll for the week ending March 8th, we had 119 between _the ages of sixteen and sixteen and a half years receiving no more than $5.00 a week. This includes all of the help that was getting that wage. Q. How many, Mr. Rosenwald, are receiving less than $8.00 a week? A. Less than $8.00 a week? You want to know exactly? Q. Approximately, in round numbers? A. In round numbers there are about 1,500. Q. About 1,500 receiving $8.00 a week? A. I can give you that exactly if you want to know it. THE CHAIRMAN: We would like to know it exactly. A. 1,465. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Of these 1,465 people, how many are living at home, that is, with their parents? A. Practically all. Q. How do you know that? A. We make it a point not to hire any girl for less than $8.00 a week who does not live at home. Q. That is, when she makes her application for the position there is a question asked as to whether she is living at home and if she answers yes, she is properly qualified? A. I thing that fortifies her statement. Q. How many people have 3'ou employed as investigators for the pur- pose of verifying those statements? A. I couldn’t answer, that question. Q. What is your judgment, Mr. Rosenwald? A. I think Mr. Miller could probablj^ answer the question. I might ask him. SENATOR JUUL: Please ask him. MR. ROSENWALD: Mr. Miller, do they verify those statements? MR. MILLER: Yes, thej" are verified. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Then you include in your investigations the question as to whether the girl is living at home as stated in her application and if she is ascer- Public Meetings and Testimony 179 tained not to be living at home she does not get a job? A. We try to find those things out. Q. Mr. Rosenwald, were you ever a member of a committee to in- vestigate vice conditions in this or any other community? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was that commission, Mr. Rosenwald? A. The Chicago Vice Commission. Q. May 1 ask Mr. Rosenwald, if you were present at most if not all of the sessions of that commission? A. I was present at a good many of them; whether I was present at most of them I do not remember, but I was at a great many of them. Q. And at the sessions at which you were present was any testimony given as to the wages paid woman workers and girl workers? A. I wasn’t present when any testimony was given on this matter because the testimony was generally given to a committee before the discussion that came befoie the entire committee. I was present on such occasions. Q. But you know the wage question was gone into at that time by that commission? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know whether any witnesses appearing before that com- mission stated that in their judgment low wages did have something to do with the immoral condition of women? A. Not to my knowledge. I don’t know, but I believe such a statement was made. Q. After hearing the evidence before that commission, of which you were a member, did you make any recommendations upon the wage ques- tion? A. Yes, sir. Q. What were those recommendations, in brief? A. I couldn’t recite them without refreshing my memory on them. Q. As a result of that investigation were wages increased in the City of Chicago? A. That is more than I can tell. Whether wages were in- creased on account of that or as a result of that I would not be able to say. Q. Have you a key to the so-called vice commission of Chicago? A. No, sir. Q. You have not the key? Have you ever seen the key? A. No, sir. Q. Why was the key not made public? A. To the best of my knowl- edge the reason w’as that a good deal of the information that had been obtained in making the report was obtained under the promise that con- fidence would not be violated. Q. What is the average wage paid to woman workers over sixteen years and under twenty years of age by Sears, Roebuck & Co? A. I don’t think we notice the age above eighteen and over that the wages paid are from $8.00 to $21.00 a week. Q. That is, from seventeen to twenty? A. Yes; that is, girls, not women who are heads of departments. That is outside of heads of departments. There are a number of women who receive a considerably higher salary, but I do not think they appear on this pay-roll. There are women who are department heads who do not appear on the pay-roll. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. The average pay-roll is what, Mr. Rosen- wald? A. $9.12. Q. For all girls? A. Yes. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Miller will you be sworn, please? G. H. MILLER, was then duly sworn by the secretary. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. Mr. Rosenwald, what is the highest salary included that goes to make up this average? MR. MILLER: I can give it to you. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. What is the highest salary paid any woman worker as a department head? A. About thirty-five dollars a week. There are only twenty-three women whose average is twenty-six dollars a week. Q. And what do you say is the average wage paid women and girl employes? A. $9.12 a week is the avearge. Q. As a matter of fact, what is the wage of the oldest women in your employ? A. Up to fifty dollars a week. 180 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How much do you pay woman heads of departments? A. We have women that eret from $2,100.00 to $2,400.00 and probably more than that. We have one that probably gets $3,000.00 a year. Q. Is it possible, Mr. Rosenwald, for a girl who is employed at $5.00 a week to be increased from time to time until she earns $3,000.00 a year? A. It is entirely possible. Q. That is, the possibility is left to her to be increased to that amount? A. I should say so, yes. Q. Did you ever instruct any head of a department or any official in your establishment to investigate the cost of living of the girls working for your corporation? A. Not that I know of in those terms. I do not know of any such thing now. Q. Let me refresh your memory. Four j^ears ago did Sears, Roe- buck & Co. institute an investigation into the matter of a living wage for women? MR. MILLER: Two j^ears ago, governor. THE CHAIRMAN: Two years ago, then, such an investigation was made by your company? MR. ROSENWALD: If it was within that time I have forgotten it entirely. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. You knew nothing about it? A. No, sir. Q. Do you remember the names of the department heads serving on that board of investigation? MR. kllLLER: A. Not off-hand. Q. In a general way? A. (BY kIR. AIILLER): Yes, I remember one. I remember the assistant general superintendent and the advertising manager. That is all the names I can recall besides mine. Q. What was the report as to the wages of girls? A. (BY MR. MILLER): The reports the various people gave us ran all the wa 3 ' from $7.50 to $9.00 a week. Our recommendation was $8.00 a week. Q. Now Mr. Rosenwald, you knew nothing at all of that investigation? A. To the best of my knowledge, no. I might have known at the time. Q. At that time you were president of Sears, Roebuck & Co? A. Yes, sir. Q. An investigation was made by three or four heads of departments of your corporation and they found that $8.00 a week was a fair mini- mum wage for women; is that correct? A. I had heard of these reports, but I did not know anything about them at the time. Q. How long ago did you hear about that, Mr. Rosenwald? A. The first I can remember now is in talking over this matter with Air. Aliller, in the last two or three days. THE CHAIRAIAN: Air. Aliller has stated that girls could not live on less than $8.00 a week. AIR. ROSENWALD: Girls that live at home. Q. Since this investigation was made. Air. Rosenwald, j'ou know of no investigators who have been put to work verifj-ing the statements of girls that lived at home? A. I think I so stated. Q. Then if, as you now believe, such an investigation was made into the cost of living and $8.00 was fixed by your own department heads as the minimum amount to support the girl adrift, would j-ou say there were no efforts made to verify the statements of the girls that they were not depend- ent on their own resources? A. I would not say we have not made any efforts. I do not know. We do not verify them at the time that the girl is employed. Q. What verification is made later, if any? A. We have a sj’stem of inquiry, and if a girl is sick we send a nurse to take care of her. Q. Isn’t it a matter of common report that if the application shows she does not live at home she is refused a position? A. Unless that girl is worth $8.00 a week she is not employed unless she lives at home. Q. Now, Air. Rosenwald, you are a public spirited citizen and a bene- factor widely known; may I ask you if you think that low wages have an^'- thing to do at all with the immorality of women and girls? A. I would answer that as I said before the vice commission, that I think the question of wages and prostitution has no practical connection. I think ihere is no connection between the two. Public Meetings and Testimony 181 Q. Are you familiar with an association known as the American Vigilance Association? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you donated any money to assist that society for such work as it was doing in the community? A. I was one of the directors up to the time they disbanded one or two weeks ago. Q. Are you acquainted with William Burgess? A. I cannot place him now. Q. You had no communication with him or with any other gentleman that was formerly connected with the American Vigilance Association within the last ten days? A. I would not like to testify under oath to that, because I meet a great many people and may have met Mr. Burgess. Q. You know of no communication sent to the chairman of this com- mittee on the stationery of the American Vigilance Association suggesting that this committee is on the wrong track in conducting an inquiry into the wages paid woman workers? A. Absolutely not. I know of no such letter having been written. Q. Will you kindly state what other institutions, if any, you have aided in the campaign against vice in this community? A. If there are any, I have forgotten. I would not be able to remember. Q. Do you remember any occasion upon which any individual or any organization or any organized society with which you were affiliated has associated the question of low wages with vice? A. The only one I re- member is the vice commission. Q. Do you believe that self-preservation is the first law of nature? A. Well, as to that I should say yes. Q. Do you believe that some crimes are committed because of want? A. Yes. Q. Do you believe that a girl who wants to live respectably and sup- port herself can live on less than $10.00 a week? A. I wouldn’t want to answer that question ofT-hand. Q. What is your opinion, Mr. Rosenwald? A. As I stated, I believe that the question of wages has no connection with the question of prostitu- tion. I believe that the number of girls that .come from proper homes and proper environments are just as liable to become prostitutes as other girls, whose wages r^nge from $8.00 up as from $8.00 down and from $10.00 up to $10.00 down. Q. Do you know, Mr. Rosenwald, if a girl has ever worked in your establishment at low wages and had to get nfoney in other ways because of necessity? Did that ever happen? A. That would be a very difficult thing to say whether it ever happened. Q. In your judgment, Mr. Rosenwald? A. I don’t believe that those cases have any connection with it. The girl that gets $10.00 a week would be just as likely to use that as a subterfuge as the girl who gets a less wage. Q. Then you think the employer who pays the girl less than a living wage has no moral responsibility in her down-fall, if down-fall there be? A. I would say that one had no connection with the other. Q. And that the employer had no moral responsibility for her down- fall? A. I would say that so far as her pay is concerned. Q. Then it would be wholly proper and morally right for any man to pay women and girls less than living wages? A. That is another question. I am referring entirely to the question of prostitution. I say the question of wages isn’t a moral question. It ought to be treated on an entirely dif- ferent basis. I wouldn’t combine the question of prostitution with wages. I say in my opinion there is no connection between the two. Q. Mr. Rosenwald, if you knew that women employed by your cor- poration could not decently exist on the wages paid, what would you ao: A. We would raise their wages. Q. Have you ever done so? A. Many, many times. Q. Do you think $5.00 a week is sufficient for any woman to live on? A. If she lives at home, yes, sir, I do. Q. It is sufficient? A. For a girl of sixteen or under, if she lives at home and probably has the help of her family. 182 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. And $8.00 would be sufficient say for a woman of twenty-five years if she were living at home? A. Yes, sir; and possibly if she were not living at home. She could be honest and might live on $8.00 a week. Q. On $8.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much did your corporation earn during the last fiscal year? A. I cannot give you the figures exactly. Q. Here is a statement for 1911. Is that correct, Mr. Rosenwald, according to your memory? (Handing witness paper.) A. I should say that that is approximately correct, as near as I can remember. Q. Then the total profits, or the net profits, of your corporation for the fiscal year of 1911, were approximately what according to this state- ment? A. Something over $7,000,000.00. Q. Could you apply a generous portion of these profits to increase the wages of employes and still pay your stockholders interest on the money invested? That is could you take $2,000,000.00 from the total profit of $7,000,000.00 and apply it to the wages of employes and still pay interest on the money invested in your business? A. The question of interest is hardly applicable because the value of the shares of the company are not entirely represented by interest on „the capital invested; but I would say we could take $2,000,000.00 and still pay some dividend, some income to the shareholders of the company. Q. What dividend are you paying now, Mr. Rosenwald? A. We are paying now 7 per cent on all of the preferred and common stock of the company. Q. How much surplus have you after paying that dividend? A. 1 would not want to state that off-hand. I am not just sure what that figures. I think our surplus, according to our books, was something in the neighbor- hood of $12,000,000.00 at the end of the year 1912. Q. According to this statement your surplus for the year 1911, was $13,700,000.00? A. For that year, yes, sir. Q. And you are paying 7 per cent dividend. Then it would be possible for you to take $2,000,000.00 of this surplus and give it to your employes? A. It would be entirely possible, yes. Q. If after investigating the matter yourself you reach the conclusion that you can pay the girls enough money to live on decently you will take money from the surplus fund and give it to them in decent wages? A. I wouldn’t say we will take it from the surplus fund. We endeavor to pay all our employes what we feel is fair wages and will always continue to do so. SENATOR JUUL: Let me ask a few question, governor. THE CHAIRMAN; Very well. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Mr. Rosenwald, have you as an employer, living here under the protection of the law, considered what is fair? A. The whole subject. Q. You stated you would increase wages to what you thought is fair. I will ask you if you in your gigantic business, and being under the pro- tection of the laws of the State of Illinois, have you considered what is fair? Have you considered that the state has any interest in aiding you in arriving at what is fair? A. I do not think I have given that enough thought to answer that in that way. I would say that we would be per- fectly willing to have the state guide us in fixing the wages, and we would trjr to meet the views of the state. Q. If you do not mind telling us, what is j^our personal income from the corporation? A. I would not want to answer that question. Q. Could you, Mr. Rosenwald, live on $8.00 a week? A. That is pretty hard to tell without trjung. Q. Have you ever tried? A. No, I don’t think I ever tried. Q. Have you ever heard the term, — I presume it is a slang term, — the term “Driver” in your place? A. Not that I know of. Public Meetings and Testimony 183 Q. What title do you then give to the men and women who superin- tend the work of your employes to see that they are kept constantly busy? A. I don’t know that we have any such. Q. As a matter of fact haven’t you heard such officials referred to as “Drivers?” A. No, sir, I have not. Q. What do the girls call them? A. Not being a girl, I could not tell you. Q. You apparently do not look at things from the girls’ standpoint? A. I have no knowledge of any such condition existing. Q. What are the working hours of your girls? A. The girls under sixteen work eight hours a day I think, and those over sixteen work eight and three-quarters hours or over. MR. MILLER: That is the average. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. What is the maximum? MR. MILLER: Nine and one-quarter hours is the daily maximum. SENATOR JUUL: Q. That is the legal maximum? MR. ROSEN- WALD: No, the legal maximum is ten hours. They work about four hours less in summer. Q. Mr. Rosenwald, I am going to read from a letter unsigned received by the committee this morning. “I want to inform you of one of the things at Sears, Roebuck & Co. There are a number of Polish or Bohemian girls employed in this firm who are compelled to work twelve or more hours a day, reporting at 6 A. M. and they are reported as 8 A. M. The same game is being played on their hours of departure. This is an absolute fact, denial or no denial.” Is that true? A. I can’t say, if it is unsigned. Q. Is that true or not? A. It is not true, to the best of my knowledge and belief. THE CHAIRMAN: The committee has received any number of letters from girls claiming to be employes in different establishments in Chicago, saying it ds impossible for them to sign their names. The committee will bring these letters in and ask as to the truthfulness or untruthfulness of the statements. The committee does not regard this as evidence, the letters being unsigned. MR. ROSENWALD: I would like to state for the benefit of the com- mittee that Sears, Roebuck & Co. would welcome a visit from the committee, and the questioning of any employes in connection with the institution. I would also like them to have this information, that all of our employes who have been in our employ five years or more receive on the anniversary of their engagement in the service an additional compensation of from 5 per cent to 10 per cent of their yearly earnings. I would also like to state for the benefit of the committee that over one thousand of our women employes have saving accounts, and a goodly number are stock- holders in the company. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Suppose, Mr. Rosenwald, a girl is a little slower or more careless than her fellow workers, what method have you to see that she does as much work as her sister worker? A. I don’t know that we have any particular method. Q. That would not be the duty of the so-called “Driver?” A. Not to the best of my knowledge. Q. Is it not a fact then that a girl who is not doing as much as your standard requires is sent to this so-called official scolder? A. I don’t know that we have any such condition. Q. You are, of course, familiar with the various departments in your place of business? A. I should say so; I don’t know everything about them. Q. Do you know of any “Drivers” where girls are employed in em- broidery work? A. No, sir. 184 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Does your corporation advertise for girl help in the classified columns of the daily and Sunday newspapers? A. Yes, sir. Q. By the use of such advertisements do you keep the labor markets over-stocked? A. I never heard of it. Q. Have you a man now in charge of that department? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is he in charge of Department 170? A. He has been up to within a few days. Q. Is he in the city at the present time? A. He is in the room now. Q. What is his name? A. Lessing J. Rosenwald. THE CHAIRMAN; Will you be sworn, please? Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald’s Testimony. LESSING J. ROSENWALD, after having been duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: ' EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. Give your name to the reporter. A. Lessing J. Rosenwald. Q. You are in charge of Department 170, of Sears, Roebuck & Co.? A. I was. Q. Until what time? A. Until today. Q. Have you recently served notice to the girls working in that de- partment, a notice of any nature at all? A. I have. Q. What was the nature of that notice? A. Various notices go about the department, frequently, not any particular bearing that I have an^ idea of, but anything that would interest that department as a whole. It usually goes from the manager’s office of that department. Q. Did you serve a notice concerning wages? A. I did not. Q. Did you serve a notice that girls now being paid $10.00 or more a week must hand in their resignation within the next two weeks? A. 1 did net. Q. You make that statement under oath? A. I make that statement under oath. Q. Have you within the last week or two discharged anj- women drawing $10.00 a week or in that neighborhood? A. I have. Q. How many have you discharged? A. I discharged one and I asked for the resignation of one, but not because they were earning $10.00 a week. Q. In those two cases did the substitutes get $10.00 a week? A. They did not have any direct successors, so I could not name their salarj^ I did it in this manner. I told these two girls that under the conditions we would give them two weeks before asking for their resignation. One of them said she would like to resign and I said she might. The other one is still there. Q. When you discharge a girl drawing $10.00 a week, do 3'ou fill her place with a girl for $6.00 a week? A. No, sir. Q. You have never done that? A. No, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: That is all. Thank you. Senator Juul, will j'ou proceed with the witness? Mr. Julius Rosenwald’s Testimony Continued. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Mr. Rosenwald, you have clothing in \'Our place of business of different kinds? A. All kinds of clothing, for men and women. Q. You are thoroughly familiar with the cost of clothing, shoes, underclothing and everything of that line? A. I wouldn’t saj' I was thoroughly familiar with it. Public Meetings and Testimony 185 Q. You have an idea of the value of them? A. I have some idea, yes, sir. Q. Now, would you say that a woman could buy her clothing, shoes, underclothes and necessary food and pay for laundry and carfare and make some slight provision for sickness — do you say that can be done on $5.00 a week. A. If she lives at home and contributes that to her family, I should say so; if she is assisting in the family and not dependent entirely on her own resources. Q. And if she is dependent on her own resources, you pay her more for ber services? A. It depends altogether on what she does. If she is at home with her family, they board her. Q. I am trying to get at this: what becomes of the young woman, in the service of a mercantile establishment who has a home where the wage of the father is barely sufficient to keep the members of that family? Mr. Rosenwald, would you figure that if the head of the family was un- able out of his wages to contribute to her living, that a female employe would be able to live and get the necessary food and so forth? A. I would like to answer that in this way, that if she is living at home where there is no other person earning — Q. No, but where there is another one earning a wage barely suffi- cient? A. I should say that would add very materially to the keeping up of the home. For example, a girl earning $12.00 a week, or $5.50 or $6.00 a week, that would add materially to the comforts of the home. Q. You think $5.00 is not sufficient to maintain herself on? A. I didn’t say that. I said if she pays no board. I know that women get room and board in respectable good surroundings, for $3.50 and $4.00 a week. Q. Have you any system of following these girls to their various homes to see if they are living at home and whether that girl is living a moral life and contributing to the support of the family? A. We have no means of investigation. Q. Then, if the home is not a comfortable home, you come right back to the original principle that the girl must live on what she earns, isn’t that right, Mr. Rosenwald? A. I would not say that entirely, be- cause that home is rented and food is provided for the family whether she earns any money or not. Q. What in your opinion would be the cost to any girl who receives $5.00 a week if she lives at home where the father is unable to aid her in any way? A. If he is working and earns enough to pay the rent and the heat and gets the food for that home, I say that this $5.00 a week would add materially to the help of the family so that they can live better than they could if she did not work and did not earn this $5.00 a week. Q. Now Mr. Rosenwald, do you figure that there is any good reason v'hy a young woman, any more than a young man, should give her entire time during one entire week to your or any other concern in the City of Chi- cago, for wages for her services for less than she could keep herself clothed and properly fed and have a comfortable bed to sleep in? A. I should say there are reasons, that is, competition that might bring about such a condition. I would not say it was wholesale. Q. What I want to lead up to, looking at this statement of your earnings of $8,500,000 and where you pay a dividend and there are one hundred girls each receiving $5.00 per week, suppose it would take $260,000 per year to give one thousand girls $5.00 a week- — would you say in view of that statement that this $260,000 added to the wages of the employes would materially interfere with the profits or dividends declared by your company on the $8,500,000? A. I would say that we should be glad to do that if that should be permanent. Q. That is right, but would you say that that additional payment of $260,000 in one year to one thousand girls would materially interfere with the_ earning capacity of your concern or prevent you from meeting com- petition with similar concerns in the United States, when the earnings show $8,500,000 — would you say that competition comes into that proposi- tion at all? A. I think it does. Q. To what extent? A. Because in years when we might make 186 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee these earnings we might be able to afford it, but in years when we might not make these earnings we could not afford it. Q. Well, would you say that taking $8,500,000 as the earnings for the stockholders, would you say that in using $260,000 to pay one thousand girls an additional $5.00 a week, to keep the girls off the streets and to give them a good living, would you say that would be reasonable? A. I would say it would be entirely in our province to give all our earnings to our help. Q. That isn’t the question, Mr. Rosenwald. Let us be fair with one another. I mean to be fair with you. A. I shall try to be fair. Q. We are not here to annoy you and we do not mean to. I want to try to see what the condition is in the City of Chicago, and to find out what is right. What I want to find out is this: Would it be possible to take the lowest wage earners in your institution and take care of them by paying the lowest paid girl or woman $5.00 a week? A. We pay no woman $5.00 a week, nothing but girls under sixteen years of age. Q. Well, if a girl is getting $5.00 a week and she is increased to $10. OO a week, do you think that that would enable her to live honestly and decently and support herself? A. I can’t say that it would necessarily. Q. Do you know if there is any way for the State of Illinois, and the manufacturers of Illinois, coming together without legislation, or do you think that if legislation were enacted it would be contested? A. That would be a difficult question for me to answer, if it would be contested. I know if it were enacted into law we should live up to the enactment of the law. Q. You don’t think that legislation of that kind, on the ground of competition or otherwise, would seriously cripple )'our business or any business? A. I think it would cripple any business. It might not cripple ours, but it might cripple others. I want to be perfectly fair in mj'- answers. I believe in a great many cases it would put Illinois in a position where it could not compete with other states. Q. Here is something that this committee has been confronted with from day to day, that one of the chief reasons for . the existence of the White Slave traffic is that a girl is underpaid and becomes an easy victim be- cause she is underfed and underclothed. We are trying to get a remed 3 ' for this and will be glad to have anj' suggestion from 3 "ou. A. I have made quite a study of that subject. It is a thing I have got a little interest in, but a great deal depends on the cause and effect. I think a great deal depends on the environments. I don’t believe that the question of wages is the only thing. I will give it as my honest opinion, and I have no desire to minimize the necessity for paying girls wages that are absolutel 3 ’ fair, and I want to do so, but I conscientiously believe and stated to the Vice Com- mittee at the time that question was up that I did not believe that the two hinged materially on one another at all. Q. Mr. Rosenwald, you testified as to home environments. Do 3 ’ou believe that a girl whose wage is $5.50 a week and whose father is working and who practically pays out all that he earns, do 3 -ou believe that the home environments can be such as to afford that girl a comfortable home on that amount of wage? A. I should sa 3 ' that there are ver 3 - respectable people earning small wages who are just as moral and in man 3 - cases more so than the wealthier classes. Q. You don’t think, Mr. Rosenwald. that 3 -our concern would be one of a number, seriously to contest a minimum wage bill if a minimum wage bill were enacted and came within reasonable lines? A. Our polic 3 ’' has been and now is, not to attack any legislation that would benefit our help or that would benefit the community. I cannot say that that would be an injustice to anybody. Q. Mr. Rosenwald, would it serious^' interfere with 3 -our business^ to increase the minimum wage to the figures that we have been discussing here, if all business were placed in the same position and made to pa 3 - similar wages? A. If it were a national law and the other states were in line with this policy in Illinois, our business in particular would not suffer, but where competition is regulated b 3 - an Illinois law and we have to pa 3 - a Public Meetings and Testimony 187 minimum of $12.00 a week wage and Indiana would have no minimum wage law, I think the business in Illinois would be seriously hampered. Q. To come back to my original proposition, do you think a busi- ness of the size of yours would be injured by competition with merchants in a similar business if that amount of wage was levied? A. In our particular business I think it would be injured less than any other business. Q. You realize that the business of this committee is to insist and to see that girls employed in Illinois are well paid? A. That is the reason I make this statement as I do, because of the interest I have in the matter. Q. We are trying to resolve ourselves into a committee on ways and means to right this wrong, to see whether we can do something for the people who are unfortunate. A. You will not find me antagonistic. (The witness was excused temporarily.) Eleanor Benson’s Testimony. ELEANOR BENSON, called as witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. State your name. A. Eleanor Benson. Q. Were you ever employed by Sears, Roebuck & Company? A. I was. Q. How long ago is it since you left their employ? A. I left about seven months ago, the first part of August, I believe. Q. What did you do in their employ? A. I did addressing and office work. Q. How much were you paid? A. I was paid $4.50 to start with and when I left I was getting seven dollars a week. Q. How long ago were you paid $4.50 a week? A. About three years ago; April 25, 1910, I started. Q. How long did you work for $4.50 a week until you were raised to five dollars a week? A. I had worked before I was raised to five dollars about seven months. Q. How old were you at that time? A. I was fourteen years old. I would be fifteen in August and I started in April. Q. You were fourteen years old when you entered there and were employed at $4.50 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you state your correct age to the gentleman who employed you there? A. Yes, sir. Q. They knew that you were only fourteen years old? A. Yes, fourteen years and seven months. Q. May I ask if in your experience there any of the girls were a little bit slow or a little careless, what happened to them? A. They used to get scolded. Q. ■ Girls fourteen and sixteen years old? A. Yes. Q. Did they have what were called “scolders”? A. Yes, sir, they were known as “official scolders.” Q. Were the girls called before these “official scolders” or “drivers”? A. Yes, sir, and I would see them crying. Q. How many times have you seen girls crying because of these scoldings administered to them? A. I should say three times a week. Q. The same girl or different girls? A. Different girls. Q. Because the girls were sometimes slow? A. Yes, quite often and sometimes because they didn’t get as much work out of the girls. Q. How many girls working with you at Sears, Roebuck & Com- pany did you know fairly well? A. I could not say; thirty or forty, perhaps. Q. How many of those girls were living at home with their parents? 188 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee A. About half, I guess. Some were boarding with friends and others were boarding where they could. Q. Were the other girls getting about the same wage you received? A. Some were getting six dollars and a half and some seven and some were getting eight dollars. Q. How did they manage to exist? A. Well, they used to get friends to help them. Q. What do you mean by friends to help them? A. I know^ a girl that was caught by men once. Q. You girls tried to keep yourselves in clothing and so forth? A. Yes, sir, the best we could. Q. How old are you now? A. I am seventeen; I wdll be eighteen in August. Q. You are living with your parents? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you working now? A. Yes, sir, I am in the telephone company. Q. How much are you making there? A. I am making about nine dollars a w'eek. We get a raise every tw'o months. THE CHAIRMAN (addressing Mr. Julins Rosenwald): Mr. Rosenwald, the reason w'e introduce the witness at this time is in order to make you familiar wdth the conditions that these girls tell us exist at your establishment. We believe you desire to co-operate with us as we desire to co-operate with you. MR. ROSENWALD: I am glad to do anything I can. SENATOR JUUL; Governor, I deem it proper to say that I think Mr. Rosenwald has made a very willing and courteous witness here today. I don’t know^ that w'e have asked Mr. Rosenwald anj^thing that he has positively refused to ausw-er. MR. ROSENWALD: No, I want the committee to understand that I am at their service and our company wdll be glad to do anything they can to assist. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Rosenwald, you are excused until 2:30 o’clock this afternoon, but you need not come unless notified. We wdll notify you if w'e want you at that time. MR. ROSENWALD: If you will notify me half an hour in advance. Emily Houck’s Testimony. EMILY HOUCK, called as a witness, having been first dulj’ sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Were you ever employed by Sears, Roebuck & Company? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long ago is it since you left their employ? A. August 12, 1912. Q. How old were you when you entered their employ? A. Six- teen years old. Q. At wdiat wage were you employed? A. Seven dollars a week. Q. What was the nature of your employment? A. I was em- ployed as an addresser. Q. Why did 3 fOU leave? A. Because I got a better position. Q. When girls working wdth you were a little slow' or a little care- less, what happened to them? A. They got a good scolding. Q. Will you describe to the committee just what x'ou mean bj' getting a scolding, what w'as said? A. I could not exactly repeat the words that were used but the girls used to come up there. SENATOR JLTUL, come up where? A. Up to the foreladx-’s desk and she w'ould tell them they positively had to turn out so much work or thei^ would have to leave the employ and the}' w'ould get somebody else to take their place and the girls left there crying. Public Meetings and Testimony 189 I EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. } Q. As a result of that scolding did you ever see any girls cry? A. Yes, sir, many times. Q. Would you say every day you saw some one weep? A. I can’t say every day. ' Q. Was that scolding, as a matter of fact, any more severe than parents ordinarily give? A. I never heard any parent speak to any girl the way that forelady spoke to some of her girls. Q. Did this forelady ever put her hands on the girls? A. No, but she pounded on the desk. Q. She pounded on the desk? A. Yes, she would pound on the desk. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. You saw that the girls were scolded and told if they didn’t do more work they would be discharged and they went away crying? A. ^ Yes, sir. I Q. Did they have any drinking water there? A. We had to take it out of the hydrant and if we wanted any other kind of water we had to pay for it. Q. How much did you pay for it? A. Ten cents every two weeks. Q. How many girls paid the ten cents every two weeks? A. Quite a few of them; I didn’t myself. Q. This water that was given you, was it pretty fair water? A. It didn’t taste so well. Sometimes it had a bad taste. Q. You got better water when you paid ten cents every two weeks? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you know any girls working with you for less than five dollars a week? A. Yes, sir,- — less than five dollars? I can’t say as to that, but some got less than my salary. The reason I got better salary was because I went to the high school. EXAMINATION RESUMED BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. You knew most of those girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many of them were living at home with their parents? A. About half. Q. More than half? A. I couldn’t say. They seemed to be pretty well divided up. Q. You knew some girls that were not living at home? A. Yes, sir. Q. How were those girls living who did not live at home? A. I couldn’t say. Q. Do you know of any girl there who was having a pretty hard time to get along? A. Yes, sir, there was a girl living at home, but her father was dead. Q. Was she the suport of her mother? A. She lived with her mother and two sisters. She supported the family. Q. Where did this girl, her mother and two sisters live? A. In a furnished room. Q. How much did she make? A. Five dollars a week. There was one thing that was very pathetic about her. She wanted to do something else but her salary was small and she appealed to me because she was a oright girl. Q. Was this girl ever brought before the “scolder?” A. Yes, sir, many times. She was scolded until she wept. Q. She was scolded more than any other girl? A. Yes, sir. She had a very hard time. Q. She talked over her misfortune and you sympathized with her? A. Yes, sir. Q. We have had some philosophy here from a great many people and we want your philosophy. Would you blame a girl who was making $5.00 to 190 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee $7.00 a week and was being scolded, would you blame the girl if she left? A. No. Q. If a tragedy occurred to mar her life, would you place the first blame on the girl or on her employer? A. I wouldn’t excuse the girl, but I think her employer would be most to blame. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. What was said at the time you started there for the reason for giving you more salary? A. Because I had a high school education and I was a good penman. Q. You could take a better position than the average girl could on account of your education? A. 1 suppose so. THE CHAIRMAN: The witness is excused. The committee will take a recess until 2:30 o’clock. All persons who are not members of the com- mittee are requested to leave the room, as the committee desires to hold an executive session. Members of the legislature are privileged to remain. Chicago, Friday, March 7, 1913. Thereupon, at 12 :05 o’clock, the Commission went into Executive Session, and the following proceedings were had : P M ’s Testimony. P M— , called as a witness, having been duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: MRS. ALDRICH: This lady is very nervous and she wants every- thing to be private and wishes no publicity given to it. SENATOR JUUL: Is there any objection to giving your name? THE WITNESS: No, I don’t want to give my name. SENATOR JUUL: Then, give your initials to the reporter. THE WITNESS: P. M. SENATOR BEALL: You may just go ahead and tell 3 'our stor^-. I told you it would be private, and it will be. THE WITNESS: When I first left my home, I went to live with ray sister-in-law in the country. I lived there for a few months and they brought me to Chicago. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. How long is that since. Madam? A. That has been six or seven years ago, as far as I can remember. They brought me lO Chicago and left me at a house and I was supposed to stay there until thej' came for me. It wasn’t a very nice house. They were always “rushing the can’’ and it seemed there was a midwife there. 1 wanted to leave that place and thej' didn’t want me to go. I didn’t have ver^- much monej'. Q. Where was that place? A. On North Maj’ street. Q. Near what other street? A. Near Madison street. So I left there. I met a woman and she asked me what I was going to do. I said I really didn’t know. I didn’t have much experience with housework. She asked me why I didn’t go in a sporting house. I didn’t know what she meant. So she didn’t want to come right out and tell me. So I met her the next day and she told me I was foolish. She said that a nice looking girl like me ought to go in a sporting house, because I could make lots of money. I told her I didn’t know where to go. She told me to walk on Madison street until some nice fellow come by and asked me to up to a room with him. I told her I left my room and I didn’t have no more money. She told me then what to do and I tried it. THE CHAIRMAN: Just one question. Had you ever before taken that course? A. No, sir. She talked to me and she said a man would come Public Meetings and Testimony 191 ip to me and would see me walking up and down the street and ask me to go to a hotel with him. SENATOR JUUL; Q. How long is that since, Madam? A.. That is six or seven years ago. Q. That was the start of it? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old were you then? A. Sixteen, going on seventeen, but ... was big for my age. SENATOR BEALL: Q. You were not induced by any man to go to a place with him? A. Yes. SENATOR BEALL: Go on with your story. A. This man came up and asked me to have a drink with him. 1 told him I didn’t care to drink, that I never drank anything. He took me to a hotel and it was at night and I stayed there that night. Q. Do you know what hotel it was? A. No, sir, it was on Madison street, that is all that 1 know. So we stayed there and 1 asked him if there was a decent sporting house. Of course, none of them are decent, but he told me “yes,” to go to this place on Madison street, that Jessie Gibbs had a place there, and this fellow took me there; so I stayed there, 1 guess it must have been something like eight or nine months, maybe a little longer. 1 didn’t like it at all, but I didn’t know what to do. So I met a man, he came in several times to see me and he asked why I didn’t try to lead a better life. I told him it was hard when you once get down. He said, “If you come over with me I will take care of you.” Of course, I was glad to get out of there and I went to live with this fellow. I guess it must have been over two years I lived with him. I didn’t know he had a wife. He wanted to get a divorce and marry me. He said she was a desperate women. When he told me that I was afraid to live with him any longer. So I left him and never seen him again. Then 1 tried to live respectable and got a job in a family doing housework. They gave me $3.00 a week. 1 couldn’t very well clothe myself. 1 worked for them I don’t know how many weeks and they wouldn’t give me any money. So I got up and left and went to live with some people I knew. Then I met a fellow who took me on the South Side and sold me there. SENATOR JUUL: Q. What do you mean by saying he sold you? A. He sold me. He got money for me, at a place called the “Silver Dollar.” Q. Who paid the money? A. The man. Q. Was it a saloon? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long is that since — was it this year? A. No. Q. Was it last year? A. No, five or six years ago. SENATOR BEALL: Q. Do you know how much money he got? A. No, I don’t. So I didn’t want to stay there. He doped me and 1 didn’t have my right senses. I was there, I guc.ss, maybe three days. Q. You were not in the saloon, were you? A. Yes, sir. Q. For three days? A. Yes, sir, in a place upstairs. Q. Oh, a place over the saloon? A. Yes, sir. So I made such a fuss I guess they finally got afraid and he took me away and he took me to a place on Halsted street. I think it was the corner of Washington Boulevard and Halsted street. He took me to a hotel. He telephoned to some friend that had a place way out South. Finally we got to arguing so much around the hotel, they put us out. We were chewing the rag, and arguing so, they put us out. We went to another place on Madison street; that was 340 Madison street. He got something for me there, but I don’t know what he got. He ducked out the next morning. That time I had to have clothes, so I was advanced the money. Q. You had to have clothes and she advanced you the money? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who was this man? A. I don’t know his last name, but his first name was Jack. Q. Do you know where he is? A. No, I don’t. Q. How long did you remain there? A. I was there a couple of 192 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee weeks when I got down sick with a terrible disease. They have a porter in the house, and of course, I was under the influence of liquor or I never would have done such a thing; so this landlady gets me married to the porter of the house and he took all my money. Q. Was the porter a white man or a colored man? A. He was a white man. He would take my money from me and if I didn’t give it to him he would beat me. Q. What was his name ? A. John Evans. Q. Where is he now? A. I don’t know. Q. How long is that since you were in this house and these quarrels took place? A. That was five years ago. Q. Who married you, a minister? A. Yes, a minister. Q. Did he come to the house to marry you? A. No; I can’t' re- member his name. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Where did you spend the time between five years ago and now? A. I have been working. I have married. I am going ahead of my story. I was there a couple of weeks and then I took down sick and I was sick in bed. I don’t know how many weeks I laid there. This fellow knew I had a little money and he knew I had it under the mattress and he would come in and ask for it and if I wouldn’t give him any he would give me a beating. Q. While you were ill? A. Yes, sir. I have got a scar on ruy leg yet. Q. Where was that? A. 340 Madison street. Q. Do you mean to tell this committee they compelled you to go in and serve men, knowing you were in that condition? A. Yes, sir, I had to do that, there were two or three hundred men a week. Q. Two or three hundred a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did that condition exist? A. I don’t know how many weeks. Q. How long before you were cured? A. I wouldn’t be cured yet if it hadn’t been for the doctor, who felt sorry for me. Q. When did you quit that place? A. About three years ago? Q. All the time you were there, as you have stated, the money you earned was taken away from you? A. Yes, sir, it was. Q. What did you do then? A. Then I got so bad I couldn’t stay with fellows. She said if I wasn’t able to go in the parlor and stay wdth fellows she would charge me with tw'o dollars for every fellow I turned down. SENATOR JUUL; That is about the worst case we have heard of yet. THE WITNESS: You can’t imagine it. SENATOR JUUL: Let us have it all; that is what we are here for. THE WITNESS: She took all my clothes away from me and said if I didn’t go in the parlor and make any monej'- for her she would charge me with two dollars for every fellow I turned dowm. I said, “All right; I will fix you.’’ So I went in the parlor and matter was running from my leg, and I went in the room and a fellow wouldn’t have anything to do with me. He saw something w^as w-rong. He asked what was the matter, and I didn’t want to tell him. I raised my dress up and showed him. He said, “there is your two dollars.’’ I was afraid he would go and tell the landlady and I would get another beating. Q. She used to beat you? A. Yes; she gave me a punch in the face when I was sick in bed and couldn’t defend myself. This fellow came out. She said, “You were not in the room very long.” I said, “Well, that fellow knew something was wrong with me.” That made her sore at me. So this fellow come in and give me a good beating. Q. What fellow beat you? A. Evans, the porter. Q. Your husband? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 193 Q. How did he beat you? A. In the face, and many times I had a black eye, and he kicked me. Q. Where did he kick you, in the abdomen? A. All over; it didn’t make any difference where. Q. Is he still in existence? A. I don’t know. Q. Where is she? A. She is on the South Side on Armour Avenue. 1 think you can find her in the directory. 2 Q. What is her name? A. Nellie Streeter. THE CHAIRMAN: You could not get away ? A. I couldn’t get away. SENATOR JUUL: Q. You were in prison? A. Yes, sir, just like a prison.' % Q. Where was that place? A. 340 Madison street. West Madison. Q. In the City of Chicago, County of Cook? A. Yes, sir. i‘ Q. Right here in the State of Illinois? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: That is the old number. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Where is it near? A. Madison street near Aberdeen street. Q. On the south side of the street? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many houses is it away from Aberdeen, east or west? A. It is west of Aberdeen street. SENATOR BEALL: Q. How many women were in this house? A. She generally had from fifteen to sixteen. Q. She would work them just the same? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Q. How was their health; were they diseased? A. Yes, sir. Q. Those girls had to serve men when they were diseased? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was anything done for the girls? A. Yes, sir; the doctor came and examined the girls every week and she paid him to give the girls a certifi- cate saying they were all right when I knew they were not. Q. Just a moment. This doctor came and examined the girls and gave them certificates of good health, and the girls paid for that? A. Yes, sir. He did that to me more than once. Q. You say with this running sore on your leg and being in the con- dition you were in, that this doctor, licensed by the State of Illinois, gave you a certificate and certified you were in good health? A. Yes, sir, he did. Q. Do you know his name and address? A. That was four years ago. At that time he was on Halsted street. I don’t just remember where it was; Halsted and Twelfth streets, I think. Q. This doctor treated you in order to try to bring you on your feet. A. Yes, sir. Q. He was the one that had constant knowledge of your health? A. Yes, sir. Q. There isn’t any shadow of doubt in your mind but you were ill? A. Certainly not. SENATOR BEALL: Q. You said there were about fifteen or sixteen girls in the house. How many men were in that house in a week? You said two or three hundred, I believe? A. Yes, sir. I should judge I had seventy-five, just myself. The landlady used to take in $400 and $500. Q. How much did you get? A. I got two dollars. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Everything you got she took away from you? A. Yes, sir, every cent. Q. You got your board? A. I got my board. Q. How did she manage to keep you and give you nothing? Did you ever talk with her? A. You couldn’t talk to her. Q. Couldn’t you have gone out of the house with some visitor? A. If you did there was somebody walking behind that belonged in the house and you couldn’t go very far. 194 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Weren’t you allowed a day off? A. Yes, but 3 'ou had to go either with her or somebody in the house. SENATOR WAAGE; Q. Why didn’t you call a policeman when you went out? A. Because I didn’t have sense enough. SENATOR WAAGE; Q. Did this doctor finally heal 3 ’ou of this disease? A. Yes, sir. When he came there and seen how low I was, they asked him to send me to a hospital because they did not want me to die in the house. SENATOR JUUL: Q. They did not object to your living there but did not want you to die there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did this woman in that house claim to have a pull with the police- man on that beat? A. Yes. Q. How did she use it? A. She said she would find me wherever I went. SENATOR BEALL; Q. Was this place up over a saloon? A. No, it was over a bakery. Q. Did you keep any of the certificates this doctor gave j'ou? A. No, I did not. Ycm were supposed to put them in the room so that they could see you were all right. Q. He finally cured you? A. Yes; he felt sorry for me. He told me on the quiet he would do what he could for me if I would keep still about it. REPRESENTATIVE SHAVER; Q. Each of the girls were ex- amined by this doctor? A. Yes, sir; and she charged the girls two dollars. SENATOR BEALL; Q. Madam, did you ever have anjNody come back to the house and accuse you of getting a disease from you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Many of them? A. Yes sir.. Q. And still the house ran on just the same? A. Yes, sir. Q. Madam, I have a question to ask you. I do not like to ask it, but could anj- man get service any way he wanted in this house? A. Yes, sir. Q. You understand my question? I do not want to ask it pointedlju You know what I mean? A. Yes, sir. Q. They could get service any way they wished? A. Thej' could. Q. You are not living that life now? A. No, I am trjdng to live a straight life. SENATOR JUUL; Q. I want to ask you how 3 'Ou got out of there. A. When I owed her all this money I just made up my mind to go. So when I got a couple of dollars in my pocket I opened the door and walked out. I was all in, so I guess she was glad to get rid of me. Q. Then did you get away from this life? A. I did. SENATOR BEALL; Q. You realized that wasn’t the place for a woman like you and jmu believe this great evil should be eradicated? A. I do. SENATOR WAAGE; Q. Suppose a man came in the house and it was perfectly apparent he was diseased, what rule would be observed by the girls? A. That was all right. Q. He would be served in the same manner? A. Yes; if one wouldn’t another would. Q. Didn’t they make an examination of the men? A. If one would turn them down he would go to another one and she would take him. The withness was then excused. Thereupon the commission ad- journed to 2;30 o’clock P. M. SESSION V. Pressing its effort to discover, if possible, the _ factors that contribute to the white slave industry, the Committee extends its inquiry into the subject of wages paid to women and girls, directing its attention particularly to large department stores as representative employers of female labor. The following wit- nesses questioned: Mr. Edwin F. Mandel, president, and Mr. Peter J. Dunne, superintendent, of Mandel Brothers; Mr. James Simpson, vice-president Marshall Field >& Co.; Mr. Roy Shayne, president John T. Shayne & Co. Under a promise that their names would not be published, six women witnesses assign the causes of and the circumstances that led to their downfall. Testimony of: A P R- B P M T C* P R- T H Chicago, March 7, 1913. j The Committee met pursuant to recess on Friday, March 7, 1913, 2 :30 o’clock p. m. Present : The same as before. Whereupon the following proceedings were had : Testimony of Mr. Edwin F. Mandel and Mr. Peter J. Dunne. EDWIN F. MANDEL, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. What is your name? A. Edwin F. Mandel. Q. What is your occupation? A. I am president of Mandel Brothers. Q. That is a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. As president of that corporation, I suppose in a general way you are conversant with the wages paid? A. In a general way, yes; but, we have our superintendent here, Mr. Dunne, whom you might swear in and he will bear me out in anything I might say. THE CHAIRMAN: Will Mr. Dunne please come forward and be sworn? Thereupon, PETER J. DUNNE, called as a witness and duly sworn by Senator [uul. ( EXAMINATION RESUMED BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Mr Mandel, how many women do you employ in your place of business? A. 1,866. Q. What is the average salary paid your woman workers? A. $9.86 outside of the buyers and heads of departments and their assistants. Q. What is the highest salary you pay any woman in the depart- 195 196 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee ment, either a head or a buyer? A. About $35 a week. Isn’t that rieht. Mr. Dunne? MR. DUNNE: Yes. THE CHAIRMAN: That would be for clerical work, Mr. Mandel? MR. MANDEL: For a saleswoman. Q. What is the lowest salary you pay any woman in your employ? A. Well, I would like to quality that. We have what we call juveniles, fourteen or fifteen years old, that get as low as $3 a week and up to five dollars. Q. From three dollars to five dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. They are not saleswomen, however. They are beginners and errand girls. Q. How many receive three dollars a week? A. Eight. Q. And the oldest of those is how old? A. Fourteen. Q. Will you tell us a little something about those eight girls, Mr. Mandel, that get three dollars a week? They all have homes, have they? A. They live in their homes, yes, sir. Q. And in every case you have investigated to satisfy your own conscience that they really have homes? A. Well, we take it for granted from their applications that they do, and we believe them. Q. You take the applications at their face value? A. Yes, sir, we believe them. Q. And you go no further than that? MR. DUNNE: W’e have school certificates. MR. MANDEL: Oh, yes. Mr. Dunne says we have school certificates also. Q. You have girls employed at four and five dollars a week? A. From four to five dollars a week. Q. How old are they as a rule? A. They are as a rule young girls who get four dollars and a half a week and their salarj- is raised automatically up to six dollars. Q. For the benefit of the Committee, Mr. Mandel, will 3'ou please state how it is 3'ou are paying such low wages to any girl? A. We base that entirely on the girl’s capabilit3' and her earning capacit3'. Q. Your business is financed on a pa3-ing basis? A. I am not at liberty to answer that. Q. If you were convinced that these girls are suffering a hardship through the pa3uuent of these low salaries, would 3'ou be willing to accept a remed3' for it? A. Yes, sir. We have had cases where girls said they were not receiving a sufficient wage and their wages have been imme- diately increased to meet their surroundings. Q. You have heard, Mr. Mandel, have 3'ou not, that there is a bill pending providing for a minimum wage for woman workers in this state? A. Yes, sir. Q. Suppose such a bill were enacted into law, would it work a hardship in your business? A. It depends on how high it was. Q. What would 3-ou sa3- would be a reasonable sum to provide a girl with a living wage and at the same time protect business interests? A. I would like to have you ask that question again. Q. At what figure would 3'OU place a minimum wage for women 1 in fairness to both the employer and the emplo3'e? A. If the3' live at j home I would say six dollars a week as a minimum. If the3- are dependent 1 on their salary I should say nine dollars a week, which we now have j in our establishment. Any girl who is dependent on her salar3- should | get not less than nine dollars a week and the3' do that at Mandel Brothers. \ Q. Mr. Mandel, you have stated that six dollars a week would seem j to you to be a fair living wage for women living at home? A. For a girl | starting out and learning the business, if she was living at home, 3-es. ' Q. How much would it cost your establishment if 3'Ou raised the : wage of every girl who is now getting less than that sum to six dollars a week? A. As to the girls fourteen and fifteen 3-ears old, I couldn’t sa3'. Public Meetings and Testimony 197 Q. It would not be a handicap to your business? A. No, I don’t think it would. ' Q. Why hasn’t that been done, if that is a fair question, Mr. Mandel? A. We think that a little girl starting out, who is living at home, could live on that. If she remains for six months her salary is raised. Q. What proportion of the girl’s time do you require to be given to your business, girls making from three dollars to eight dollars a (Week? A. Eight hours. I Q. Have you any arrangement for the welfare of these girls? A. Oh, [yes, sir; we have social welfare workers and a doctor who looks after ithem. I Q. You pay them every possible attention? A. Yes. Q. Mr. Mandel, do you consider that an employer has any moral responsibility for the welfare of 3^oung girls working in his place of business? A. I do. Q. Do you make any efforts to protect a girl of fourteen, fifteen or sixteen years of age from unscrupulous men who might tempt them? A. All they have got to do in any case of that kind is to report it. ; Q. You have a matron there, have 3^ou? A. Yes. . Q. And her duties are to look after these girls? A. Yes. Q. This Committee has received a great many letters from girls i claiming that floor-walkers in many of our State Street stores are the [agents of the white slave industry for certain parties. Do you know whether such a condition exists? A. I never heard of such a condition. I Q. Has any case of that nature ever been reported to you? A. No, sir. ! THE CHAIRMAN: How about that, Mr. Dunne? MR. DUNNE: I [never heard of such a case. ij THE CHAIRMAN: We are asking these questions in fairness both ;to the employer and the emplo3'e? A. I understand. , THE CHAIRMAN: Another statement has been made and it is (ft'common talk, not only in this state but throughout the country, that in ([some places girls have applied for work and been told that their salary ( would be four or five dollars a week, and if they couldn’t live on it they ' could get a “good friend” on the side. A. I never heard of that. Q. Did you ever have such a case come to your attention? A. No, sir. I ' Q. Have you, Mr. Dunne? MR. DUNNE: Never. I THE CHAIRMAN: Q. How many girls or women have you working jiin your establishment for less than seven dollars a week? MR. MANDEL: lA. I can’t answer that off hand. Can you, Mr. Dunne? I MR. DUNNE: I should say probably not more than one hundred, including these juveniles, these irregular girls. MR. MANDEL: There are forty outside of the juveniles, from four- teen to sixteen years of age. THE CHAIRMAN: Q. Mr. Mandel, in your judgment, has the question^ of wage anything to do with the morality of women? A. I don’t think so. Q. You believe that a girl who is receiving seven dollars a week md finds that the actual necessities of life cost her eight dollars a week, is as well fortified against temptation as the girl receiving twelve dollars 1 week, when her actual expenses_ are only ten dollars? A. No; it de- pends on the girl’s environment and whether she is living at home, or dependent on this salary. Q. The home environment has something to do with the amount of money that goes into the making of that home — you think that, do you not, Mr. Mandel? A. Please repeat that. Q. That home environment is somewhat dependent on the amount of money that goes into the home? A. Yes, somewhat. Q_. Have 3^ou ever, _ Mr. Mandel, conducted an investigation in your sstablishment to ascertain the living expenses of a girl working? A. I 198 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee believe we ask them to give that when they make the application. MR. DUNNE; That is always on the application of the girl making the application. THE CHAIRMAN; Q. Have you one of those application blanks with you? A. I haven’t one here, but I will get that. Q. Mr. Mandel, have you contributed to the American Vigilance Association? A. No, sir. Q. Have you ever contributed to any organization having for its purpose the suppression of vice in this city or community? A. I con- tributed to the Jewish Charities Bureau, and things of that kind but it had nothing to do with a girl’s morality. Q. If, Mr. Mandel, you found, after a careful investigation, that a girl could not live comfortably on less than twelve dollars a week, would you voluntarily say that twelve dollars a week for women was reasonable? A. I wouldn’t have the authority to answer that or to make any such promise. Q. Have you a system in your store of whipping and scolding? A. No, sir. Q. Or driving and scolding, I should say? A. No, sir, we have not. Q. If a girl is a little bit slow or a little bit careless, you have no official to whom the girl would be sent to be reprimanded? A. She would be sent to the superintendent to be reprimanded. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Mr. Mandel, have you a system of fines against emplo3'es in your store? MR. DUNNE; Yes, we have a system of fines for de- linquents in the morning. Q. I would like to know to what extent an employe’s wage is re- duced by such a system of fines? A. I don’t quite get that. Q. Mr. Mandel, in speaking of girls who are getting five dollars a week — what I would like to find out is, if you have a system of fines in your store that reduces that amount of money. MR. DU^NNE; We have a system of fines which is very small. If a girl should come late more than four times a week she would be fined half a cent and those fines are continued and are afterwards put in her salar}- in case of sick- ness or discharge. Q. What I would like to ask j^ou is this, does the amount of the fines deducted amount to more than the salar}" for the same period of time? A. No, that all goes back to the emplo3"es. Q. Do you pay these employes for over-time? A. We don’t \vork any over-time. Q. You don’t work over-time? A. Except male help. Q. I would like to go back and ask you, Mr. Mandel, if it is pos- sible for a woman who is dependent on her earnings, as I suppose a great many of your young women are, and living in the cit3^ of Chicago, to pay for her room, her clothing and laundry, shoes, underclothing, neces- sary food, car fare — is it possible for a 3-oung woman of the classes 3'ou have described to paj^ her own wa3' and live as an honest girl? A. I should say that a minimum wage of nine dollars would be sufficient. Q. You testified, if I am correct, as to girls getting five dollars a week? A. Those are girls of fourteen and fifteen 3"ears of age who live at home and are not dependent on their salaries. Q. How do you know they are not dependent on it? A. From their application. We assume they are telling the truth. Q. I want to find out as to that. Suppose a father was not earn- ing mone3'^ enough properh'’ to support the famih- and to bu3' all the necessary clothes, shoes and so forth, and to bu3- three meals a da3-. what would you say would be the proper pay in that case? A. I would have to qualify that remark. Public Meetings and Testimony 199 j SENATOR JUUL: I want to ask the chairman to have the aud- ience refrain from any approval or disapproval of anything that occurs I here. I hope there won’t be any more of that. We are trying to get I at the bottom of this and we are getting down to a concrete proposition. I Q. Just where you sit now a woman sat and she swore she went to the lowest depths of degradation because she hadn’t the money to keep straight. That is the testimony under oath. I -Want to ask you as a witness what amount of money you think these girls ought to get to live honestly? A. If they didn’t live at home that would not be enough. Q. Then, will you answer this question. Why should you take the labor of a woman from Monday morning to Saturday night and when she went out of your place feel she had not enough to live on? A. I 1; don’t know of any such thing. |t Q. Then, I will ask you to take this pencil and a piece of paper if and I would like to ask you what you would estimate the cost of clothing and so forth for a young woman. We will take your figures for it. How much would you state she needed for clothing? A. I don’t sup- pose they all clothe themselves alike. Q. How much would you say it would cost to cover the nakedness ! of a girl who wanted to live decently? A. Well, one dollar. Q. Let us put down one dollar and let us see if we can’t get to- 1{ gether. I think when we get through here you gentlemen will be willing : to do what should be done. Her laundry would cost how much? A. Perhaps she lives at home. Q. Well, let her live at home. A. She wouldn’t have to pay for ■ laundry if she lived at home. I Q. You figure out the amount of money you paid for all her time I and for all her living and we will try to get at a figure. Now, what do you say about her laundry? A. Well, twenty-five cents, I should think. Q. Down goes twenty-five cents. Now, what about her room rent, what is that worth? A. Room and board? Q. No, her room? A. Room and board would be about four dollars I a week. Q. Four dollars a week. I will take your figures for that, Mr. Mandel And she spends how much for her car fare? A. Sixty cents. Q. And how much would she spend for lunch? .A. About seventy cents. j| Q. Six meals for seventy cents? MR. DLTNNE: Yes, sir. f Q. You have a woman in your place who looks after employes if they get sick, have you not? A. Yes. Q. What would you say would be a low sum of money to set aside for illness, for the doctor or medicine or dental bills — would you say ten cents a day? A. Perhaps. Q. Does the one dollar you suggest for clothing include shoes and wraps? A. Yes. Q. You think one dollar would cover the whole thing? Is there any other article of expense you would suggest that a young woman ought to be permitted to have out of her earnings? A. I don’t know of any other. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Mr. Mandel, we believe you are a very I humane man and what this Committee is trying to do is to solve this ' problem, and we haven’t anybody to send for to solve the problem except men of your standard. Now,_ what would you say would be the cost i for women working at a minimum wage to live honestly and decently? I ' Would she be likely to earn money from other sources? A. I should think that rather than go that far she would go into a home and become ' a domestic. Q. You think she would? A. She ought to. Q. Do you think the city of Chicago furnishes places for domestics ji in sufficient numbers to take care of those people? A. Yes, I under- I stand they are very scarce. 200 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You would be able to go on and do business and compete with others if you paid all your woman employes at least a living wage? A. I think so. Q. So you believe it is possible for merchants of your standing to pay this living wage and compete with others? A. I can only speak as to the girls in Mandel Brothers. Q. You have testified that you have a number of young women who are paid six and seven dollars a week? A. They live at home with their parents. Q. Let us consider that proposition whether it is your business or anyone else’s business to support the girl who works for you. Your relation, Mr. Mandel, and the relation of your employe is the relation of master and servant and there is also the apprentice. Don’t you think the apprentice is entitled to food and raiment and a place to sleep? A. Yes, sir. Q. You concede that that is good logic? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you believe that morally the relation of master and apprentice still exists? A. I do. Q. You don’t believe it is unreasonable that if a young woman is taken into your business and she gives up her time faithfully to her employment, she should be required to seek other aid to obtain sufficient to live upon? A. I think every woman is entitled to a living wage. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Mr. Mandel, we have a bill before the legislature to make the minimum wage for women two dollars a day. That bill is now up in the senate. What do you think about that bill? A. I think it is too high. Q. What would j-ou recommend? A. I would recommend the system we now have of nine dollars a week for those who are dependent upon their living wage to start with. Q. You spoke awhile ago about girls at a low wage? A. Girls of fourteen years. Q. Those were cash girls? A. No, they are errand girls. Q. Those children are from poor parents, I suppose. You pay them how much? A. We pay them from three dollars to five dollars a week. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. Q. The girls that live at home you pay less wages than the girls that have no homes? A. Yes, sir. Q. The girls that have no homes you pay higher wages? A. The salaries are raised according to their work. If a saleswoman shows ability she is raised. Q. Doesn’t the question of whether she has a home or not come in? A. No.' MR. DUNNE: No, Senator. We have girls living at home that jump to fifteen and eighteen dollars. It depends on their qualifications. SENATOR TOSSEY: Q. Air. Alandel, what is the difference in your pay to male help and female help for the same service rendered? A. That is pretty hard to answer; there are so many different cases, i Q. What is the lowest wage paid your male help? AIR. DUNNE: j The lowest wage paid to salesmen is $14 a week and there are some i male workers at twelve dollars a week. SENATOR TOSSEY: What is the difference in the service rendered? I MR. DUNNE: Only just menial work; such as work that does not require any special qualification. SENATOR TOSSEY: What do you mean by that? AIR. AIANDEL: They handle different kinds of goods. They handle work that requires more strength and more experience. We can put women in other de- Public Meetings and Testimony 201 partments, like dry goods and silks. We don’t use women in our drapery department. Q. In other words, you pay the women the same wages for the same service that you pay men? A. No. Q. For performing the same service? A. It depends on what the service is. We don’t use men to sell pins and needles — it wouldn’t pay us to do it, but women handle the small work, such as soaps and other articles. EXAMINATION RESUMED BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. When girls leave your establishment do they use a designated exit or door? A. There are two of them, and they are supposed to use the doors. Q. Have you ever watched those girls when they leave? A. Yes. Q. Have you ever noticed any men waiting for them? A. I don’t know whether the men were waiting for the girls. I have seen men waiting around. Q. Do you have men at these doors to protect the girls as they leave? A. Yes. Q. That is, at the doors when they leave? A. Yes, sir. MR. DUNNE: We have men at the door to prevent them from congregating and to make them move on and they don’t make appoint- ments around the door, or anything of that kind. Q. Then, Mr. Mandel, you feel in that regard that the employer has a moral responsibility? A. Yes, sir. Q. To see that the girls in leaving are protected? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will you say this to the Committee, Mr. Mandel, that you will have some investigation made of the applications given in by these girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. And when you find any girl is dependent on their wage and is earning four to five dollars a week, you will increase her wages? A. Yes, sir. . THE CHAIRMAN; Are there any other members of the assembly present who would like to question the witness? I EXAMINATION BY REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD. Q. Mr. Mandel, in the answers which you gave going into the cost of living, wouldn’t all of those items apply to a girl of 16 years living at home because of board and room? A. That would depend on condi- tions. Q. She would have to have clothes, carfare, lunch and her washing done? A. She might be living at home and contributing to the support of the family where the father, perhaps, is earning fifty dollars a week. Q. Whether she was 16 years old or 19 years old, she would require board and room? A. My answer would be the same; she would not be dependent on her salary. Q. Now, deducting four dollars for board and room, suppose she lived at home, then those girls you pay only three dollars a week, some- body has to contribute the balance to help you run your business; isn’t that a fact? A. I wouldn’t put it in that way. Q. In the figures which you have given here the living cost of a girl, that is, her clothes, washing, car fare, lunch and church contribu- tion, amounts to about $4.25 a week. That was your estimate? A. Pardon me; those were for girls over sixteen years of age. Q. Which one of those items would you reduce for a girl under sixteen years old? A. I think the clothing would be less. I don’t think a girl fourteen years old would need as much as a girl sixteen years old. I took the girl that doesn’t have to pay for room or board, or anything else, that was absolutely necessary. 202 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. On these applications which you get of girls coming from a home, is there anything to indicate whether the father is alive or not? A. Yes, sir. Q. That question is asked? A. Yes, sir. Q. You make a distinction between girls who live at home and those who do not live at home? A. Yes, sir. Q. And your theory is that they can afford to work cheaper than those that have to pay for board and room? A. We don’t look at it exactly in that light. We want every girl to get a living wage. Q. If she lives at home, she doesn’t have to have so much mone}'? A. She is not dependent on her salary for her support. Q. But, somebody else has to contribute to her living wage; isn’t that true? A. Yes. Q. In other words, her father pays part of her salary? A. No, I wouldn’t say that. Q. Well, somebody except the employer pays the difference? A. It depends on her demands. If her demands are more than her salary somebody has got to pay for it. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Mandel, it will not be the policy of the Committee to discharge any of the witnesses at this time, but you will be excused until ten o’clock tomorrow with the understanding that you need not report unless notified. I want to thank you for your testimony, both Mr. Mandel and Mr. Dunne. Mr. James Simpson’s Testimony. JAMES SIMPSON, called as a witness, having been duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. THE CHAIRMAN: Please state your name. A. James Simpson. Q. What is your occupation? A. I am vice-president of Marshall Field & Company. Q. As vice-president you are conversant with the wages paid em- ployes? A. I am to a greater or less extent. Q. And you have the power, if j^ou desire to exercise it, to both employ and discharge? A. I have, but I do not exercise it. Q. Mr. Simpson, j-ou believe in such a thing as a living wage for both men and women? A. I do. Q. What do you consider a living wage for a woman dependent on her own resources? A. I don’t know that I am competent to answer that, although I have heard it estimated by people whom I think are competent, at eight dollars per week. That may or maj' not be right. Q. What do you call a woman dependent on her own resources — how do you define that? A. A woman who might have to go out and rent a room or go into a boarding house and who has no family. Q. Do you make any distinction, Mr. Simpson, between the woman who rents a room in a stranger’s home and the woman who lives with her parents? A. Distinction in what way? Q. Do you call the woman who lives with her parents not wholly dependent upon her own resources? A. I should sa}' yes. She might not be dependent on her own resources. Q. How many women are employed bjf^ Marshall Field & Company in the retail department? A. In our retail store we have 4,222 regular female employes? By regular I mean to say employes that are engaged eight hours per day. Q. That is in the retail store? A. I am speaking of the retail onh'. now. We have 440 employees who are emploj'ed on short hours, some of them as low as three and a half to four hours per day. The short hour employes, the larger percentage of them, are waiters in our tea room and the people employed in connection with our tea room. The balance of Public Meetings and Testimony 203 i those serving short hours are very largely sales-people who go to work at 11:30 in the morning and serve until 3:30 in the afternoon, during the I time when our regular force is at lunch. Of those who come to us to work on the short hour basis not less than ninety per cent of them are i, divided into two clashes. The first of them are young married women ? who are unable to work longer hours. They are obliged to be at home in time to get their dinner in the evening and they have more or less house work to do in the morning. The second class are girls who are j, there attending school and studying. I speak now of these sales people. I Some of them are studying music or something else and are not dependent on what they earn for their support. However, any number of girls have i informed us that we were a great help to them in furnishing work during those hours. Q. How many of them are receiving $5 dollars a week or less? A. We have very few who are receiving that amount. We are very ■ careful in selecting our help. We have probably 213 receiving the minimum ’ll of $5 dollars a week. Let me put it this way. We have no girls with the exception of those in the millinery school room who are regularly i:pon our pay roll who are under eighteen years of age that receive less than $5 per week. Q. Have you nobody outside of these millinery students that receive less than $5 a week? A. With the exception of the millinery students 1 and these people who work on part time we have not. The minimum wage paid to these people who work on part time is at the rate of $8 per week. If they work for four hours a day, they get $4. Q. Pardon me. Do you employ the time of these people receiving less than $5 a week at work in other departments? A. We do not. Q. How many are there of that class, about? A. There are about ! 440. Q. 440 receiving less than $5? A. That is, on short hours. I want to emphasize that point. ji Q- I know you want to get that in. There are 440 employes re- || ceiving less than $5. A. But they do not get in full time. I want to get that in. U Q. What is the average earning of these people? A. The minimum y earning is at the rate of $8 per week. Q. That doesn’t give us anything. How much do they earn? A. i Nobody gets less than $4 a week. E Q. None of the girls get less than $4 a week? A. No, sir. Q. And out of these 440 who get less than $4 a week they do not give all their time; is that correct? A. Possibly $4 to $4.50, or upward iJi May I say one thing more so as to make this clear? { THE CHAIRMAN: Surely. f THE WITNESS: There is no girl or woman eighteen years old on I our pay roll who receives less than $6 a week. These people I speak of as receiving $5 per week are all under eighteen years of age with the exception of the short hour people, which I spoke about. I THE CHAIRMAN: You have, Mr. Simpson, 213 girls receiving $5 i a week? A. Yes, sir. j Q. What is the average age of those girls? A. We have not to j exceed twenty-five girls who are under 16 years of age in our employ, so • that their ages would be from 16 to 18 years. j Q; Do you know anything regarding the home life or the home ^ conditions of these 213 girls drawing $5 a week? A. Through our welfare J workers and our matrons we keep in as close touch wdth their home life I as it is possible for us to do. In many, many cases they visit their homes. 1 . Q- How many, if any, of these 213 girls are wholly dependent upon I their own resources? A. I don’t know that any of them are. Q. Have you any w'ay of knowing positively whether any of them are dependent? _A. I wouldn’t state it positively, but in anticipation of what your question might be, I asked my people if there were any of them dependent upon their own income and they said no. I sa>'^. “Do 204 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee you know it?” “Well,” they said, “We know it just as much as we can know anything. We know it by questioning them and by investigation.” You might be able to find an exception to that rule. Q. How much money do you spend annually, Mr. Simpson, in inves- tigating these girls who are wholly dependent on their own resources? A. That would be a very difficult question to answer, because I think each one of our section heads looks after that and also the welfare depart- ment. I presume there are less than half a dozen people in our business who do nothing but welfare work. Q. Do you know, Mr. Simpson, of any girl who can buy the neces- sities of life, keep herself neat and pay her car fare on $5 a week? A. No, not if dependent on her own resources. Q. Then, if you pay a girl $5 a week and it would cost her, we will say, $8 dollars a week, you are placing the burden of the difference be- tween $5 and $8 a week upon her parents if she be living with her parents. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Or, on some one else’s shoulders? A. I suppose the parents’ shoulders are to bear the burden. These children are young girls, young women going to school, a.s it were. They are preparing them- selves for a greater earning capacity later on. They are serving an appren- ticeship, as it were. You put your question as to transferring the burden of these girls on some one else’s shoulders. I don’t think it is a fair question the way it is put. Q. Then I will try to put it differently. Coming back to the old relation between the employer and employe — let us take the case of these $5 a week girls and we have got a concrete case. You have 213 getting $5 a week and you have stated they can live on $5 a week, and Governor O’Hara asked you if you were not trying to put the blame of the burden for the balance on other shoulders? A. I am not. Q. Where does it come from? A. Those people are getting all they are worth. They are going to school, as it were. They are preparing themselves for a greater earning capacit}^ I want to say now that the average wage of all female employes in our establishment is $10.76. In the retail store we have 1,845 employes selling merchandise, and the average wage paid to employes selling merchandise, exclusive of section departments is $12.33. These girls that are getting $5 a week are pre- paring themselves to occupy positions which will justify pajdng them more money. Q. If I should tell you that the testimony before this Committee shows that sometimes where a girl gets less than $5 a week, or $5 a week, she goes wrong, what would you say? A. I would say. Senator, that an infinitesimal percentage of the girls that go wrong would be about right as to any monetary reasons. Q. And economical reasons? A. An infinitesimal percentage do so for monetary reasons for the first time. Q. Do you feel as an employer of female labor you would want to take that responsibility? A. No. Q. You don’t feel you would care to carry that responsibility? A. No. Q. You have only 213 girls who receive $5 a week. Suppose it would take $1,065 a week to pay those girls $10 a week in a business the size of yours? Do you think this $1,065 per week would affect the profits of your business? A. Not to a very great extent. Q. Let us have your idea on that subject. A. Everything in the commercial world is comparatively fixed upon a certain basis. M e might pay $5 a week or $10 a week and we might have competition which might affect us. Q. Do you know of any reason why the great merchants of this great leading town should have employes floundering around on a star- vation line; can you give any reason why there should be any such con- dition? A. I can give a very excellent reason why there could be a Public Meetings and Testimony 205 I condition such as I have testified to. It is a competition condition. Busi- 1 ness, after all, is competition. That is true of the whole world. We could I do a great deal if it were not for competition. Q. What this Committee is trying to get at is, if competition has become so great that it interferes with the earnings or the wages of girls ^ and women so as to not be able to pay them more than starvation wages? i A. Competition has not made it entirely impossible, _ but when we are to compete with others we have to C 9 nform our business according to certain lines so as to meet that competition. I Q. I want to ask you if competition on State street has become so 'keen that you could not afford to pay the 213 employes better wages, i self-supporting wages? We are trying to get at the facts of this matter I and we will be obliged if you will help us. A. We shall be glad to do I what we can. I haven’t said it was an impossibility. If you raise the I standard for everybody it might become quite possible. If you have ; a minimum wage law for the State of Illinois, you might make it impos- sible to compete with the other states. I should think it ought to be I a federal law. I Q. We have to make a beginning somewhere? A. Washington would be a good place to begin. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Mr. Simpson, what were the profits of Marshall Field & Company during the last fiscal year, the net profits? A. I shouldn’t wish to answer that question without taking legal advice. Marshall Field & Company is a close corporation and the public do not own stock in our business and the figures of profits have always been treated as a confidential matter and I beg you to excuse me from answering. Q. Do you refuse, Mr. Simpson, to answer the question? A. I do, if you compel me to. I would rather you would put it the other way. Q. Mr. Simpson, would you say that the profits of Marshall Field & ' Company were in excess of one million dollars a year? A. I told you I preferred not to answer that. Q. You refuse to answer the question? A. I do. I Q. Will you tell the Committtee, Mr. Simpson, if all or most of the profits made annually by Marshall Field & Company are paid to persons in the city of Chicago and State of Illinois? A. Will you repeat that question, please? Q. Are these profits paid to persons resident in the State of Illinois, a major portion of the profits? A. They are. ! Q. Are there any large stockholders in Marshall Field & Company who are non-residents at this time of the State of Illinois or of this country? A. Will you repeat that question, please? Q. Are there any stockholders of Marshall Field & Company who at this time are non-residents of Illinois or of the United States of j- America? A. There is one. I Q. Would you mind naming that one? A. Joseph N. Field of Man- I Chester, England. i Q- Would you mind telling the Committee what proportion of the I annual profits of Marshall Field & Company goes to Mr. Joseph N. Field ; of Manchester, England? A. I must respectfully decline to answer thajt question. [ Q. But there is money made by the corporation of Marshall Field & ^ Company here in Chicaeo that does go in profit to Manchester, England_? A. A very small portion. Q. And you refuse to state what that portion is? A. I do. Q. Then. Mr. Simpson, if the 213 girls at present receiving $5 a week from Marshall Field & Company were raised from below the starvation line to above the starvation line it would affect the profits sent from Chicago to Manchester, England? A. In proportion to the holdings, although I don’t like your reference to that. 206 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Mr. Simpson, take a girl who is earning a small wage, say star- vation wages, what would you suggest was a remedy in that case? A. I would suggest that you mention a specific case. Q. This Committee is anxious to get at the facts and we want to be pleasant and be reasonable. We are confronted with testimony that goes to show that girls are being paid four dollars a week and less and we are confronted with the question of girls being paid five dollars a week. You stated on your examination that it was insufficient for them to live on; is that true? A. Yes. Q. You don’t believe, then, that they can live on starvation wages? A. No, sir. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Mr. Simpson, what are the dividends paid by Marshall Field & Company? A. I must again decline to answer. Q. May 1 inquire, Mr. Simpson, what the attitude of Marshall Field & Company as a corporation is towards union labor? A. We employ both union and non-union labor. Q. You pay union rates? A. We do. Q. Have efforts been made to organize your workers in certain lines in the union within the last year? A. I don’t know of an3u Q. If such efforts were made would you stop them? A. M'hat is that? Q. If efforts were made, for instance, among the girls receiving five dollars a week to form a union to advocate higher wages, would j-ou stop the work of organization? A. W’e have not been confronted with that question that I know of. Q. If you were, what would you do? A. I should advise with my fellow officials and try to come to whatever seemed to be a wise con- clusion in the premises. Q. Mr. Simpson, how many women receive more than five dollars a week and not more than six dollars in your emplojU A. I have stated there are 163 women over eighteen j-ears of age receiving a minimum of six dollars per week. Q. 163? A. 163, yes. Q. How many are receiving the minimum of seven dollars a week? A. I haven’t got that. I can give you the eight dollar people. Q. The eight dollar class, then. Air. Simpson? A. There are 1,035 female employes in our retail store that are receiving less than eight dollars per week. That includes all of these people we are talking about. Q. How many are receiving less than nine dollars a week? A. I haven’t got that. Q. You haven’t anything above the eight dollar figure? A. I have not. Q. What is the average wage paid female workers in j-our retail establishment? A. $10.76. Q. And by making that average. Air. Simpson, what is the lowest salary that is figured? A. The five dollar a week salar\'. Q. What is the highest salarj' figured? A. I don’t know; that is all the women in our retail department. Q. Including department heads? A. A'es. Q. Any buyers? A. Yes, all women. Q. You pay some of j'our buj-ers as high as ten thousand dollars a year, do you? A. I should think not. Perhaps I can help you out on that. The average for selling merchandise — there are 1,895 people engaged and the average, exclusive of the department heads, is $12.33. Q. But in the $10.76 average, that includes all of the department heads? A. A'es, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 207 Q. Isn’t that rather unfair to include the department heads in that average? A. 1 should be very glad to furnish you figures, but I do not believe it would vary very much because a number of section ladies are small buyers and might not get over ten dollars a week. I probably could furnish the items for your record. Q. Have you a post-office in your retail department, a branch post- office? A. We have. Q. What do you pay the girls working there? A. I cannot answer that. Q. Have you any person here that can answer that question? A. No, I don’t think there is any person here, but I should be very glad to furnish you with that. Q. Do you know, Mr. Simpson, whether in case of loss, the loss is charged to the girl rather than to the corporation? A. A loss of what? Q. If there be a loss in that post-office, the girl would stand the loss and not the corporation? A. No, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Simpson, you have refused to answer certain very important questions. You stated in your testimony that the matter of competition entered into the fixing of wages. You were then asked concerning the profits of Marshall Field & Company, and you refused to answer the question. This Committee cannot be expected to determine whether the girl really does earn a living wage until you frankly submit a statement of the profits of the corporation that employs her. She, in part, is responsible for the profits. SENATOR JUUL: I want to say, Mr. Simpson, that I think this Committee has the power to call before it any person or any officer of any corpration and to call for any information which may be necessary for the purposes of this investigation. THE WITNESS: I- will be very glad to do anything I can to help the Committee. I believe you are engaged in a very good work and our firm wants to help you in any way in our power. THE CHAIRMAN: You still refuse, Mr. Simpson, to answer the question regarding the net profits of Marshall Field & Company? A. I still refuse to answer the question, at least until I shall have legal advice. THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Waage would like to ask a few questions. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WAAGE. Q. You are vice-president of Marshall Field & Companjq I under- stand? A. Yes, sir. Q. Marshall Field & Company a corporation, is it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Organized under law? A. The State of Illinois. Q. What is the capital stock of Marshall Field & Company? A. Six million dollars. Q. Does that include both the wholesale and retail business? A. It does. Q. Are the buildings in which these businesses are being conducted the property of Marshall Field & Company? A. They are not. Q. Who is the owner of the buildings, if you know? A. We have a number of landlords. Q. Very well. This six million dollars of capital stock is repre- sented by the stock and merchandise in these two businesses and the paraphernalia necessary to carry on the business, is that true? A. Yes. Q. Do you know what the total value of the merchandise stock, equipments and so forth of Marshall Field & Company, wholesale and retail business, is? A. I don’t remember. Q. Is it in excess of six million dollars? A. I haven’t the figures in mind. Q. You don’t know anything about it? A. No. 208 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. It may be more or it may be less? A. I have not the figures in mind. Q. Do you know what the profits of Marshall Field & Company were for the last fiscal year? A. December 31st, 1912? Q. Do you know what were the net profits of Marshall Field & Company for the_ fiscal year ending December 31st, 1912? A. I haven’t the exact figures in mind. Q. Approximately? A. I do. Q. Are the two businesses, that is to say, the wholesale on the one hand, and the retail on the other, carried on separately, as far as the officers are concerned? A. We have a manager in every section of our business. It is a community of interest and it is very hard to dis- associate them. Q. Will you state to this Committee what were the approximate profits of Marshall Field & Company for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 1912? A. That is a question I declined to answer without first having legal advice. Q. Do you now refuse to answer that question? A. I do. Q. Do you declare dividends at the end of each fiscal year upon the profits of Marshall Field & Company on the business of klarshall Field & Company? A. We declare dividends; that is our custom, yes. Q. Does that dividend include the entire net profit of the business? A. Not necessarily. Q. What proportion of it in 1912? A. It might vary. Q. Well, say for the year 1912, approximately, what proportion of the net profit of Marshall Field & Company was there a dividend declared on? A. Again I must decline to answer without seeking legal advice. Q. You refuse to answer that question? A. Yes. Q. You are familiar, however, with the amount? A. I don’t have it in mind. Q. Well, approximately, you are familiar with it? A. Yes. Q. Mr. Simpson, what are in your opinion the determining factors in fixing the rate of wages? A. The value of the service. Q. That is a fundamental factor? A. One of the fundamental factors. Q. Is a man or a woman out of a job a fundamental factor in de- termining the rate of wages? A. I think not. Q. Isn’t the rate of wages determined by competition in the labor market among those seeking employment? A. To some extent, perhaps. Q. Didn’t you state to Senator Juul, or Governor O’Hara, in reply to a question, that that was the determining factor? A. It is one of the determining factors. Q. In other words, it is not because you desire to give employment to anybody that you carry on the business of Marshall Field & Company? A. I do not mean to say there is no sentiment in our business — I think there is more sentiment in our business than in other businesses I know anything about. THE CHAIRMAN: Would Mr. Shedd be in a position, possibly, to give the Committee the figures you have refused to give this afternoon? A. Mr. Shedd is in California. Q. But you know, approximately, what the figures are? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: The Commission may desire to interrogate }mu further. You are excused until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. THE WITNESS: Thank you. In connection with the conditions of labor I would like to say that our working hours for female help are eight hours a day. In the wholesale department we close Saturday at one o’clock all the year around. In the retail we close on Saturdays at one o’clock during July and August. We give two weeks vacation to %11 that have been in our employ one year or more. Those who have been Public Meetings and Testimony 209 employed for less than a year get one week. In many cases when they r are sick we allow them pay. We keep a trained nurse in the building. We have one private room and free beds in the Presbyterian hospital and an arrangement with St. Luke’s hospital where the employes may go if sick and unable to take care of themselves. SENATOR JUUL: You endeavor to take care of those who have no home to go to? A. Yes, sir. Lunch is served in our employes’ lunch room at an average of between 10 and 11 cents. We have a school for the junior help, that is, boys and girls in the_ store where they can study arithmetic, grammar, spelling and penmanship. This time is given them during business hours. The attendance at this school is compulsory and is continued until the pupil has acquired a degree of education in these particular branches of study. We have a branch of the Chicago Public Library in our building. We have a music room for our employes and a gymnasium is now in process of construction. Q. So you maintain, Mr. Simpson, that there is a sentiment in your business, after all? A. Oh, yes, there is a good deal of sentiment. SENATOR JUUL: We are here trying to solve this problem and want all the help we can get. MR. SIMPSON: We want to help you ■ all we can. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Simpson, you are excused for the present. Mr. Roy Shayne’s Testimony. ROY SHAYNE, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: THE CHAIRMAN: Please state your name. A. Roy Shayne. Q. What is your occupation? A. I am connected with John T. Shayne & Company. Q. What is the nature of the business of that firm? A. Hatters and furriers. Q. What is your connection with that firm? A. I am president. Q. As president, you are familiar with the wages paid woman workers, are you? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many women do you employ in your place of business? I A. Eight. Q. What is the lowest wage paid? A. Eight dollars. Q. And what is the highest wage paid? A. Twenty-five dollars. Q. Do you think, Mr. Shayne, that the matter of wages has any- thing to do with the morality of women? A. Well, I don’t know. I should think it would have something to do with it, yes. Q. Do you think an employer has any moral responsibility toward the women who are working for him? A. That never came to our notice. Q. What do you think, Mr. Shayne, is a fair living wage for a ; woman? A. Well, I don’t know. I should judge eight dollars or nine dollars a week. Q. About eight or nine dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever paid less than eight dollars a week? A. In a ■i few instances we have had assistance for seven dollars and six dollars I I for a very limited period of time. ■< Q. If you have an opinion on the matter of wages paid women l' by their employers, will you please express that opinion to the Committee? A. I have an opinion that it depends on the type of employe that is l| used. The type of people we use have to have an education and have || to look well; consequently we would pay them more money. I don’t I" know what would be a living wage in other commodities, people handling [ other commodities. We handle nothing but luxuries in our place. I, _ SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Chairman, I don’t think this case comes I within our investigation. We have been dropping down to four and five i dollars a week, and the witness says they pay eight to twenty-five I dollars. I 210 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee THE CHAIRMAN: I thank you, Mr. Shayne, on behalf of the Committee and you will be excused. The Committee wishes to announce that the next witnesses are to be women and if there are any women present who desire to retire, the opportunity is now extended to them. We do not know the nature of the testimony to be introduced now'. If any women desire to leave, they have the opportunity now. A R ’s Testimony. A R , called as a witness, having been first dulj' sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? A. A R — ^ . Q. What is your age, please? A. I am thirty-eight years old. Q. Where are you at present engaged? A. 2101 Dearborn Street, Chicago. Q. Is that what is commonly known as a sporting house? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will you tell this Committee under what circumstances you were brought to that place, and if that is the first place you were ever in? A. It was not the first place. Q. Will you tell this Committee under what circumstances you were brought to the first place you were brought to? A. I was working in a laundry for four dollars a week. Q. You were working in a laundry for four dollars a week? A. Yes, sir, and I didn’t make enough to take care of mj'self. Q. And you left your employment at four dollars a week? A. I couldn’t live on four dollars a week and keep my children. I couldn’t live by myself on four dollars a week, much less support my two children. Q. And that is what caused your downfall? A. Yes, that is what caused my downfall. Q. How old were you at that time? A. Twentj'-six years. Q. You had two children? A. Yes, a boy and a girl. Q. Have you got that little boy and girl still? A. Yes, sir, but I don’t have them here. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Chairman, I don’t think there is any neces- sity at all for continuing the examination of this witness. She says she earned four dollars a week and she could not support herself and family. THE CHAIRMAN: The witness is excused. P B ’s Testimony. P B , called as a witness, having been first dul}' sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: THE CHAIRMAN: Have you given your name to the investigator? A. No, sir. Q. Will you kindly write your name on a piece of paper? Mr. Scouten will take the names when they leave the stand. SENATOR JLWfL: What is your residence? A. Cadillac Hotel. Q. Where is that located? A. Between 21st and 22nd Street on Wabash Avenue. Q. Are you engaged in what is commonly known as sporting? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you mind telling this Committee how long it is since you started? A. Four years. Q. Will you please tell the reason for your engaging in that line? A. I worked in a shoe factory and I didn’t make enough. Q. What were you receiving? A. Five dollars a week. Q. Did you have parents that supported you? A. No. sir. Q. You didn’t have parents supporting 3 -ou? A. No, sir. Q. Did you find yourself unable to live on the amount of wage you got? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 211 Q. Then, what happened? Then you started in this life? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you found the life equally hard? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you believe you would have gone astray if you had had suf- ficient wage to support yourself? A. I don’t think so. Q. You think you would likely have been a good girl if you had had decent wages to live on? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old were you when you worked in the shoe factory? A. I worked in the shoe factory when I was fourteen years old. Q. Did your folks live in the city? A. No, sir. Q. Where was this shoe factory? A. In Cincinnati, Ohio. Q. Where did your parents live? A. In Portsmouth, Ohio. Q. You worked there for quite a number of years in this shoe fac- tory and you only got five dollars a week and you quit? A. Yes, sir. Q. When did you start to go wrong? How long after you had worked in the shoe factory, about what age? A. About eighteen. Q. You had worked about four years in the shoe factory when you went wrong? A. No, I have been in this life four years. Q. Oh, you had been in this life prior to the time you worked in the shoe factory? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then, your downfall came while you were working in the shoe factory? A. Yes, sir. Q. You think it was the wages in the shoe factory that made you go wrong? A. I think so. Q. Why was it that you did go wrong? A. I needed money. THE CHAIRMAN: How old are you now? A. Twenty-three; I will be the 13th of May. Q. When you left a respectable life you were making five dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are you making now? How much money is given you every week? A. Twenty-five or thirty dollars. THE CHAIRMAN: Twenty-five or thirty dollars a week. In other words, the witness left a respectable life to go into another kind of life to increase her earning capacity. That is all. R M ’s Testimony. R M , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: THE CHAIRMAN: Kindly give your name? A. R M . Q. What is your age? A. I am twenty-two years old. Q. Are you living in a sporting house? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been in that business? A. Well, not long. Q. How long would you say? A. About two years and a half. Q. Before entering that kind of life you were a good girl? A. No, sir, I was working, but couldn’t live for three dollars a week. Q. You were working for three dollars a week in what business? A. In a factory. Q. In what factory? A. A factory in St. Louis. Q. What was the name of that factory? A. Clinton & Martin Paper Factory. Q. You were getting three dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours a day did you work? A. We worked from seven in the morning until six in the evening and then we worked over- time some time. Q. Were you living at home with your parents at the time? A. Yes, sir. Q. Your father and mother were alive? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you do with your wages? Did you give the money 212 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee to your father and mother or did you spend it on yourself? A. I spent some on myself and give some to them. Q_. You worked in the factory how long? A. Well, ever since 1 was sixteen years old. Q. You were a good girl when you were in the factory? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why did you leave the factory? A. I could not live off of that and I thought my people were getting tired and they wanted more money and I could not help support them. Q. You thought your parents were getting dissatisfied because j^ou were unable to bring in more money to them? A. Yes, sir. Q. They mentioned that at home? A. They never mentioned it, but it looked that way. Q. And you grew dissatisfied? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was the first step you made? Did you go to a sporting house and apply for a position? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you go there with someone? A. No, sir. I went alone. Q. You went there in desperation? A. Yes, sir. Q. You went to that house because you were despondent? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever regretted that step? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: How much money did you make last week? A. I could not say. Q. Would you say twenty-five dollars? A. Not twentj--five dollars. Q. You want to be good, don’t you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Which would you prefer with your experience in both lives? Would you prefer to lead a life where you could make twenty-five dollars a week, or go back to the old life and make three dollars a week? A. I could not live on three dollars a week. Q. Suppose you were put back in the old life with your father and mother at twelve dollars, would you think that sufficient? A. I could support myself on that. Q. And you would return? A. Yes, sir. Q. You would want to return if you could get twelve dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR WAAGE: How old were you when you went to work in the factory? A. 16. Q. How many years did you work there? A. I worked there about five years. Q. And your wages were not increased during the time you worked there? A. No, sir. Q. So when you were twenty or twenty-one you were earning the same pay as when you started? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours a daj' did you work? A. From seven in the morning until six at night, sometimes overtime. Q. Did you go out for your meals? A. We had half an hour for dinner. Q. So you worked ten and a half hours steadily at this work? A. Yes, sir. Q. You worked as hard as you could, I presume A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: The witness is excused. L C ’s Testimony. L C , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, was sworn by Senator Juul, and testified as follows: THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Beall, will you examine the witness? SENATOR BEALL: No, I prefer not. I am a better listener. THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Juul, will you examine the witness? Public Meetings and Testimony 213 SENATOR JUUL: Please give your name. A. L C . Q. Would you mind telling us how old you are? A. I am twenty- one years old. Q. Where do you live? A. 1 live at 2101 Dearborn Street. Q. How long have you lived there? A. About two months. Q. How long have you been in that line of life? A. About two years. Q. What were you engaged in before that? A. I was with the telephone company. Q. Were you employed here in Chicago? A. No, sir. Q. Where were you employed? A. In Cleveland, Ohio. Q. Can you tell this Committee what you look upon as .the cause for your leaving a business and going into this life? A. I couldn’t say exactly. I worked for sixteen to twenty dollars a month. Q. An average of from four to five dollars a week? A. Well, it would be four to five dollars a week. Q. It kept you too busy to spend it all? A. Yes, I could spend it. Q. You felt that you were unable to live decently on those wages? ■ A. You have to pay four dollars for board. Q. Did you live with your parents? A. No, sir, my parents are • dead. Q. You were in a position where you had to get your board and • lodging and clothing and everything out of this four or five dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. You found you could not live decently and it was a hard struggle to get along and you quit? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then, where did you go? A. I was in Cleveland then. Q. When did you come to Chicago? A. About two months ago. Q. And you have been here ever since? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you find it easier earning money in the life you are now in than the life you led before? A. It isn’t easier, but you can earn more money. Q. You simply gave up the struggle on the ground that you couldn’t live on what you earned? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were you brought here to Illinois by any man? A. No, sir, I came here alone. Q. No one placed you where you are now? A. No, sir. Q. How did you come to Chicago? A. I just came. Q. Without the suggestion of any one? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why did you select Chicago? A. I don’t know. I just thought Chicago would be a good place. THE CHAIRMAN: Will you tell me the name of the sporting house you were in in Cleveland? A. I wasn’t in any particular place. I didn’t say I went in any sporting house. Q. Where were you living in Cleveland, Ohio? A. On Chestnut Street. Q. What number? A. 1617 Chestnut Street. Q. Was it a sporting house? A. No, it is not a sporting house, ij It is a plain rooming house. I SENATOR WAAGE: You mean you casually took people up to [ the hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you have continued t’nat practice since you came to Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q_. How much do you make a week, about? A. About twenty-five or thirty dollars. SENATOR JUUL: And you made four or five dollars a week with the telephone company? A. Yes, sir. 214 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR BEALL: That is the telephone company in Cleveland? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Was that the general wage paid? A. They start you in at six dollars a month. Q. What was the name of the company? A. The Toledo Telephone Company. I mean they start you in at sixteen dollars a month. Q. They start you in at $16 a month? A. Yes, sir. Q. To what amount do they increase your wages? A. They are increased gradually to thirty dollars a month. SENATOR BEALL: Do you think if you could get twelve dollars a week you could live decently and honestly? A. Yes, I would be glad to work for twelve dollars a week. Q. You think twelve dollars a week would keep j-ou nicely? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: We have had different opinions as to wages, some say eight dollars and some say ten dollars and some say twelve dollars. What do you think as to the wages being eight dollars, ten dollars or twelve dollars a week?^ A. We have got to pay five dollars at least for board and room, and that is doing very well. Then we have got street car fare and other expenses. R R ’s Testimony. R R ^ — , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: THE CHAIRAiAN: Will you please give your name? A. R R . Q. How old are you? A. I am twenty-six years old. Q. You are in a sporting house? A. Yes, sir, in a cafe. Q. It is what is commonly known as a sporting house? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been in that kind of business? A. About seven years. Q. What did you do prior to that time? A. I worked at house work, factory work and store ■work. Q. What was the last position j'ou had? A. Store work. Q. In what city? A. St. Louis, Alissouri. Q. In what store? A. In Booth’s Dr}' Goods store. Q. Where is that store located? A. 23rd and Olive Streets. Q. What salary or -wage were you paid there? A. Four dollars and a half a week. Q. Did that wage have anything to do with your entering the sporting life? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why was that? A. Well, it was not enough to clothe me and pay my board. SENATOR JUL^L: It was not enough to clothe you and pay your board? A. No, sir. SENATOR JUUL: It is the same old story. THE CHAIRMAN: And because the wage was not sufficient you decided to sell yourself? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: I think that is all. SENATOR JUUL: It is simply a repetition. SENATOR BEALL: How did you happen to come to Chicago? A. I just wanted to make a change. Q. Did anybody come with }'ou? A. No, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: Wull you raise your left hand? fThe witness raised her left hand.) What ring is that on your hand? A. iMy mother’s wedding ring. Q. Why do you wear that? A. Because she is dead and it is the only thing I have of hers, and I keep that to remember her. Public Meetings and Testimony 215 Q. Do the girls in your kind of life wear wedding rings very com- monly? A. I couldn’t say, I don’t know that. Q. Isn’t it a fact that all of the girls in that life wear wedding rings? A. I couldn’t tell you. Q. Were you ever married? A. No, sir. I H -’s Testimony. I H , a witness called, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: THE CHAIRMAN: Will you please state your name? A. I H . Q. Where do you reside? A. At 23 and 25 — 21st Street, Chicago. Q. What is your business. A. I am running a hotel. Q. What hotel? A. The Casino Hotel up over a cafe. Q. What is the name of the cafe? A. The Casino cafe. Q. You are in what is commonly known as the sporting business? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been in that business? A. I have run the place for two years. Q. What we w^nt to get at is, what was the cause of your going into this business? A. To make money enough to keep myself. Q. What were you doing before that? A. I was working. Q. How old were you then? A. From 10 to 17 years. Q. You had to shift for yourself from the age of ten years? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was the cause of that? A. My parents died. Q. What were you doing from ten to seventeen years? A. House work. Q. Did you ever work in a store or factory? A. No, sir. Q. At the time you were working what wage did you get? A. $3.50 a week. SENATOR JUUL: $3.50 a week? A. .Yes, sir, and my board. SENATOR WAAGE: You had to support yourself? A. Yes, sir. Q. How did you come to go into the sporting life? A. I started running around. I would run around for awhile and go back and go to work. Q. Was your work hard? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did you work? A. I went to work about five o’clock and worked to about seven or eight o’clock. Q. In your present line of business what are you able to earn? A. $50 to $60 a week. Q. Were you born in Chicago? A. No, sir, in Michigan. Q. Where did you come from? A. From Grand Rapids, Michigan. Q. When? A. About six years ago. Q. How did you happen to come to Chicago? A. I just thought I would like to come here. Q. You have been at this business about seven years? A. Yes, sir. Q. You make a division as is the custom in that business? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much do the girls earn a week, twenty-five or thirty dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. 216 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. And your earnings are about fifty to sixty dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Where do you get your girls from? A. They come around the cafe. Q. Do you ever pay anybody to bring girls to your place? A. No, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: The witness will be excused. The meeting will now be adjourned until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Thereupon at five o’clock P. M. the Committee took an adjourn- ment to Saturday, March 8, 1913, at 10 o’clock A. M. SESSION VI Information gathered at previous sessions from department store proprietors is supplemented by the testimony of: Mr. Edward Hillman. Mr. John M. Glenn appears in answer to subpoena and dis- claims any personal knowledge to support statements appearing upon his responsibility in an article published in The Manufac- turers’ News, owned by him, which statements questioned the motive actuating the activities of the Committee, and particularly its Chairman. Lieut.-Gov. Barratt O’Hara, Chairman, makes a statement. • Saturday, March 8, 1913, 10 o’clock A. M. The Committee reconvened on Saturday, March 8, 1913, at 10 o’clock A. M., whereupon the following proceedings, were had : Mr. Edward Hillman’s Testimony. EDWARD HILLMAN, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Will you please give your name? A. Edward Hillman. Q. What is your business, Mr. Hillman? A. I am in the depart- ment store business. Q. With what company are you connected? A. With the Hillman Company. Q. Is that a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your connection with that corporation? A. I am secre- tary and treasurer and general manager of the business. Q. As general manager you are familiar, I suppose, with the wages paid woman employes? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you have the privilege, I presume, of both employing and discharging woman employes? A. I have the privilege, but I do not exercise it. Q. Mr. Hillman, what do you consider, if any, is the connection be- tween low wages paid to woman workers and morality among women? A. Well, in some cases it might have a connection and in some cases it might not. Q. Do you think a woman getting eight dollars and needing neces- sities that cost her ten dollars a week, is well fortified to resist temp- tation? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you think that there are some women who would starve be- fore they would sell their virtue? A. I think so. Q. You think that every woman would try to save her virtue? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Hillman, how many women are employed at your place of business? A. 817. Q. What is the average wage paid these women? A. The average wage paid is eight dollars and seventy-one cents; that is Omitting the salaries of buyers and other high salaried employes. We have girls earning eight dollars a week as a salary who are supposed to sell $160 worth of goods a week and if they sell over $160 worth a week they would get a commission of two and one-half per cent. If a girl sold $260 worth of goods she would get the commission. A girl getting eight dollars 217 218 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee a week salary is expected to sell $160 worth of goods. If she sells over that amount she is paid a bonus on all she sells over that amount. Q. What is the lowest salary paid to any employe at Hillman’s? A. Of our 817 we have ninety-nine females whose ages are up to 16 years. Forty-six of them receive five dollars; twenty-four receive four dollars; twenty-three receive three dollars and a half, and six, I think, receive three dollars of the 817 female employes. These are not sales- ladies. Q. What do these girls do that receive three dollars a week? A. Those are girls that simply run errands; for instance, if you come into the store and bring a hat back and want it exchanged, the little girl carries it back to the stock. Q. Do you know, Mr. Hillman, anything about the home life of these girls who are drawing three dollars a week? A. I don’t know anything about it, only that I spoke to the superintendent because I was here yesterday and I heard some of those questions and I spoke to the superintendent. He said that most of those girls who are getting three dollars and three and a half a week are brought into the store by the fathers and mothers who ask us to give them a position where they can learn to advance themselves. He said he rarely puts them on unless the father and mother or one of them asks for the position. Q. Do you keep any record as to the girls applying for positions? A. The applications are on file, I think. Q. Mr. Hillman, do you consider that as an employer of girls you have any moral responsibility? A. Yes, sir. Q. What would you consider as the moral responsibility of an em- ployer in that way? A. We have women who make it a business to go around to see these girls. We have a female doctor employed in our store who looks after these girls and if anything is out of the regular order it is recorded. Q. Mr. Hillman, if you found that a girl working for j-our house and was being paid three dollars a week and j^ou discovered that that girl had lost her virtue as a result of the low wages paid her, would you as a man, feeling the pangs of conscience, consider that 3'ou should assist her? A. Yes, sir, I certainly would. Q. You would consider in a way that j'ou were responsible for her downfall? A. I don’t know about that. I don’t think I would want to give this girl three dollars a week unless she had a home to live in with her father and mother. Q. You consider it, then, one of the incidents of life or one of the incidents of business? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the highest salary paid to anj- woman worker not a department head or buyer at Hillman’s? A. $25 and $30. Q. Have you any women working for j'ou who started at three dollars a week and who are now drawing thirty dollars a week? A. Me have a girl who started on three dollars and is now drawing twentj'-seven dollars a week. Q. How long has she been with Hillman? A. About nine j’ears. Q. What is her present age? A. She is about twent3'-seven or twenty-eight years of age. Q. Can you briefly tell the Committee the successive promotions of that girl from the time she started at three dollars a week until the present time? A. At three dollars a week I think she was in the auditing room, assorting sales checks, and from that she rose to other positions and was finally promoted as one of our head cashiers. Q. Mr. Hillman, do 3^011, yourself, see the work that these girls are doing? A. A good deal of it. A good deal of it is under the manager and superintendent, but I see a good deal of it in the store. Q. Would it be possible, Mr. Hillman, under your system for a very competent girl of unusual ability to get a promotion mereh' because her superior should perhaps favor her? A. No, sir, it never would. Q. That would be impossible? A. It would be impossible. Public Meetings and Testimony 219 Q. Suppose a girl had merited the disapproval of her superior, do you think she would be reprimanded? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many of your girls working for five dollars a week are supposed to be living at home? A. Pretty near all of them. Q. You have in your store what are called floor walkers? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever discharged a floorwalker because of charges made against that floorwalker by a girl employe? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many times has that happened? A. It might happen any time. Q. Whenever a girl complains that a floorwalker is trying to allure her from the paths of righteousness and virtue, he is discharged? A. Yes, sir. Q. When he is discharged, his name is given to other stores on State Street and put on a black list? A. No, sir; no black list. We do not call it that. Q. You do not call it that, but you give the name to the other stores? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you report the name to the other stores on State Street in the same line of business? A. Yes, sir. Q. So that he is unable to get employment from any other store? A. Yes, sir. Q. If a girl is making three dollars a week at Hillman’s is she at liberty to go to Marshall Field’s and apply for a job there? A. Yes, and they do it. They are at liberty to go anywhere and apply for a position. Q. A girl who leaves you is not put on the black list or reported to other stores so that she cannot get a position elsewhere? A. No, other stores will hire their help. That is competition. It is one of the reasons that salaries go up so high. SENATOR JUUL. It seems that salaries do not go up very fast. MR. HILLMAN: They are going up. Every day the payroll gets heavier. Q. Then, there is no understanding among merchants on State Street of that nature? A. No, sir. Q. You know that that is the common report, do you not? A. It is not so. Q. Suppose a country girl comes to Chicago to seek a position and hasn’t very much experience and she is willing to take three or four dollars a week, where should she apply in your place? A. She would have to go to the superintendent. Q. What is the least on which a woman can support herself respect- ably in Chicago? A. Between eight and ten dollars a week. Q. Could she do it on eight dollars a week? A. Yes, but she would not have much spending money. Q. Could you live on twelve dollars a week? A. I certainly could and live well. I could live on ten dollars if I had to. Q. Have you a system of fines? A. Well, we have practically no fines. We do not fine for tardiness. Q. Do you think a girl who is dependent upon her own resources can live well on eight dollars a week? A. About eight or nine dollars a week. Q. You think she could do it on eight dollars a week? A. Perhaps so. Q. And on eight dollars a week would she have any money for amusement, any nickel shows, things of that kind? A. I should say she wouldn’t have a whole lot. I guess you are right. Q. How about twelve dollars a week? A. Well, she could live very fine on twelve dollars a week, couldn’t she? I can live on twelve dollars a week and I could live on ten dollars a week if I had to. But 220 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I think eight to nine dollars a week, somewhere around there, would be all right. Q. How many girls in your establishment do you pay less than eight or nine dollars a week? A. There are 871. I don’t think we have got one hundred salesladies in our store or 150 that are not getting from six to seven dollars. Q. 150? A. Yes. Q. Are any of those self-supporting? A. Right off-handed I couldn’t answer that. I don’t think there are any, because I asked that question of our superintendent. He said they were young people who lived at horne. Q. But you don’t know that of your own knowledge? A. No, sir. Q. You made inquiries within the last twenty-four hours? A. Yes, sir. Q. Can you furnish this Committee, Mr. Hillman, with the names and addresses of those 150 girls? A. I don’t see any objection to fur- nishing the Committee with that. Q. We would like to know who those girls are? A. I don’t see any objection to furnishing it. Q. Of those 150 girls, Mr. Hillman, what proportion are on salary and what proportion on commission? A. They are pretty nearly all on a commission basis. When you ask about the salary j'ou do not get this commission basis idea. That is quite an item. They all get those chances to make commissions. Q. You mean that a girl who is making six dollars a week has a chance to make a commission in addition to the six dollars? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, as a matter of fact, you do have a system of fines? A. Not a fine. I will tell you what the fines consist of. We don’t believe in having anybody come in late. We don’t make any fines for anj^ mistakes except mistakes they make willingly. For instance, if you came in there and purchased something and you told the girl to keep it and she loses it, she is charged up with that. We have a rule that she has no right to do that. The girls have no right to take the packages to keep them. We have a place where we keep packages Heft bj' customers. Q. In cases of loss of packages would 3 'OU charge the value of the package lost? A. If more than eight dollars or ten dollars — we can’t tell — it might be fifty dollars or a great deal less. You asked me about fines. Q. Do you know of any case where a girl making five dollars a week did lose a package and it was worth ten dollars or five dollars? A. No, sir. I am just illustrating where that comes in. Q. Mr. Hillman, you stated that you had 817 female employes in your store? A. Yes, sir. Q. And that the average wage of these 817 was $8.71? A. Yes, sir, as salary but not commission. Q. Mr. Hillman, what number of those girls would 3 'ou sa.y are drawing under eight dollars a week salary? A. I should think about 150. Q. Would you say there is a moral or legal obligation on the em- ployer to pay an amount of money commensurate with what it would take to clothe and feed and make such female presentable in 3 -our store, would you say there was an obligation on the part of the employer in Illinois which would render that necessary? A. No, I don’t know that I do. Q. Would you say there was an obligation resting on the emplo^-er to pay a sum of money equal to the sum of money it would take for a girl to live decently on when working for you? A. Yes. Q. You stated j^ou believed such minimum wage should be wbat? A. I should say about eight dollars. Q. Could j^ou furnish the Committee with a list of the things an}- ordinary female worker would require that would bring it within eight dollars? A. I don’t know. Q. You don’t think you could? A. I saj- I don’t know. Public Meetings and Testimony 221 Q. You don’t know whether you could or not? A. No. Q. What would you say room rent would be worth in the city of Chicago for a girl who is working and dependent on her own resources? A. I don’ tknow. Q. I am talking about ordinary living expenses. A. Room and board I should think about five or six dollars a week; maybe four dollars, but I don’t know. I think four dollars could get a very nice place in some families. There may be some who could get it for three dollars, but I can’t tell. Q. Don’t you think you know more about that situation than this Committee? A. I don’t think I do. I think you gentlemen are just as able to get the information as I am. Q. What I am trying to get at is, what in your estimation would be the lowest amount of money that it would take for a female employe to live in the city of Chicago decently. I think you will agree with this Committee that if the employer does not pay the amount of money neces- sary she will have to look to some other sources to make up the difference. Now, what would you say would be a minimum wage for a woman living on her own resources? A. I said between eight and nine dollars a week. Q. What amount of money would it take weekly to lift these 150 woman employes from their present wage to a living wage? A. I don’t know. I think that those working on salaries of eight to nine dollars a week and making a commission could live very well. Q. You say you have no system of fines? A. No, sir. Q. Have you any investigators who follow up the reports of girls who apply for positions? A. No, but that might be a very good plan. Q. Will you institute such a system? A. Yes, we will begin with ; the system at once. j Q. To how many girls do you say you pay less than nine dollars a week? A. I don’t think we have more than 150 and I think they re- side with their parents or relatives; that is, I have been told so. Q. You admit there is a moral responsibility on the part of the employer? A. I do to a certain extent. Q. But you cannot figure out the actual necessary expenses of a young woman living a respectable life? A. No, I have no means of ]] doing it. Q. You figure that practically all your female employes are getting what you would call a living wage? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you consider that your store is paying, either through the system of commissions or on the basis of salary, a better wage than prevails as an average on State Street? A. I wouldn’t say as an aver- age, but we pay more than a good many stores on State Street because some of the stores do not have this system. We have some who make eight dollars a week and with a commission as much as $15 a week. Q. What would you say is the average amount an employe could earn a week on the commission system? A. Some girls getting six dollars earn twelve dollars, fourteen dollars and sixteen dollars a week. Besides the commission basis we have a system where we buy a lot of dress goods and we say to the clerks if you will sell these goods quickly we would be glad. , Q. Would you say that in your experience you have found that a lack of sufficient funds on which to live has caused girls to go wrong morally? A. I believe it may be the cause in some cases. Q. Would you seriously oppose any attempt on the part of the ' State of Illinois to better that condition of the women of Illinois if it necessitated an increase in your payroll? A. We would be glad to do it. Q. Would you be willing to co-operate with the state in an effort to bring about a living wage? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL; I am glad to hear it. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hillman, what was the net profits of Hill- ‘ man’s during the last fiscal year? A. I wouldn’t want to answer that at the present. I don’t think I would have any objection, but I prefer 222 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee to get legal advice before giving that information. I would want to talk to my attorney. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Simpson has tendered this Committee full access to all his books and to give the Committee anything it wants to know. Q. ^r. Hillman, are you willing to do that? A. I am wdlling to do so. MR. SIMPSON: The only qualifying statement I have to make to Senator Juul’s remark is, that any information bearing on this subject which we can give we will be glad to give, and our books are accessible to the Committee. They are very welcome to come to our store and we will be glad to give any information we can bearing on the subject. THE CHAIRMAN: I might say, Mr. Simpson, that in a sense this Committee is composed of all the people of Illinois and it is here in the interests of the people of Illinois and whatever is demanded is in the name of the people of Illinois. MR. SIMPSON: Yes, sir, we shall be glad to furnish any information we have and to assist the Committee in any way we can. THE CHAIRMAN: We thank you much, Mr. Simpson, and any information you will give will be very acceptable. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Mr. Hillman, how much did you start on? A. I started on twenty dollars a w'eek. Q. And you have worked your way up? A. Yes, sir. Of course I worked on much smaller wages than that. Q. These girls that get three dollars and a half a week are girls that have a chance for advance? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. Q. What is the percentage of women that make commissions who earn five dollars a week? A. The girl that gets five dollars a week would only be entitled to sell ten or twelve dollars a week. There are some women who sell $100 worth a week and they get a commission of probably fifteen dollars. Q. You say there is no blacklist? A. No, sir, no blacklist. Q. Isn’t there some kind of an understanding or agreement between the heads of department stores that w'here a person leaves one store they cannot get a higher w^age at another? A. No, sir. EXAMINATION RESUMED BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Mr. Hillman, are you acquainted with John AI. Glenn? A. No, sir, I don’t know him. Q. Has any man approached you asking you to contribute toward a fund to be raised to fight the fhinimum wage bill in Illinois? A. No, sir. Q. You are not acquainted with John AI. Glenn? A. No, sir. REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD: Air. Hillman, do j'^ou make an annual report of your corporate affairs to the L'nited States government every year? A. Yes, sir. Q. That shows j-our gross earnings? A. A’es, sir. Q. And your net earnings? A. Yes, sir. Q. In view of the fact that that is information given out to the United States government, do you know of any reason why the people of the State of Illinois should not know that? A. I don’t know of any reason, but I would like to consult about that. THE CHAIRMAN: Would you give it to us later? A. I know of no reason why not. Public Meetings and Testimony 223 Q. The firm of Hillman doesn’t always follow Marshall Field & [ Company? A. No. I will tell you that our profits are not so great. 1 Honestly, I have no objection, but I want to get a little advice. " Q. Why not lead Marshall Field & Company this time? A. I don't i want to lead Marshall Field & Company. THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any members of the Committee or any representatives present, of the General Assembly, who desire to in- terrogate the witness? REPRESENTATIVE LLOYD: Mr. Hillman, are you familiar with I the report of the Vice Commission under the Busse administration? 1 A. No, sir. Q. You have not seen it? A. No, sir. : Q. Have you heard anything about it? A. No, sir. Q. Then, of course you would not be familiar with the frequent I statements in that report of the number of girls from the department stores who have gone wrong? A. No, sir, I would not be familiar ■ with it; I don’t know anything about it. ^ Q. Suppose I were to inform you that a large number of girls from : department stores have been reported on the best evidence to have sought lives of shame on account of the low wages paid, what would you say as to that? A. I couldn’t answer that. [ Q. Have you never thought of it at all? A. It never came to my ’ notice. . Q. I am informed from the best of evidence that a large number i of girls who have worked in department stores in Chicago are notoriously known to be leading a life of shame and that they come from the depart- ment stores? A. They might or might not. I can’t tell you as to that. Q. What do you think is the reason that so many girls go wrong? ' A. There are all sorts of reasons. There are the mashers, to start with One of our men threshed a masher one time very badly so that his i; mother would hardly know him. ’ Q. If you knew that any of the girls were going wrong, would you ,|: be willing to help them? A. I would be very glad to. t Q. Do you, when any girl applies to you for a position, ask her any I questions with regard to her moral life or do you ask for references? I A. Yes, we look them up. We usually want them to give us the name j of some minister or doctor or some responsible person from whom we I may get some line on them and as to whether they live at home. If we get j any letters as to the girls we make inquiries. Q. Mr. Hillman, what would you say about the moral standard of the girls in your store? A. I should say they are all right, as far as I I know. I Q. You think the moral standard is of the highest? A. I think t so positively. I would like to have the Committee, or any of you gentle- ! men, come to our store. We will show you around and you can -size up i the girls and you can tell pretty nearly as well as I can. We have got a very nice lot of girls. SENATOR BEALL: I will accept the invitation. MR. HILLMAN: I wish you would. Senator, come over and I will i show you around the store. THE CHAIRMAN: You will be excused, Mr. Hillman, until ten o’clock Monday morning, and you need not appear unless you are notified, i MR. HILLMAN: I will bring that list in. I THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I Mr. John M. Glenn’s Testimony. ; JOHN M. GLENN, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Give us your name. A. John M. Glenn. 224 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What is your business, Mr. Glenn? A. I am secretary of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association. Q. Is Mr. Julius Rosenwald a member of that organization and a contributor to it? A. He is a member of it. Q. He is president of Sears, Roebuck & Company? A. Yes, sir. Q. You derive your income from the Illinois Manufacturers’ Asso- ciation? A. Partially. Q. Then, indirectly, you derive part of your income from the firm of Sears, Roebuck & Company? A. You might figure it that way. Q. Mr. Glenn, _ have you any connection with the Manufacturers’ News? A. I own it. Q. That is a publication that is conducted by you personally? A. By myself personally. Q. What is its province, what is the excuse for its existence? A. Because I want it to be published. Q. Are you the sole proprietor? A. I am the owner; no one else has a cent in it. Q. Mr. Glenn, did you see the publication of the Manufacturers’ News of March 6th, 1913? A. I did. Q. Are you familiar with the editorial appearing therein under the caption “Let the men testify?’’ A. I am. Q. Did you write that? A. I wrote the body of the editorial. The box head appearing there, I wrote part of it. I am responsible for it, anyway. Q. You are responsible for the editorial? A. Yes, sir. Q. You state that under oath? A. I state that under oath. Q. Did you talk to Mr. Rosenwald about that box head? A. I did not. Q. Will you look at this and see if it is apparently genuine — I am referring to the editorial in your paper? A. I think it is; it looks like it. Q. You read it before it was published, Mr. Glenn? A. I did. THE CHAIRMAN: This will be marked Exhibit A and put into the record. (The publication of “Manufacturers’ News” of March 6th, 1913, was marked Exhibit A, and is made a part of this record.) MR. GLENN: Upon what authority did you write the editorial and the box head appearing in that issue, upon whose authority? A. No authority except my own. Do you mean was I requested to write it for someone? Q. No, had you any facts upon which to base the matter appearing in that box head? A. I had this general information of what is in it. Q. Had you any information at all? A. I only expressed my judg- ment. It shows that is my judgment or the judgment of the paper. Q. The editorial states: “Lieutenant Governor Barratt O’Hara, Chairman of the so-called ‘White Slave Commission,’ was for a number of years connected with the Chicago Examiner.” Did you know that to be true? A. I believe that is true. I understood it was true. Q. How do you know it? A. I just heard it around town. Q. Have you ever seen Barratt O’Hara and Andrew M. Lawrence together? A. I never have. Q. Then you say “He now enjoys the fullest confidence of Andrew Lawrence, representative of the Hearst papers in Chicago? Have j’ou ever heard that Barratt O’Hara and Andrew M. Lawrence were not on the basis of the closest friendship? A. I have heard they were. Q. Then you make this statement without having the slightest foun- dation of fact? A. No, I don’t make it without any foundation of fact. I think it is generally known around town among newspaper men. Q. Will you kindly give me one instance where one man told you that Andrew Lawrence and Barratt O’Hara were close friends? A. I don’t think of anyone just now. Public Meetings and Testimony 225 Q. And yet you say it is of common knowledge? A. I think it is. Q. You cannot remember one man that said that? A. No, I don’t remember one man. Q. You then say: “It is our judgment that this investigation would not be nearly so vigorous if the State Street merchants would furnish the Hearst papers with a sufficient amount of fiill-page advertising to satisfy the greed of Mr. Lawrence.” Is that your judgment? A. It is. ' Q. Is that your judgment — tainted by the money you are receiving from certain sources who have appeared before this Committee? A. I don’t think my judgment is tainted. If my judgment was tainted I think I would be the last person that should be called upon to express my judgment in that respect. Q. What is the circulation of this publication, Mr. Glenn? A. The circulation is between two and three thousand a week. Q. Might I ask what your advertising rates are, roughly? A. Well, it is fifty dollars a page or fifteen hundred and sixteen dollars by the year. Q. Fifty dollars per page for two or three thousand circulation? A. Yes. Q. Are you mailing this publication to the members of the General Assembly? A. Yes, sir, each member gets it and a good many other people; we mail quite a number of them. Q. Do the members pay for it? A. No. Q. Are they marked “sample copies?” A. I don’t know, but they are mailed through the post office. Q. How many State Street merchants, if any, belong to this organi- zation? A. Four or five. Q. Name them. A. Mandel Brothers, Siegel & Cooper, The Fair, Lytton, of the Hub; there are several others, I can’t recall. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Do you know, Mr. Glenn, that there are fifty thousand girls in Chicago who receive five dollars a week, or less? A. I have been told there are only fifty thousand wage earners in Chicago earning that amount, something around that. Q. Where did you get that fifty thousand, from stores? A. No. Q. Where did you get your figures? A. That was the official census. Q. That there were only fifty thousand women earning that amount? A. Fifty-seven thousand, I believe, above sixteen years old in Chicago. Q. Mr. Glenn, you have stated your reasons, or rather your belief of why this Committee is in existence, and in that statement you have reflected upon the Lieutenant Governor. Let us get down to brass tacks on this proposition. Suppose the conditions that this Committee is at the present time trying to inquire into, and supposing this Committee has called in certain witnesses and witness after witness has testified under oath that if it had not been for a certain existing wage condition that this particular female would not have gone wrong and that they were earning from three and a half to five dollars a week, what would you say were the reasons and what would you say as to the remedy? A. I would like to see the man that led them wrong. I think the man that led the girl wrong should be punished. Let me interject a word. I think so far as the manufacturers are concerned, it is the duty of the manufacturers to assist you all they can in getting at the facts so far as they bear upon the subject, but I don’t think it is the duty of the Committee or the duty of the manufacturers to start out and get a whole lot of information in the newspapers and produce a prejudice against certain industries. Q. You have got your opinion in the record. I want you to state for the benefit of the ladies and gentlemen in this hall at the present time, as the question as to wages has been asked not once but many times, what was the reason for certain fernales going wrong, and this Committee has been confronted with the condition existing as to low wages. A. I 226 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee think there are so many things, probably, that enter into this question that the wage question is probably the least factor. I do not say it is not a factor, but some women getting twenty-five dollars a week are not any more satisfied and are just as hard up as the girl that gets five dollars a week. Q. Mr. Glenn, from what source would you say that a female worker in the city of Chicago, having an average wage of say four to five dollars a week, and having an average minimum want of eight dollars a week, from what source would you say the missing three dollars would come? Where do you suppose this missing three or four dollars, to bring the amount up to the minimum, would come from? A. I do not know anything about that. EXAMINATION RESUMED BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Mr. Glenn, you have given us some of your philosophy on this question and it is your contention that low wages had nothing to do with the question of vice. Then I want to ask you again, do you not know that this statement here is a lie? A. I do not. Q. You state it to be the truth? A. I stand by my statement. Q. Will you reiterate this statement under oath here? A. Yes, that is my judgment now. Q. Mr. Glenn, will you leave off this, “It is our judgment,” and will you say, “That this investigation would not be nearly so vigorous if the State Street merchants would furnish the Hearst papers with a suf- i ficient amount of full-page advertising to satisfy the greed of Mr. Law- ! rence.” Will you make that statement under oath? A. I am under oath. I will state that if it is demonstrated that the Chairman of this Committee and Mr. Lawrence w'ere not intimate friends and that you were not in a business way connected, I would withdraw the other part of this state- ment. THE CHAIRMAN: The record will show exactly what w'as said. Q. You have no proof to offer? A. No, I have no proof to offer further than that. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Mr. Glenn, you make that statement as an individual and as a citizen? A. I make the statement as the owner and proprietor of the Manufacturers’ News. Q. You derive your income from the Manufacturers’ News? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Glenn, if I should swear under oath that I was the father of this resolution offered in the Senate without any advice from Mr. Hearst’s or any other newspaper and had it read in open session and it was passed unanimously, would you believe it? A. I certainly would. Q. Then, you would publish something to the effect that you did not know of that fact? A. I wouldn’t publish anything that I believed wasn’t true. SENATOR BEALL: I don’t know Mr. Lawrence or anything about him. I have known you for several years and would believe you whether under oath or not. Q. If the records show that I offered this resolution in the senate myself and had it passed unanimously and I didn’t know who was going to be on this committee, and I did not have the advice of any newspaper, you would take that statement as true? A. I said an}’ statement you may make I would take as true. SENATOR BEALL: I might make that statement under oath. THE CHAIRMAN: I don’t think that is necessary. Senator Beall. Public Meetings and Testimony 227 ‘!i ^ i' I EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. E ! Q. How long have you been connected with the manufacturers of ' Chicago? A. Fifteen years. I Q. You are familiar with the large businesses in Chicago? A. I am ; familiar with the details in a general way. Q. What do you understand the words “watered stock” to mean? A. I think the general acceptance of the term is where stock is issued against the good-will of future business or something like that. Q. In your opinion is there any of that kind in Sears, Roebuck & Company’s fifty million dollars of capital stock? A. Haven’t any idea. ; Q. Do you know that their capital stock is fifty million dollars? A. I don’t know what the capital of the company is. Q. Would you say there was any of it watered stock? A. I ' doubt it. Q. Can you give a definition of watered stock? A. I don’t know of any particular definition. I know the general definition. I haven’t any ‘ definition of my own on the subject. Q. Mr. Glenn, when it appears here that a concern like Sears, Roe- buck & Company have a net return of eight million dollars — you have some knowledge of the size of their plant and their business — and it also appears that they pay their woman employes as low as five dollars a week, ; don’t you think public sentiment ought to be aroused in a case like that? A. I don’t know what you mean. They may have girls starting in at the I age of 16 years. I Q. I am talking about the pay of the workers of a plant with a i!; return of that amount, that amount of net income. A. I couldn’t say as ;! to their net income. '■ Q. How much was it this year? A. In 1911 it was ten million dollars. I don’t know enough about their business. i Q. Isn’t the public interested in this question of the girl workers ij, being paid their proper share? A. I think it is the duty of the public :! to take care of its citizens. I think it is the government’s duty to look N out for its citizens. f Q. And isn’t it their duty to take care of the working girl of fourteen to sixteen years of age and to look out for her? A. Yes, there are certain I situations where certainly something should be done to take care of them. II Q. Isn’t it a fact that the duty rests upon the employer to take care of the employe A. Yes, in some cases that should be done. Q. Isn’t it the duty of the State to take hold of the problem and enact some general law to protect that class of people? A. 1 think they ought to be protected, but I don’t think it is the State’s duty to make a plant El appear to be fostering prostitutes. Q. No, but it is the question of the minimum wage that we are in- ii quiring about. A. I have no doubt the State has a perfect right to investi- I, gate the minimum wage question and to get at all of the facts possible. Ji Q. And the State has that authority; then shouldn’t the State have ill full information as to the wages which are paid and as to the income of I the business? -A. Certainly, but I can’t give you the information you '! want. You want me to tell you about Sears, Roebuck & Company earn- I ings, and I don’t know. I Q. Suppose the Committee were to establish the fact that to maintain ij a human being employed in any capacity — a female human being, if you 7 please — that the lowest figure at which that could be done was nine dollars |i a week; and the Committee established the fact that a number of women : were receiving only nine dollars a week — would you say that in that case i the plant owners and store-keepers were not giving their employes full i value for their services? A. Certainly, if you show the facts and prove ! them I could not go back of, the facts. I think you ' Q. I think you have been a little bit harsh with this Committee and I I think likely you have been using your pencil too much and wanting to I 1 228 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee write something to show we are creating the impression of being unjust to the employers? A. I don’t think so. I think the stories and interviews given out create that impression. Q. Suppose it is shown that there was a shortage in the amount of money paid and that a large number of women were earning on an average from three to four and five dollars a week, would you say that this Com- mittee is still on the wrong track in this investigation? A. No, I would not say that. As I said a while ago, a woman earning twenty-five dollars might say she could not live well on it and a girl might say she could live easily on ten dollars a week. Q. You think some of them can live on ten dollars a week? A. I have lived on five dollars. Q. How long has that been, Mr. Glenn? A. A number of years ago. Q. Could you live on five dollars now? A. J might if I had to and if I couldn’t get one job I would get another. 1 would go to work at something. I have lived on five dollars and could do it again. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. Q. What other job did you speak of having? What is your other business besides^ running this magazine? A. I am Secretary of the Illi- nois Manufacturing Association. Q. And it is your business to look after legislation for the manu- facturers? A. It is part of my business to keep the manufacturers in- formed as to the progress of legislation and what legislation is proposed. Q. I think I have seen you at Springfield in regard to legislation for the manufacturers. A. I was there a great many years for the news- papers before I went there for the manufacturers. Q. You have been there for the manufacturers, too? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are their — you are their recognized agent? A. If that is what a secretary is, yes. Q. Well, you do other work besides the secretary’s work? You go down there and look after legislation; in other words, you are what is commonly called a lobbyist for them — are you not? A. I don’t know^ You might call me that. Some people call me that. I don’t object to being called a lobbyist. I don’t resent being called a lobbyist. Q. You think you told the truth in that editorial? A. I am in the record as to that. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Mr. Glenn, as a matter of fact and of your own knowledge, j'ou don’t know of any member of this Committee who has negotiated with any Chicago newspaper or used this Committee in any way in negotiating with any Chicago newspaper to boost or increase their advertising, do j'OU? A. I don’t know that they have. Q. Do you think that any member of this Committee has used his position on this Committee to negotiate with any newspaper to increase their advertising? A. No, but I think Mr. Lawrence’s influence over ;Mr. O’Hara is what caused this proceeding. If Mr. O’Hara can say he was not connected with the Chicago American or Chicago Examiner, and that he is not a friend of Andy Lawrence, and is not connected with Andy Lawrence or influenced by Andy Lawrence, I told Senator Beall I would withdraw the statement and give it as much prominence as the other. Q. As a matter of fact, don’t you know that the article is not true? A. I would not have printed it if I had known that, if I had not been informed it was. SENATOR TOSSEY: Who informed you? A. I don’t know. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glenn, j’^ou read the newspapers, of course? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 229 Q. Did you read the newspapers prior to the last primary campaign? ! j A. Yes, sir. [ ■ Q. Did the Chicago Examiner support me for the Democratic nomina- I tion for Lieutenant-Governor? A. I don’t remember; can’t recall. I I Q. After the primary and before the election did you ever see my I name printed in the Chicago Examiner or the Chicago American? A. I r don’t remember; I can’t say. Q. Isn’t it a matter of common gossip that the name of every other candidate on the Democratic State ticket was printed in the Chicago Examiner and in the Chicago American, and my name was not? A. I : don’t know. ' Q. You never heard that? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: This editorial, then, is based upon your imag- i ination? A. It says it is my judgment. I I Q. You had no information, however, whatever to base it on? A. I Only common gossip and the newspapers. j Q. Can you name a single man? A. I said I could not. Q. Mr. Glenn, are you at all acquainted with the members of the ' present general assembly? A. I know quite a number of them. , Q. How many do you know? A. I don’t know. ' Q. Have you been down to Springfield this year? A. No, not while ' the general assembly was in session. , Q. Did you know there were eighty-four new members in the House? ^ A. I believe I seen some statement like that in the newspapers. Q. Do you know that there are six ministers of the gospel in the House of Representatives? A. No, I didn’t know that there were that 1 many. Q. You knew there were some ministers there? A. Yes. Q. You make a statement here in which you ask? “Is it possible < there is not a man in the Illinois General Assembly who never has com- ! mitted adultery? If so, the situation is somewhat remarkable.’’ Did you i have anything to base that statement on? A. Only my general knowledge I of men. ' Q. You assume that the whole of the general assembly is composed of that class of men? A. No. , Q. Did you assume there wasn’t a single man that was good? A. I . just asked the question whether there was a single man that was. Q. No; you say “If so, the situation is remarkable.’’ That is your , language. Did you mean that language? A. Yes. Q. You had nothing to base it on? A. Only my general knowl- i edge of men. Q. You have a very high opinion of them? A. I don’t know: I have an opinion of men as based on the state of the mind. * THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glenn, were you ever discharged from any position? A. No, sir. !i Q. You were never discharged from any employment? A. No, sir. I Q. You resigned and were not discharged? A. I resigned. I never was discharged in my life. I was employed on a paper, but I was never i discharged. I THE CHAIRMAN: That is all. You are excused for the present, j I would like to be sworn. ! SENATOR JUUL: Lieutenant Governor O’Hara has requested that ’ he be sworn. LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR BARRATT O’HARA, having been first duly sworn, by Senator Juul, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: Governor, just make your statement to the r Committee and the stenographer will take it down, and it will go into I the record. Lieut.-Gov. O’Hara Makes a Statement. 230 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee LIEUT. GOV. O’HARA: For ten years I followed the occupation of a newspaper man. Among other newspapers served by me were the Chicago American, Chicago Examiner and the Chicago Chronicle. I never saw Mr. Andrew M. Lawrence in any way outside of the regular routine of my duties as copy reader and then Sunday editor of the Exami- ner and later in the business department. I left the Hearst service about three years ago. Since that time I have seen Andrew M. Law’rence twice. The first occasion was in New York City about a year ago, when I met him in the lobby of the Hotel Astor in company with Judge John E. Owens. It was an accidental meeting and lasted not to exceed two minutes. The second occasion upon which I saw Mr. Lawrence since my leaving the Hearst service was about a month ago at the Hotel LaSalle, Chicago, when Mr. Lawrence was on his way to a banquet of the California Society. It was an accidental meeting. There were present at this meeting Mr. Nelson Lampert and Senator Forst. The conversa- tion lasted for perhaps five minutes with Mr. Lawrence, and Senator Forst doing most of the talking. Mr. Lawrence and I never had any trouble of a serious nature, but we disagreed on matters that seemed vital to me, and it is a common report among newspaper men that the Hearst papers refrained from using the name of Barratt O’Hara whenever pos- sible. When I was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Lieu- tenant Governor, I received no support from Mr. Lawrence, or either of his publications, both of these publications supporting another candidate. After my nomination, with one exception, I do not believe either the American or the Examiner used my name, although the names of the other Democratic candidates w^ere used. I never received orders from any man in my life; God helping me, I never wdll: SENATOR JUUL: Governor, now- that you have made that state- ment, will you state your name? A. Barratt O’Hara. Q. What is your occupation? A. Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. Q. And you are the Chairman of this Senate Vice Committee? A. Yes, sir. Q. I will wind up your statement, Mr. O’Hara, by asking you if you have been directly or indirectly connected, or attempted to connect your- self with any Chicaeo newspaper in order to use this Committee or your position with this Committee to boost the advertising of any newspaper? A. I have no connection with any Chicago newspaper of any sort, and if any advertising solicitor or advertising manager attempts _ to get advertising for his publication on the streneth of the work of this Com- mittee, I will go to the limit in prosecuting him. Q. Mr. O’Hara, do you know of anj’- member of this Committee, _ or any member in the present General Assembly, who has used his position for any mercenary purpose or for the purpose of boosting the advertising among newspapers? A. I do not. SENATOR TOSSEY: Mr. O’Hara, you have read the editorial in the Manufacturers’ News? A. T have. Q. Is that true or false? A. Unqualifiedly false. L W ’s Testimony. L W , called as a witness, having been first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: Give your name? A. L W . Q. Will you tell this Committee if you were arrested some time ago? A. I was arrested on last Saturday. Q. Will you tell the Committee why and where j^ou were arrested? Tell us in your own way. A. I was arrested on State and Van Buren streets. I don’t know much about Chicago. O. What were vou arrested for? A. I was arrested because of a “guy.” Q. On account of a “guy,” on account of a fellow? A. Yes, sir. Q. What had that man done for you? A. This man came from Oregon City, Illinois; he came from the same town I did. He brought me here. Public Meetings and Testimony 231 I Q. What did he bring you here for? A, He wanted me to hustle I and bring $20.00 in a night. Q. For bringing you here? A. For bringing me here and making me hustle. Q. Were there some other men, or this same man? A. No, just the one. Q. When you were brought from Oregon, Illinois, to Chicago, how , old were you? A. I am twenty-five years old. Q. Were you placed in any position here, or any house? A. No, M that is all; he brought me here. Q. To earn money for him? A. Yes. Q. How long did you earn money for him? A. Just one night, when he beat me up and I wouldn’t go any more. Q. What were you employed at in Oregon, Illinois? A. I was work- ing out. Q. In families? A. In families; yes. Mandel Brothers Announce Wage Increase. THE CHAIRMAN: The witness is excused. The Committee has received a letter from Edwin F. Mandel, announcing that as a result of i the hearings of the Committee, the minimum wage at Mandel Brothers has been raised. The Secretary will read the letter. I SENATOR JUUL; The letter is as follows: ^ MANDEL BROTHERS, Chicago, March 8, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, care Hotel LaSalle, City: Dear Sir — As per request, herewith find blank application such as is used and must be filled out by persons seeking employment with i our firm. 1 Your suggestion to employ a competent investigator to ascertain home conditions of women will be put in operation at once, j We have advanced salaries of girls of fourteen years of age to . ■ $4.00 per week, and this will be the minimum salary paid to girls of It that age hereafter, and if their educational qualifications are of such I ^ a nature as to warrant paying them more to start with, we will do so. I _ On behalf of Mandel Brothers, I desire to thank you and the I various honorable members of your Committee for the courteous : treatment received. Yours very truly, MANDEL BROTHERS, EDWIN F. MANDEL, President. I THE CHAIRMAN: We will now take an adjournment until Mon- I; day at 10 o’clock. TJiereupon the Commission adjourned to Monday, March 10, 1913, at 10 o’clock A. M. ! U C SESSION VII Mr. James Simpson resumes his testimony and states that any I f increase of wages might compel higher prices for merchandise and ? thus increase the cost of living in general. Questioned concerning [ insinuations made in Manufacturers’ News editorial, Mr. Simpson testifies that “Neither directly nor indirectly, nor in any shape, ^ manner or form, have we been approached on advertising or in any other respect through this Committee or any member thereof,” and that he has heard no other business man say he had been approached in any way in that manner. Mr. George Lytton testi- fies that he considers his firm morally responsible for its em- ployes’ welfare, and states his opinion that the minimum wage should probably be fixed at $13.00. Joseph Basch favors a minimum wage law if provision is made for apprentices, and states that if a proper minimum wage were established it would not, in his judgment, interfere with profits at all, and his firm would be glad to accept it in a right spirit. Chicago, March 10, 1913, 10 o’clock A. M. THE ILLINOIS SENATE VICE COMMITTEE reconvened at 10 o’clock A. M., today, Monday, March 10, A. D. 1913, at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago, 111. Members Present: Lieutenant-Governor Barratt O’Hara, Chairman. Senator Neils Juul, Senator Edmond Beall. Senator F. Jeff Tossey. Owing to the illness of Senator D. T. Woodard, he was not in at- tendance. Whereupon the following proceedings were had : Mr. James Simpson’s Testimony Resumed. JAMES SIMPSON, recalled as a witness, having been heretofore duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Simpson, you have been examined hereto- fore? A. Yes, sir. Q. I desire to ask you a few questions that have already been asked of you. What were the profits of Marshall Field & Company during the last fiscal year? Before answering that, I will state that the Committee feels that this is a matter of interest and importance. If girls are getting small wages naturally the public is interested and it is necessary for the Committee to reach a point where it can lay a foundation for establishing that fact and also to be fair with the employer as well as with the employe. THE WITNESS: Marshall Field & Company are well able to afford to pay and will pay any minimum scale of wages that might be established either by the State of Illinois or by the United States. We would much prefer not to make the exact figures of our profits public and I hope to avoid answering that question when I say that we can afford to and will pay any minimum scale of wages which the State of Illinois or the United States 233 234 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee establishes. Marshall Field & Company’s business is run on a profitable basis and you need have no hesitation as to Marshall Field & Company acting on this question improperly. SENATOR JUUL: I would ask Mr. Simpson whether Marshall Field & Company would be willing to pay any minimum wage that might be established in Illinois according to the profits of the business they do? A. I say they are able to. I would prefer to consult with other members of the firm. Q. You say you would like to have a consultation with other members of your firm? A. Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: Then, you would say, that in the event of a mini- mum wage law being enacted in Illinois, that that law would not be con- tested by Marshall Field & Company? A. To my knowledge Marshall Field & Company have never contested any legislation that might be in process of enactment at Springfield. It has not been their policy to do so, but I would not wish to tie their hands as to anything regarding the law. We would be glad to aid in any way we can, but my impression is that they would not contest such a law and my belief is they would not do so. Q. What would you say would be a fair minimum wage for woman workers? A. As I have already stated. Governor, in my testimony, that a high minimum wage established in the State of Illinois would work a detriment to the state. I think such a law should be national, putting everybody on the same basis. SENATOR JUUL: You think that there should not be a minimum law as to wages? A. I don’t feel myself competent to answer that ques- tion, Senator. I think that that should only be arrived at after the most exhaustive investigation such as you are now making. I have already tes- tified, I think, on that subject. There are young girls and some women who might live on $8.00 a week or perhaps $9.00. THE CHAIRMAN: You have stated that Marshall Field & Company can well afford to pay the wage specified in any minimum wage law. klar- shall Field & Company, you say, could well afford to pay a minimum scale for women of $12.00 a week? A. If that scale were established, yes. May 1 elaborate on that? THE CHAIRMAN: Certainly. A. If it were found that the profits of any retail merchandise business were sufficient to meet a minimum wage scale, the result would be that an increased profit would be required on the merchandise to meet the increased expenses; so that in my judgment if a retail business such as ours, or such as the State street department stores, is such that they can well afford to comply with any law which the state sees fit to pass, then I should think it would be well. Q. Then, the question of increasing the wages of women workers would be one for the public, rather than for the corporation? A. If it be a question of profits it would be a question for the corporation. Q. Then, in your opinion, the enactment of a minimum wage law would increase the present cost of living? A. That is quite possible. Q. It would affect the high cost of living more than it would affect the profits of Marshall Field & Company? A. I am not quite clear as to how to answer that question. I don’t believe I am competent to answer it. THE CHAIRMAN: I think, myself, the question is a little bit a matter of judgment. THE WITNESS: Thank you. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Simpson, what we are trying to solve is this. There is an unrest among our people in regard to the wage question and the high cost' of living. This Committee is tr3-ing to arrive at a solution of the problem and that is why we would like to know what the profits are in round figures, the annual profits of Marshall Field & Company? A. I beg that you will excuse me. Governor, from giving j-ou that informa- tion. I do want to say this, that our books and papers and memoranda that apply to wages or working conditions, or anything surrounding the con- dition of the employment of girls or women in our store, are open to the Public Meetings and Testimony 235 Committee. I would much prefer to be excused from answering that. Any one of you gentlemen of the Committee may come into our store and go through it.and see the conditions under which the people work and if they can give us any suggestion we shall be glad to have them. Q. One other question: Has any newspaper representative or any representative of any other publication tried to get advertising from your firm on the strength of the work of this Committee? A. No, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Has any member of this Committee interceded with your firm in order to secure advertising from your firm? A. They have not. Q. Has any one directly or indirectly been using youb firm or asking your firm for advertising on account of the work of this Committee? A. They have not. Q. You have not been approached by any member of this Committee? A. By none. THE CHAIRMAN: Did any person representing this Committee ap- proach you or your firm on that subject? A. Neither directly or indirectly or in any manner, shape or form have we been approached on advertising or in any other respect through this Committee or any member thereof. Q. Have you heard any business man say he had been approached in any way in that manner? A. I have not. SENATOR BEALL: I have a question to ask. I would like to ask you what you would think if the General Assembly should pass a law making the scale of wages $2.00 a day, minimum scale, would you think that would be a proper scale? A. I think, as I have stated before, that it would drive a lot of business out of the State of Illinois. It would be absolutely a prohibitive provision. Q. There should be a federal law, you mean? A. A federal law. As I said before, I hope it would begin in Washington. Q. Do you work your female employes overtime at Marshall Field’s? A. They might stay a half an hour or an hour cleaning up the stock after the day’s work is done. Q. Your usual hours are up to six o’clock in the evening? A. Our hours for girls are eight hours a day. Q. You do not usually keep the store open at Christmas time any later? A. Instead of closing at half-past five we close at six o’clock dur- ing the month of December. SENATOR TOSSEY: Mr. Simpson, are the profits of your concern great enough so that you could afford to pay the $2.00 a day without in- creasing the cost of the goods to the consumer? A. I might answer that question by asking you another. If we paid the girls a minimum wage of $2.00 a day, W’hat would we have to do with the man with a family? What would we have to pay the man with the family if we paid the girl that $2.00 a day? Q. If the minimum wage, for instance, was $2.00 a day, would you have to increase the cost of your goods to the consumer in order to pay that and then pay a fair dividend on your stock? Are your profits now great enough to pay that without increasing the cost of the goods? A. We would not necessarily have to increase the cost of the goods. SENATOR BEALL: If you would not have to increase the price of your goods, and if the State of Illinois had the same minimum wage law, then why should there be a federal law? A. We might be able to do it and the manufacturer might not be able to do it. Q. We haven’t got that far along. We are talking now of the busi- ness in your line on State street. Suppose we have a law of that kind in this state? A. I have stated that we could do it. Q. You wouldn’t insist on a federal law, then? A. We are not in a position to insist on anything. I am giving my best judgment. I know you are trying zealously to get at the facts and I am trying to give them to you. THE CHAIRMAN: I understand your answer to that question to be 236 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee that you could afford to pay the additional increase and could pay $12.00 a week without increasing the price of your goods? A. That might be so. SENATOR BEALL: That is a good point. THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, that was a very good question, Senator Tos- sey, I thought. Do any members of the General Assembly desire to ask the witness any question? (No response.) THE CHAIRMAN: Then, Mr. Simpson, you will be excused, for the present. THE WITNESS: I shall be subject to your call and I thank you gen- tlemen for your courtesy. Mr. George Lytton’s Testimony. GEORGE LYTTON, called as a witness, having been duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: THE CHAIRMAN: What is your name? A. George Lytton. Q. What is your occupation? A. Merchant. Q. With what company or corporation are you connected? A. The Hub. Q. What is your official connection with it? A. I am vice-president and treasurer. Q. What is the name of the corporation? A. The Hub; Henry C. Lytton & Sons. Q. You are familiar with the wages paid employes of your establish- ment? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have the authority, whether you exercise it or not, both to employ and discharge? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Lytton, you have been called here to tell us something about the system that the Committee has been informed you have in vogue in your place of business. Will you tell the Committee how that system oper- ates? A. I would be very glad to do so. In our business we have a sj's- tem on the commission basis. There is a certain amount of money given to our employes every year which is given entirely and solely as a present from the heads of the house or the corporation to our employes. Q. How much does that amount to annually? A. I would prefer not to state that just now, because I believe I will show the Committee that the question of the amount has absolutely nothing to do with our payment of salaries. I will state that this amount is given them as a present from the firm and it has nothing to do with their salaries. We do this of our own volition. SENATOR JUUL: If you found there had been no profit during the year would you still give that? A. I don’t believe there is anj' doubt but what we would. That being the case, so to speak, it is entireh' divorced from our business policy. THE CHAIRMAN: In this connection what proportion of your net profit do you give to employes, or did you give during the last fiscal year? A. I would prefer not to answer that question. Q. As a present, then? A. I would prefer not to ans\ver that ques- tion. I don’t object to giving you the sj'^stem in the way it is worked out and giving you some figures, but as to giving you the percentage that it bears to our net profits, I would prefer not to answer that question. Q. You employ women? A. Yes, we have 175 women. Q. What is the lowest wage paid any woman in your employ? A. The lowest wage paid any woman or girl in our employ is $6.50 a week. Q. The lowest amount? A. That is absolutely the lowest amount we pay any employe. SENATOR JUUL: How many have you at the lowest amount? A. There are fifty-four girls receiving $6.50 a week. Q. What is the next group? A. The next group receive $7.00 a week. Public Meetings and Testimony 237 Q. How many are in that group? A. There are about fifty. I might say something to the Committee if you desire. SENATOR JUUL: We would be glad to hear it. THE WITNESS: The young ladies that receive a salary of $6.50 a week are what we call inspectors, or young women who wrap up the mer- chandise. We start them on $6.S0 a week and if they are satisfactory, after they have been with us three months, we raise them to $7.00 a week, so there is a constant change, of course. They are then advanced from the position of wrapper or inspector into positions where they receive a salary of $7.00. THE CHAIRMAN: What is the average age of the girl making $6.50 a week? A. Sixteen years old. Q. Sixteen years is the average age? A. Yes. I haven’t figured that out. Every statement I am making is under oath. SENATOR JUUL: To the best of your knowledge? THE WITNESS: Exactly. THE CHAIRMAN: And in addition to the $6.50 paid the girls who receive the lowest wage in your employ you give an annual gift? A. Yes, we give an annual present to the young lady who has been with us one year or more. Q. Might I ask what the amount of that gift was last year to the girl making $6.50 a week? A. I would say to the girl making $6.50 a week, she would get two per cent of her yearly salary. You can figure that up. I haven’t figured it myself. Q. Do you come in competition with any establishment wherein the minimum wage is lower than your minimum wage? A. Most assuredly. Q. Do you have to sell your goods a little higher in order to pay the higher salaries to your workers? A. No; in fact we sell our mechandise closer than many merchants. We are pretty well convinced of that fact. Q. Do you believe it is good business policy or bad business policy to pay a higher minimum wage to women than your competitors pay? A. I don’t believe it is a bad business policy at all. I would rather say it is good business policy, because we get better women and we get better work. Q. Mr. Lytton, what were the net profits of your business last year? A. I must refuse to answer that question to the Committee. Our cor- poration is a close corporation. The three officers are my father, my brother and myself. My father is out of the city and I would not feel it would be correct for me to answer that until I had consulted with him. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: I would suggest. Governor, before we ask any- thing of these gentlemen on the question of earnings, that we defer as far as possible the question of earnings for the present and if we determine the question of earnings is necessary for this hearing, then we could call these gentlemen in and settle that at one hearing. Then the question of earnings may be gone into. THE CHAIRMAN: I feel. Senator, that is a very vital matter, the matter of profits; and until we change our attitude, that question should be settled. So we will not go into that at this time. Have you any other questions to ask. Senator Juul? SENATOR JUUL: You stated that you had girls that received from $6.50 to $7.00 per week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Lytton, what proportion would you say that a parent or guardian or some charitable institution, or any other body or institution, should supply in order to make up the balance for the employes receiving the salary mentioned by you in order that she might live? A. I do not think that I could answer that question as you put it. Q. Suppose a young woman or girl living on her own resources was getting $8.00 or $9.00 a week. And it cost her more than that to live. Where do you think the balance would come from to make up that differ- .238 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee ence? A. To answer that question I would like to state this. Our girls receive that amount and they are young girls, who are sixteen years of age, who are living at home and who contribute their salaries to the support of the family. If that can be proven, I would be glad to have any of the young ladies brought in and have them explain to the Committee their con- dition. There are some w'ho get $8.00 a week. Q. You mean they can live on that? A. Yes. Q. What I w'ant to get at is, who contributes the balance to the girls’ support? A. The families. Q. Then, don’t you consider it would be incumbent upon the em- ployers doing business in this great City of Chicago, to contribute to that end? A. I don’t think there is any question of that. Q. You don’t think there is any question about the moral respon- sibility? A. None at all. Q. But suppose the fact remains that she is devoting her time to your business. Do you know any one of the 104 cases where the conditions are such that the parent or guardian is in a physical or financial condition as not to be able to supply that deficit which you fail to supply? A. We cer- tainly have not investigated the condition of every individual. Q. Then you do not know? A. No. Q. Then, you do not know but that the lack of that $1.50 or that $2.00 a day is necessary to make the girl presentable in your business on Mon- day morning? A. That I do not know. Q. Do you consider as a citizen of Illinois that a moral or legal re- sponsibility rests upon you to supply that girl with enough money so that she may live respectably and keep herself so that she may be presentable at your establishment? A. I don’t know about the legal responsibility. There is no question about the moral responsibility. The entire respon- sibility rests upon the heads of the organization. Q. Do you think as an employer of labor in Illinois you would resist any legislation which was passed for the purpose of securing to emploA'es, particularly female employes, a minimum w'age w^hich would at least make them immune from evil ways and keep them from destruction? A. I have been studying this question for over ten years and it is an absolute impos- sibility for me or anybody else to answer this question concreteljn Q. Let me ask you another question. What do you consider a young women employed in your business should earn so as to make herself pre- sentable to come to your store on klonday morning and to live decently? A. I have not figured that out. That question has been figured by inves- tigators. Q. What do you think each one of those 104 girls can be made pre- sentable for appearing at your store on Monday morning and to keep them- selves in fairly comfortable circumstances? A. My answer to that would be my opinion regardless of w'hat the conditions might be, but I think that $8.00 should be a minimum wage. Q. Do you think it can be done for $8.00 a week? A. I do, yes. Q. Could you make a statement as to that and give us an idea after consultation with a dozen girls in your establishment? A. I believe so. Q. Will you furnish this Committee with such a list as j'ou believe to be a true list after consultation with a number of young women? A. Certainly. Q. Can you do that within a week or so? A. In a dajn Q. Do you work these girls overtime at Christmas? A. M e do, yes. Q. What time in the fall do you start working them overtime? A. I would say on the average about five or six days before Christmas. Q. That is all? A. I believe that is all. Q. You do not start a month before? A. Oh! my, no. Q. You pay them for that? A. I wouldn’t like to say. I know we give them supper monejn I don’t believe we pay them overtime. Public Meetings and Testimony 239 Q. We know you give them supper money, but we want to know if you pay them anything else? A. No, sir. Q. Do you charge them for any medical service necessary in the store? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY; The girls receiving $6.50 a week, you pay them a bonus, do you? A. No, there is no bonus. It is a present; we donate it. ' Q. What is the next highest wage you pay? A. $8.00, $9.00, $10.00, ! $11.00 and $12.00. Q. What per cent do you give them? A. I will state to the Com- I mittee, that the way we arrive at this present we give our employes is, we ; commence with two per cent on their yearly salary and it works auto- f matically. Q. That is the way you do it? A. Yes. They receive from one-half t to one per cent. Some receive higher and it drops down and that is in- :: creased year by year. We have a young woman who has been employed ' by us, who is now a cashier and receives a salary of $25.00 a week. She t has been with us quite a time. She received a present last year of $500. !i When an employe is getting $15 a week and becomes incapacitated for work l! she is put on the pension list and receives enough to take care of her. We I, have had two on that pension list. One of them has recently died. ^ SENATOR JUUL: I want to say to you, Mr. Lytton, that your or- ! ganization shows up more favorably than a number of other concerns. ' THE WITNESS: I am glad to hear it. I SENATOR TOSSEY: Mr. Lytton, could you afford to give your fe- ; male employes $2.00 a day, or $12.00 a week, without raising the price of your goods to the consumers? A. In the way you have stated that ques- tion — to my mind that question is of such a high scope and of such im- mensity I don’t think it is possible to answer it intelligently. I assume that the Committee is entirely fair and I would be glad to give any information I can. SENATOR JUUL: The scope isn’t so great. Take the girl earning on an average $5.00 a week. Suppose you add $100,000 annually to those salaries, would it affect your business in the selling of your goods? A. We have some women getting $12.00 a week, some $15.00 and some $25.00. Q. Suppose the average girl would be brought up to $12.00 a week ^and it would take ah additional $40,000 to make up the difference? A. I I 'couldn’t state as to that. ' Q. What I am working at is, say you deduct $250,000 in some of the great businesses in this great city and make up the difference in the earn- ; ings of the girls getting $7.00 and $8.00 a week. A. I haven’t figured that. There are investigators who have figured those things. Q. Take the girls at $5.00 a week and take the number of weeks, fifty- two weeks in the year. Suppose you take a sufficient amount to make up I the difference so as to make an increased minimum wage, do you think that could be done so that the wage might be raised and yet the business not t be affected? A. There is no question but that could be done. We have girls working at salaries of $12.00 a week and we have some at $20.00. ■ 1 Q- What this Committee contends is that no one should work for ij , anybody, no servant should have a master in Illinois except that he or she 1; should be able to make enough to feed and clothe himself and sufficient to " buy shoes and take care of themselves? A. Aboslutely. J THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Lytton, what is your opinion as to the mini- '■ mum wage? A. The minimum? Q. Yes, the minimum wage? A. Probably about $13.00. ... SENATOR JUUL: What do you know about the cost of living, board ij and room? Do you think that $3.50 or -,$4.00 is a low price? A. It isn’t |! enough. There are homes instituted where some of these girls and women can live very comfortably at a very low rate. ,i SENATOR BEALL: Do you think if the State Legislature should ^ pass a law making $2.00 a day a minimum wage for female help it would 240 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee be all right? A. I believe it would if the other states should pass the same law. Of course, that is an open question. THE CHAIRMAN: There seems to be a feeling that some of our I big employers go outside of the scope of their general business and do more than to protect their employes. Do you consider that the money you pay yearly to the people working for you is a substitute for the de- ficiency in the wages? A. I feel that we have done what we should have done and we have followed this policy for some years. Q. And you consider the welfare of your employes is a moral respon- sibility? A. Absolutely. THE CHAIRMAN: That is all, Mr. Lytton. You are excused until further notice. Mr. Joseph Basch’s Testimony. JOSEPH BASCH, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? A. Joseph Basch. Q. Are you connected with any firm or corporation? A. I am with Siegel, Cooper & Company. Q. They are incorporated under the laws of Illinois? A. Yes, sir. Q. You employ girls and women? A. We do. Q. How many women do you employ? A. We employ about 1,250. Q. Women and girls? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: What is the grouping of the girls, starting with the lowest paid girl? A. We have a classification, or groups. Q. Would you call the lowest Class 1 or A? A. The groups are classified as learners, beginners and apprentices. Q. How many are there employed in the first group? A. We have employed in the first group three learners at $3.50 a week. Q. What is the next group? A. We have ten apprentices earning between $4.00 and $4.50. j Q. Can you tell those that get $4.00 from those that get $4.50? A. i They are about equally divided. | Q. Then, there are five at $4.00 and five at $4.50; is that correct? ' A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the next group? A. We have fifty-five at $5.00. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: What is the next group, Mr. Basch? A. The next group is between $6.00 and $29.00. Q. How many are in that group? A. If )'ou deduct the sixty-eight women from the 1,250 you will get the average. Q. Then you have about 1,200 girls in round numbers that receive what? A. An average of $8.56. Q. There may be girls getting $18.00 and some $12.00, and there may be some getting $6.00 and some $20.00. Can you give us the figures for that group? A. I haven’t got the figures exactly. Q. Have you 100 girls in the group of 1,200 that get $5.00? A. We have some that get $5.00. Q. Have you 100 girls in the group that get $6.00 or under? A. We haven’t more than forty or fifty. Q. We will take your figure at fifty. What we are trjdng to get at, ^Ir. Basch, is to find out how many young women are working at a figure which necessitates their obtaining money elsewhere. You say there are fifty getting about $6.00 a week; is that correct? A. Yes, about that. Q. Then, there wou’d be about how many getting $6.00 or $7.00? A. About 100. Q. One hundred at $7.00? Now, the next group. Take the women between $6.00 and $8.00 or $9.00? A. I should say they get $7.00, $7.50 or $8.00. Public Meetings and Testimony 241 Q. How many would you say are in that next group, or class? A. Fifteen to 20 per cent of the total. I am not in a position to give you the exact figures. Q. How many would you say get $9.00? A. I would say the average was Q. It isn’t the average we are after. Let us take, for instance, your salary and mine, and say I get $12.00 a week and you get $150.00 or $200.00? A. I would say you would be very much underpaid. Q. Can you give me the number that get $8.00? A. I should judge about 300. I am not, of course, sure as to the figures. Q. You are doing the best you can? A. Absolutely. That is all I am trying to do. Q. Now, we have accounted for 400 girls, and there are 1,250 to account for. What is the next, $9.00? A. I should think so. Q. Do you mean to tell this Committee that out of the 1,250 girls, 500 are below $8.00 or from $8.00 down; is that correct? A. The figures I am giving you may not be absolutely correct. In giving you our average at $8.56 I would consider that half of them would be below, approximately half would be below that figure and the other half would be higher. Q. We would start in with that proposition, that 500 are below the $8.00 figure? A. Five hundred would average about $8.56. Q. I want to ask you, Mr. Basch, do you consider that the payment of a wage below an amount necessary to live on is in any way, shape or manner a factor in the vice question? A. I don’t think vice has anything to do with wages. Q. Would you consider that a girl who hadn’t a cent in her pocket on Thursday, after she had expended the $4.00 you paid her on Monday or the preceding Saturday, would be able to live without obtaining from some other source enough to keep herself comfortable? A. I don’t think the question of salary enters into the question of morality at all. Q. You don’t think that a girl who has nothing in her pocket is less prone to fall than a girl with a full pocketbook? A. I don’t believe that morality enters into the question. I believe that our girls are moral girls. There may be cases, of course, where money comes in, but I believe a very small percentage can be influenced in that way to make what they call “making money the easiest way.’’ Q. Let me ask you, if you pay 300 girls the amount of money which would be insufficient to enable them to live well, and they got money from other sources, what would you consider to be the cause? A. We wouldn’t employ them. We wouldn’t employ anyone whose pay doesn’t cover their living expenses. Q. You would not? A. No, sir. Q. How do you feel as to the girls getting $3.50 a week? A. We have but three of them who are learners. After they have been with us for a while they are advanced. Q. You consider that the wage of your employes is on a fair basis? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you figured, Mr. Basch, from whence that difference of $3.00 or $4.00 must come where it would cost a girl $8.00? A. I have. Q. Where does it come from? A. We only have four or five at $4.00, and we have about fifty at $5.00. THE CHAIRMAN: Does it make any difference whather you have one or 1,000? A. I would like to answer you. Governor, in this way: We could get a great many if we wanted them. There are a number of boys and girls we could get and put them on our pay rolls. We have three learners in our millinery department who receive $3.00 or $3.50 a week. You realize that a girl leaving school wants to learn some business, and we place her in the millinery room. SENATOR JUUL: I am trying to find out where the difference, which is essential in order that the girl may live properly, is to come from 242 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee if it comes from some outside source. Have you bothered yourself to find out -where it comes from? A. I have. Q. Where do you think it comes from generally? A. I am quite familiar with it. The young woman who accepts a position in a store of our class, or on State Street, in accepting that wage is one who doesn’t expect any more. She goes there accepting that wage for a limited period only, and I know from our store and other stores that, say she is able to earn $6.00 in 1913, perhaps in 1915 she can earn $20.00, if it is in her. The difference between the cost of living is largely made up and only made up during a period such as I have stated, a very brief period. Of course, there are girls who are not capable of earning as much as other girls, but there are girls who start in as learners and advance. We have some whom we pay $20.00 to $25.00. The low waged girls are mainly young girls that develop, and the developing period is not very long. Q. Mr. Basch, if I were to tell you that a large per cent of the girls that have been before this Committee fell because they -were getting only $3.00 to $4.00 a week, what would you say? A. From a moral standpoint? Q. Yes. A. I don’t think the question of morals enters into it. THE CHAIRMAN: Suppose they are getting starvation wages? A. The girl getting $5.00 a week may live at home -with her parents. Q. Where would you have her go if she could not live on the $5.00 a week? A. She doesn’t have to go wrong. She may live at home and contribute to the support of the family. Q. Are you a married man? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you a family? A. I have. Q. Have you any daughters? A. I am sorry to say I have not. Q. If you had a daughter and she was in a position that she could not provide for herself comfortably and was getting $5.00 a week, do j'ou think there would be a moral obligation on you to pro-yide for her? A. I would endeavor to get sufficient for her to earn a living, and I would endeavor to provide for her the best I could. SENATOR JUUL: You have shown that there were 300 or 400 girls who are getting a small wage? A. Yes, but they are young girls and beginners. Then there are apprentices. Q. Were you an apprentice once? A. Yes, sir. Q. That apprenticeship covered your board and lodging? A. It did not. Q. You didn’t even get that much? A. I got a great deal less than that. SENATOR JUUL: You were less fortunate than I was. THE WITNESS: I am glad you were more fortunate. SENATOR JULTL: I got all that, and I was glad of it. THE WITNESS: I worked without paJ^ Q. You cannot tell the Committee where the difference is to come from? A. I say the difference is made up in that indefinite period. In some instances it amounts to three months, and in others it amounts to nine months. It depends entirely on the individual. During that tkne the girl lives at home. These $4.00, $5.00 and $6.00 girls, as a rule, we get from the country who have little experience, hardly any experience. They come to Chicago to get employment. After a time some earn $10.00 or $12.00 or $1L00. During that period they prepare themselves for making more money. Q. You would sav that is a probation period until they are absolutely self-supporting? A. I should say that would be about nine months, perhaps six months. Q. Do you mean to tell this Committee that you have on an average 500 to 600 girbs A. Below $8.00? Q. Yes. Do you mean to say there are that many promotions in your store in a year? A. M^e certainly have a great many, and a great many get married. They don’t wait for promotions. Public Meetings and Testimony 243 Q. Do you consider that your firm, or other large firms, in the City of Chicago, would be very much affected if a law was enacted compelling the employer to pay an amount of money necessary to keep a girl from ■ being thrown on some other source for a living? A. Absolutely not. Q. You know it has been proposed to enact a law of that kind? A. [ Yes, sir. I favor such a law, except in this, that the wage law should pro- vide for apprenticeship. SENATOR JUUL: Of course, you realize that even in the period of apprenticeship the employe would have to live? A. Yes, but he might develop soon. Q. Do you own a shoe factory? A. We do not. I b Q. Do you operate a shoe factory? A. We do, not. ‘ THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe, as a business proposition, in ' the survival of the fittest? That is, you take your employe and you pay I small wages, the fittest will survive, and you are only concerned in that; in other words, you believe in the survival of the fittest? A. No, I believe in developing them in every possible way and developing them ; in making fair remuneration. Q. What do you deem the scope of your moral responsibility for the 1 humblest girl working for your corporation? A. We assume that prac- tically all of our girls are moral. Q. You think that this is a moral question? A. Yes, sir. j! Q. Has any man the right to spend as much for one meal as he ! spends for a girl’s weekly salary? A. Pardon me, I want to get the |! question. Q. Let me put it to you a little plainer. Some men might spend $5.00 for a meal and at the same time are paying girls $5.00 a week to work for them. That might be possible. As a business proposition, do you think any man has a right to do that? A. I would like to know of anyone who has a stomach that could contain that much. Q. Would you consider the man’s stomach and not the girl’s morality? A. I don’t believe many men can spend $5.00 for a meal. I never spent over $1.00 in my life. I don’t think that is fair. I don’t believe any employer who spends $5.00 for a dinner and gives his employe $5.00 a week is fair. Q. What was the net profits of your corporation during the last fiscal year? A. I prefer not to answer that question without the advice of our counsel. THE CHAIRMAN: The record will show, and we will take it up later. THE WITNESS: I would be very glad to. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY : What wage or wages would you consider an apprentice should be paid? You stated a while ago that you were in favor 1! of a minimum wage if it would make an allowance for an apprentice? A. Yes, sir. Q. What would you consider an apprentice wage should be? A. That depends entirely on the education desired for the industry that the apprenticeship is entered into. If the boy or girl wants to become a worker in a shoe factory he or she might start at fourteen, or if he or she is desirous of some other class of work, a high school education might be necessary. The age would vary from fourteen to eighteen years. Q. In your store, of course, you are better posted on that than anyone else. What would you consider the age should be? A. That depends entirely on the ambition of the girl. Q. But she is starting at the bottom as an apprentice? A. She should not start below sixteen. I believe in girls going to school up to sixteen years of age. Q. How much wages should a girl of sixteen receive; what would 244 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee be the minimum amount? A. I think at that age the minimum should be $5.00 as an apprentice. Q. How long should she receive $5.00 a week? A. That would depend on her energy, and on the interest she takes in her work and on her development. It ought not to take her over twelve months. Q. That she should receive $5.00 a week for twelve months? A. She might be raised and put in a better position. Q. Then what should she receive? A. That depends entirely, of course, on the industry. She ought to have $8.00 at that time. Q. How long should she receive $8.00 a week; that is, in 3mur judg- ment? A. I think she ought to get up to $12.00 or $15.00 a week in three or four years, three years at least. Q. What should be the limit that she should receive, or should there be any limit? A. That limit in our business are female buyers. Q. What do these buyers receive? A. We have women in our employ, heads of departments, who receive from $3,000 to- $6,000 a j'ear who started as apprentices at $3.50 per week. Q. Could Siegel, Cooper & Company pay $2.00 a day, or $12.00 a week, as a minimum wage scale without affecting their profit materiall}'' and without raising the price of goods to the consumer? A. We are now paying young women $12.00, $14.00, $16.00, $18.00 and up to $25.00 a week. We have some who earn as much as $29.00. There has got to be a merit j system. You have got to be able to earn $12.00 a week. ! Q. Could Siegel, Cooper & Company do that without affecting their i profits materially and still pay a reasonable percentage to their stock- i holders? A. I haven’t considered that. j Q. It would cut down the dividends materiallj^, would it? A. I cannot discuss our dividends. THE CHAIRMAN: Would it cut down 3’our dividends or wipe them out completely? A. That I am not prepared to answer. I would want to study that. SENATOR TOSSEY: You know what the dividends are, don’t j'ou? i A. Yes, sir. Q. I don’t ask you to tell it now? A. I don’t remember just now. Q. Now, this increase in pay under a minimum wage scale, do j'ou know whether that would affect the dividends materialljO A. If the minimum wage is of the proper scale I don’t think it would interfere with the profits at all, but if it were not it would be a hardship. Q. And Siegel, Cooper couldn’t afford it? A. I am not speaking for Siegel, Cooper alone. The minimum wage scale is a national question. Q. I am speaking about Siegel & Cooper, and I am asking if j'ou could afford to pay $12.00 a week to all your female emplo^-es and still pay a reasonable dividend upon your investment? A. I will sa^^ we would be glad to pay a minimum rate of wages, and if it is established we would accept it in that spirit. Q. Yes, but how can the state get at the just amount that j'ou can afford to pay unless you answer these questions? A. Our average today is $8.56. Q. I was asking you what you could afford to paj'? A. \\ e couldn’t afford to pay $12.00 to some emploj-es. Q. You couldn’t afford to pay that? A. Not to apprentices; no, sir. Q. Then, it would reduce the profits below a reasonable basis to pay $12.00 a week? A. It would be a disadvantage to pay $12.00 to some employes. Q. Could you pay a reasonable profit to the shareholders of Siegel, Cooper & Company and pay $12.00 a week as a minimum Avage to female employes? A. If the scale is maintained. Q. Then, Siegel, Cooper & CompanA^ couldn’t do as aa'cII as other department stores? A. I don’t knoAV AA’hat other department stores can do. Public Meetings and Testimony 24S j SENATOR BEALL: Let me ask you a question: You say you I would be in favor of paying a minimum scale provided you hadn’t to pay the apprentices? A. If we were to pay $12.00 a week as a minimum it I might affect our business, of course. jl Q. You think it would affect your business materially? A. I think ' your question is almost impossible to answer. I think a girl or boy entering the commercial field is willing to work on smaller wages. , ■ Q. Can you give us the names of some of the prominent merchants? : A. Yes, there is Mr. Netcher, who started as a boy, and he would sleep I on the counter. There was Marshall Field, who was a boy in Massa- I chusetts who came out here. Then there were the Mandels. They started II in the same manner. Mr. Lehman, who left us quite a few years ago, was I a very poor boy and developed wonderfully. In our own store, there is I Mr. Cooper, who was one of the boys who started without anything, and " Mr. Siegel. Q. When you hire these girls you ask them about their education and their age? A. Yes, our application blanks specify the conditions under which they can enter our house. f SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Basch, while you were discussing these matters with the other gentlemen I did a little quiet figuring, and I think we are overestimating the problem we are confronted with. You gave me I an average wage of your 1,250 girls at $8.56 per week. I take it for granted that is a correct number, is not that so? A. Yes, we have a j great many. I Q. Figuring they are all down to $8.56 as an average, it would take I Siegel, Cooper & Company to lift the entire force up to $12.00 a week as I a standard the amount of $223,600.00? A. You mean $223,600.00 a year? Q. Yes. That is, if I have it right. Now, if that is so, would that I hamper the concern in order that these women may be absolutely self- supporting women and still they could pay a reasonable dividend? A. I don’t know whether they could or not. I have not figured on that. We ' would have to consider the working condition at all times. “ SENATOR TOSSEY : Do you say that Siegel, Cooper & Company I could afford to pay the minimum wage scale without interfering with ; their business? A. Not for apprenticeship; no. Q. They would have to have other resources for getting an additional f profit? A. Perhaps we could get more for our merchandise than we do. jl Q. What is the difference between Siegel, Cooper & Company and I the other department stores? A. Pardon me? ! Q. What is the difference between Siegel, Cooper & Company and \ the other department^stores? A. We have paid the market wage. People i: would not stay with us unless we did. Q. Do they pay more than you do? A. I don’t know that they are [‘ paying more than we do. I Q. What I wanted to get at is, why your profits w'ould be decreased I so much more than theirs? A. We don’t all have the same line. Senator. SENATOR JUUL: Senator Tossey, if you will pardon me, the witness has testified under oath as to the average wages paid. SENATOR TOSSEY : Fie has sworn that it would reduce the divi- ! dend to such an extent that they couldn’t afford it, as I understand him. THE WITNESS: I didn’t say that; pardon me. Senator. SENATOR TOSSEY : That is the way I understood you. THE CHAIRMAN: His answers have been very evasive. I think [! the Committee has lost a little patience over it. i THE WITNESS: I am not trying to be evasive. Governor. I am t trying to be as fair as I can. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Simpson, representing Marshall Field & I Company, said that Marshall Field & Company could afford to pay a j minimum wage if established by the State of Illinois, and he was asked 246 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee specifically if Marshall Field & Company could pay the humblest girl in its employ $12.00 a week, and he answered yes. THE WITNESS: I think you misunderstood him. THE CHAIRMAN: The Committee then decided to leave for future consideration the question as to the income, and now you are forcing us to lose considerable time. Senator Tossey has asked you. Senator Juul has asked you, and, I think. Senator Beall has asked you these questions, as to whether you could afford to pay $12.00 a week and not affect 3 "Our business materially. THE WITNESS: We can afford to pay $12.00 for a great many women, but we couldn’t afford to pay a minimum of $12.00 for apprentice- ship. THE CHAIRMAN: Then, if a law w’ere enacted in this State that no woman should be paid less than $12.00 a week, your concern would go into bankruptcy? A. I don’t think so, if all were put on the same basis. Q. You think you could still survive? A. Yes, we should trj- to carry it out. Q. You think you could respect the law and carrj- it out? A. It would be a great hardship on a great man}^ institutions. Q. Well, in your institution? A. If it were done by legal enact- ment we shall accept it and take our chances, of course. Q. Suppose the law specified $10.00 a week, do j'ou think j-our chances of survival would be better? A. I think there would be a greater possibility than $12.00. Q. What do you think would be a fair amount? A. It might not interfere with klarshall Field & Compan}^ or Siegel, Cooper & Company, but there are a great many little stores in this communitj' that have to be considered. Q. Yes, but what would you say should be the amount? A. Well, taking it at an average, a minimum wage of $8.00 or $8.50. THE CHAIRMAN: That is what we wanted to get, and we are much obliged to you. SENATOR JUUL: We have got it after all. THE WITNESS: You don’t mean me? SENATOR JUUL: Yes, that is what I have been trj-ing to get out of you for an hour. THE WITNESS: My statement was as to apprenticeship. There should be a provision as to apprenticeship. Q. Do you think it ought to be left like that for a limited number of months that you should employ a specified number of people at apprentice wages? A. Absolutely. SENATOR JUUL: Let us get that in the record. We are getting his opinion on that. THE CHAIRMAN: How manj- apprentices have 3 "Ou? A. We have sixty-eight. Q. How many women do you emplo}', all told? A. One thousand, two hundred and fifty. Q. Out of the 1,250 women you have sixty-eight apprentices? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Basch, how man 3 ' hours do you work the girls in what is commonly called the Christmas season? A. Legal hours, only. Q. Do you give them any compensation for overtime? A. M e don’t use overtime in our store. Let me explain that. During the Christmas season we keep open until 10 o’clock. Some girls do not appear before 12:30 o’clock. Q. Those are the hours at that season? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 247 THE CHAIRMAN: That will be all, Mr. Basch. You are not given your full release yet. We may want you again. THE WITNESS: I shall be glad to serve you at any time. SENATOR JUUL: We want your co-operation. THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, we want your co-operation. THE WITNESS: Thank you. THE CHAIRMAN: The Commission will now take a recess until 2:30 o’clock P. M. Thereupon the Commission took a recess until 2 :30 P. M. SESSION VIII Mr. William C. Thorne states his belief that one-half of the j women workers of Montgomery Ward & Co. would be out of work within a year after the establishment of a minimum wage law, their : places being taken by men at $12.00 to $14.00. I Mr. John T. Pirie of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. believes $8.00 ; a week to be the smallest wage upon which a self-dependent girl can live. Mr. Edward J. Lehmann of The Fair states that in his opin- ion any increase of wages for workers now paid less than $8.00 a week would bring a demand for increases from those earning hieher wages, but does not believe his firm would contest a minimum wage law. Mr. Henry C. Schwab, vice-president and secretary of A. M. Rothschild & Co., admits that the question of revealing profits to the Vice Committee had been a matter of discussion among State street merchants. Mr. Albert Ellinger, merchandise manager, explains the Bos- ton Store’s wage scale and payroll. Chicago, Monday, March 10, 1913, 2:30 o’clock P. M. The Committee met pursuant to recess. Present same as before, with the exception of Senator Woodard. Mr. William C. Thorne’s Testimony. WILLIAM C. THORNE, a witness called by the Committee, having t been first duly sworn, testified as follows: t ( EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. What is your name? A. William C. Thorne. , Q. And your occupation? A. Vice-president of Montgomery Ward & Company. ; Q. Montgomery Ward & Company is a corporation? A. It is. Q. Under the laws of the State of Illinois? A. No, New York. Q. As an official in that company, you have it in your power to em- ploy and discharge woman workers? A. I have it in my power, although ■ I do not exercise it. Q. Are you acquainted, in a general way, with the wages paid women who work for your company? A. I am. ! Q. How many women, Mr. Thorne, are employed by your corpora- I tion? A. 1,973. I ' Q- What is the average wage paid to women by your corporation? S A. Well, I have subdivided them into two classes. One considering the beginners H Q. Let us have the beginners. A. The firm employs 1,973 women, . i and eliminating the beginners, who I have no doubt we will discuss later, there are 1,140 who get an average wage, an average weekly salary of $9.25. . Q. That eliminates the beginners’ class? A. Yes, I will refer to them ^ directly. I s Q. Now, in that classification, Mr. Thorne, what is the highest wage t 249 250 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee paid to any woman? A. Eliminating all over $15.00 per week, the average wage paid is $8.80. Q. How many are in the class of $8.80? A. 1,098. Q. That is the average? A. Yes. Q. 1,098 are receiving $8.80? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, Mr. Thorne, the total number of women employed is 1,973, exclusive of the beginning class of 1,140. Then you have something like one-third of the women in the beginners’ class? A. Even more than that. Q. A little more than that? A. Yes, due to special conditions that prevail just now, such as the spring addressing and indexing work. Q. That is true at all seasons of the year? A. Not always, no. Q. Now what is the average wage paid to the woman workers in the beginning class? A. They are started at $5.00 and $6.00. There are 233 at $5.00, 572 at $6.00, 373 at $7.00 and 316 at $8.00. Q. Now the girl who receives $8.00 then, you still include her in the beginning class? A. No, not necessarily. That is our minimum wage for a girl who may or may not be self-supporting, and who lives at home, or what we call a girl adrift. Q. What, Mr. Thorne, is the lowest wage you pay to any woman on your pay roll? A. Five dollars a week. Q. That is the lowest? A. Yes, sir, that is the lowest. Q. You have no system of piecework by which a girl might or might not make less than $5.00 a week? A. No way whatever. Q. Have you anj^ system of piecework in vogue? A. We do not use piecework in any department of our business, to my knowledge. Q. Now, Mr. Thorne, let us discuss these 233 who get $5.00 a week. What is the average age of those girls? A. From 14 to 16, and they are made up of all girls with school certificates, and who live at home with their guardians and relatives, and they are included in this class with no exceptions. Q. How do you know that? A. We believe their assertions to be true, as we have the school certificates, and in most cases the parents bring them themselves, seeking the positions for them. ' Q. Have you any way of telling whether the signatures of the parents are genuine or that their ages are correct? A. They are visited by the school teacher or principal. Q. Then it requires not only the signature of parent or parents, but also the signature of the school teacher or superintendent of the school? A. Yes. Q. You employ no girl, at $5.00 a week, who is not self-supporting? A. None whatever. Q. Now, Mr. Thorne, we have a question that we have asked most of the witnesses, and it is this; Do you think, as an employer of labor, using the entire working time of a girl, that you have any right to place the burden, or a part of the burden of her living, upon her home or upon her parents? A. Well, my contention is that that is what parents are for, and just before we hire the girl, we know she has been going to school, getting her education, and being supported by the family, and instead of placing a part of the burden on the family, we have been a relief to that family to the extent of $5.00 a week. Q. Now it suggests itself to me, Mr. Thorne, that possibly that is one of the reasons for race suicide. If that burden is placed entirely on the parent, don’t you think, Mr. Thorne, that when the girl, regardless of her experience, goes to work and surrenders all her time and effort to her em- ployer, she is entitled to a living wage without being dependent upon the people at home? A. In most cases these girls simply want to work for the purpose of assisting the family. Thej" are young, and they have fin- ished their grammar school education at 14, or attained the average age of 14 and 15, and do not know what to do with themselves. I think it would be better if they were obliged to go to school until they w'ere 16; at which Public Meetings and Testimony 251 i t time they would be more educated, and be able to draw a higher salary, t j As it is, they are semi-educated, half-baked, and don’t know much. They r have to be taken in hand and taught, and their parents want them to go to i; I; nice places, and to have nice things in all their surroundings, and to have t i good and sanitary places, and everything there to take care of them, and which is there at all times, and that is the reason why their parents bring them to our establishment. These girls do not have to work unless they want to, but in many cases the parents are poor and would like to have a little help, and they get it in this way. S Q. A sort of charitable institution, in a way? A. Not at all. j Q. Well, Mr. Thorne, have you one girl in your employ who is getting I $5.00 a week, and who is dependent upon her own efforts? A. I have al- ready answered that there are none. Q. Have you a single girl in your employ, drawing $5.00 per week, who comes from a home that is poor, or as poor as the girl herself? A. That I do not know of my own knowledge. I do know that in a case of that sort, one of the matrons, or welfare workers or nurses — and there are a great many, because on this subject we spend thousands of dollars i every year^ — ^they would know it in a week or so. No girl who lacks any food, or anything of that sort, and is asked the question and answers it in that way, goes without. Within 24 hours the nurse is at her house to find out what the home is like, and she is rendered assistance for the time be- ! ! ing, no matter what that may be. Q. We have had one witness here, a girl, Mr. Thorne, who testified that she knew of another girl working for $5.00 a week, not in your place of business, but in a similar place, who came from a home superintended ■ by a widowed mother and a crippled sister, and this girl makes $4.00 a week, whatever the work might have been, with which she was support- ing herself, and helping to support her widowed mother and crippled sister. Could sucb a condition exist at your place of business? A. I think that is a deplorable condition and might exist anywhere. Now we could find out, or get information, or make some effort to find out about it, and then we would apply the remedy. Such a girl ought to be helped by the em- l| ployer, or by the state. I would say that family is terribly fixed. I Q. As an employer, have you any such instances? A. We have no I instances of that description of any persons working in our establishment. We do feel that we ought to try and help them out in every way. If they are sick, their doctor bills are paid, and not only that, but if they are off j; a day on leave of absence, we pay them, and also pay them if they stay I sick for some time. Q. Might I ask you, Mr. Thorne, how long a girl remains a beginner ii at $5.00 a week? A. From 60 to 90 days. I Q. Have you ever had instances where she has remained at $5.00 for a longer period? A. That might have happened without my knowledge. The rule is that if she cannot earn $6.00 at the end of 90 days, something else is found for her to do, in the way of some other employment. Q. That is, you discharge her? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you give her reasonable notice? A. She is always given rea- j sonable notice; yes, sir. i Q. That is the invariable rule at the present time, is it? A. Yes, sir, ■| to the best of my knowledge and belief. \ Q. How long does a girl, starting at $5.00 a week, remain in the be- i ginners’ class? A. She may stay in there about six months, at which time she is advanced to $7.00 if her work is acceptable, and she is capable. Q. Suppose they are not capable, do they remain at $6.00, or are they discharged? A. I cannot answer that. There is some understanding, but I do not know what it is. I forgot to look it up. Q. To the best of your knowledge, how long has any girl remained in your employment, at wages not to exceed $6.00 a week? A. To the best of my knowledge, not to exceed a year, but there might be exceptional cases I know nothing about. 252 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Have any such cases ever been called to your attention? A. Never. Q. Now then, we will say in a year, if she remains the maximum period of a year, she advances to $7.00. How long does she remain at $7.00, Mr. Thorne? A. Well, the same conditions apply. If a girl lives at home, and is capable of advancing, she is advanced as rapidly as pos- sible. We are always trying to put up the good workers, the capable girls, who do the work possiljly of addressing letters and running errands. Q. Then as I understand you, you have a rule whereby a girl advances by rule, her ability being sufficient, from $5.00 to $7.00 in a period approxi- mately of one year? A. Yes. Q. Now when she reaches the $7.00 rate, your interest in her promo- tion ceases, unless she shows unusual ability, or have you any rule by which she is advanced? A. Not unusual ability, but some ability. If she has been there a year, she usually has that ability; her education or knowl- I edge of our methods makes that. _ Q. Of the girls drawing $7.00 a week, what do you say the average period of their service has to be before they are further advanced? A. I have no statistics on that subject, but I think they are advanced with rea- sonable rapidity, but I do not know. Q. What is the average a^e of the girls making $7.00 a week? A. Under eighteen. Q. What is the highest age of any woman making $7.00 a week, in your employ? A. I do not know. Q. Do you imagine you have any women between the ages of 38 and 40 making $7.00 a w’eek? A. I do not think so. Q. But you don’t know definitely? A. No, I do not. Q. Now would you say, Mr. Thorne, that you have any women in the employ of your corporation, who stay in the $7.00 class, or the $5.00 or the $6.00 or the $7.00 class for a period of five years? A. I do not think such a condition is possible. Q. What would happen if a woman remained in that class three years? A. Why, if a woman does not show some signs of capability, and she can- not be advanced, why, she is evidently in our way, and not suitable for the work. Q. And then she is discharged? A. Yes, sir. Q. In other words, you have a sort of school probation there, by which a woman must show her ability? A. Yes. Q. So you conduct that part of your business in the nature of a col- lege? A. Exactly so. Q. And if they fail to pass their examination, you drop them the same as they would be dropped from a college? A. Yes. Q. In the $7.00 and $8.00 class you say you have girls who are getting $8.00 a week, that you still classify in the beginners’ class? A. No, I do not classify them then in the beginners’ class. The question whether they are adrift, or live at home is at that period of no consequence to me per- sonally, I mean. Q. Why of no consequence, Mr. Thorne? A. Their grade is then passed upon by their ability, and we are not charged with having gone be- low our minimum wage scale, which is $8 a week for any girl that is self- supporting. Now she may live at home and still get $8.00; that is what I mean to convey. Q. What do you estimate, klr. Thorne, the least amount upon which a self-dependent woman can exist in the City of Chicago? A. Eight dol- lars per week. Q. And under that estimate, you would allow her a reasonable range of amusement, such as a nickel show now and then? A. I have here a few schedules covering that subject. Q. We will take them up later. A. I have only four here, but they are indicative. Public Meetings and Testimony 253 Q. Mr. Thorne, how much would it cost your establishment to abolish the $5.00 and $6.00 and $7.00 class, and pay a minimum wage of i$8.00 a week? A. It would simply mean adding an average of $2.50 a week to these 1,100 people. Q. Have you figured out how much that would be? A. Seventy- five thousand dollars a year. Q. Seventy-five thousand dollars a year? A. Yes. Q. Now, may I ask, Mr. Thorne, if your profits for the last fiscal year were in excess of $75,000? A. They certainly were. Q. Very much in excess of $75,000? A. Very much. J Q. What were the net profits of your corporation during the last •fiscal year? A. Two million, three hundred and seventy thousand dollars. |[ ■ Q. Now, Mr. Thorne, you put on this side of the table $2,000,000 and on this other side $75,000, what sort of a comparison does that make; in other words, from your $2,000,000 you could take $75,000 and not notice it, could you not? A. That doesn’t mean anything to me. Q. It does to the girls? A. I don’t think it does. I don’t know that you know that we have people that have studied these girls and who know them from A to Z. Q. Might I ask, Mr. Thorne, if the corporation of Montgomery Ward & Company would spend $75,000 a year if its directors or officers thought that by the expenditure of $75,000 it would make the homes of these workers a little happier? A. We spend nearly $75,000 a year in doing that same thing, with our relief work, insurance work, sick benefits, ^indemnities, old age pensions, and other things that I do not think of at fpresent, which is this same thing. We pay their doctor bills, and loan [money to indigent employes; father sick, etc.; we spend that much now ^every year, or approximately that much in round figures. I do not know [just the amount. j Q. If a minimum wage of $12.00 a week, if such a wage were, pro- ; vided under a law enacted by the Legislature of this State, would it Iseriously affect your business? A. It would not seriously affect our tbusiness, but I think it would have a very injurious effect upon hundreds iof factories in this State who manufacture all classes of goods, in which |the labor wage is a very large item. Those companies would have to go 1 'out of business, or move themselves to Indiana, or some other state. They could not compete with the Eastern factories; and it would put 10,000 or 20,000 of these girls out of work, and their places would be taken by men or boys. Q. But it wouldn’t seriously affect your business? A. Not seriously; no, sir, because half of the girls we would have no use for at all. Q. You could get along without them, could you? A. We could : put men in their places at $12.00. Q. Do you think a man would do more work than a woman? A. Under some conditions. There are certain positions which could be filled I better by a woman than by a man, but, on the other hand, there are [plenty of positions that men could fill as advantageously, or better. I [jjwill confess that I prefer to pay a man $13.00 or $14.00, because they can 1 1 do 125 per cent as much work as a girl, and that would be true of other I establishments in the State, excepting certain classes of retail stores. Q. Are we to understand that if the minimum wage law is enacted jiin this State, specifying- $12.00 a week as the minimum wage, that upon j; the enactment of that law and its going into effect, that you would dis- 1 charge a number of these girls who you claim make $5.00 or $6.00 a [,week, and fill their places with men? A. I think one-half of the woman workers would be out of work within a year. ;; Q. And in your honest judgment that would be the condition which would prevail? A. I do think so, but I think along natural laws this j ! revolutionary change would occur. Q. And the employer would not show any consideration to the li women working for him at present — I wish to change that question: I'; He would not show them any considerable degree of consideration? A. 254 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee 1 have no doubt each and every emploj^er would, and the change would occur, though, perhaps, slowly. Q. Now, don’t you think, Mr. Thorne, if there were in this State a minimum wage for_^women, that that would mean a gradual increase in wages for men, without a minimum wage being made regarding men’s salaries? A. Possibly so. Q. And wheneyer that adjustment should take place, that under the readjustment you might find it impossible to get men to do for $12.00 the work of the girl, or to take the place of the girl? A. I do not see why the great State of Illinois should ask a fellow to work for more than i $12.00 if he can support himself on $12.00, and start his life at that price. A great many do it, and have done it, and can live on it w'ell. Q. Unfortunately, too many of our men begin at $12.00, and the gray hairs have come, and they are still only making $12.00 or $15.00. There are exceptions, but unfortunately in many cases that is true, is it not? A. If they started at fifty or sixty that same condition will prevail; the change would occur, not simply because they got $12.00. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Thorne, I have exhausted my line of questioning, and, in turning you over to Senator Juul, I want to thank you for the unequivocal manner in which you have answered my questions. You have answered all the questions frankly and to the point, all that I have asked you. THE WITNESS: I thank you. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Mr. Thorne, do you consider that the old relation between master and apprentice, and master and servant, exists today the same as it used to when you and I were boj^s? A. I think that it does not exist. I think the old-time practices, of which there were several hundred, have been discarded. They do not necessarily prevail today, because they were old-time practices, and the relations between master and apprentice have disappeared with hundreds of other practices that have disappeared, and which would be laughed at today. Not necessarily those particular prac- tices, but others. Q. Do you consider the great old practice that the master held himself liable for the board and lodging, and, to a certain extent, the clothing of the apprentice during the period of his apprenticeship; do you consider that exists as a moral obligation? A. No. That is easily accounted for through centuries of progress. The 3 ’ have eliminated nearly all of that, but possibly some are doing it still. Q. But you would sa^-, to return to those conditions, having in mind the liberty of the apprentice, and the libertj^ of t’ne slave, and the improved conditions all around, instead of improving the condition of the apprentice, it is turning the clock backward for him? A. I wouldn’t saj- that at all. Q. You stated to Mr. O’Hara that j-ou have 233 people that you saj’ are in the apprentice class; j’ou stated To Mr. O’Hara that you paid them an average weekly wage of $5; is that correct? A. Correct. Q. Now, then, you stated further to !Mr. O’Hara that j-ou believed that the lowest figure that a j'oung woman could live on was $8.00; j-ou have shown here a deficit of $3.00 that has got to be made up from some- where. Now, under the old condition of master and apprentice, that deficit did not exist. Instead of having bettered the condition of the ap- prentices, from what it was some twenty or thirty or forty j-ears ago, we have evidently crawled backward to the tune of $2.00 or $3.00 in the lowest class of apprenticeship? A. I think we have taken a step forward. Q. In what manner? A. In the olden days the apprentices bound themselves for a period of 3 ^ears, and today everyone is a free agent. They can leave next week or the week after, and the 3 ' do. The average length of the employment of our women, the women in our establishment, is less than two or two and a half 3 -ears. Q. Until they reach $8.00? A. It is not a matter of the wages onh- Q. I ought to have stated to you that this entire wage matter _came Public Meetings and Testimony 255 about in this way. The hearings went along for two or three weeks, and witness after witness testified, and your woman witnesses testified almost invariably that they had A. I heard their testimony. Q. had gone wrong, owing to the fact that for a period of time while working, they did not get living wages. A. I heard the testimony, and I do not believe all of it. Q. They were here and told us. A. I do not believe they told it all. Q. We are sitting up here now, Mr. Thorne, and we want to be polite. We ought to believe these people when they appeared here and testified under oath. Now, the situation is this: There is in the 233 class. Class A, I will call it, a deficit of $3.00 that has got to be made up. A. I do not agree with you. I don’t think it has to be made up. We are assisting a family $5.00 worth that they did not have before. Q. You are assisting a family? A. This girl is assisting her family to the extent of $5.00 a week. Before that she did not do it because she was in school. None of these girls has been with us three months. Q. Not with you? A. They are all young girls who recently came to us. Q. Before she got in the position where she gets $5.00 a week with you, she wasn’t tendering anybody her services. Are those services worth $5.00 to you? A. Just about. That is the reason why we pay $5.00 in my judgment. Q. That is your judgment? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you consider after what you told Mr. O’Hara, after you have laid aside $2,300,000, you are treating these 1,140 girls fairly? A. I claim no relation between those two figures at all. Q. And why? A. Because no one establishment can be singled out. You have got to take the mass, the aggregate. Q. That is correct. A. And if you gentlemen, in your desire to have a minimum wage law, raise it too high in accomplishing your object, you are going to hurt a good many factories, because we cannot compete with the Eastern factories. THE CHAIRMAN: The Committee - has not declared itself for a minimum wage law, nor has it fixed the amount. THE WITNESS: I gathered you had, for something I heard along ••'that line. SENATOR JUUL: What we are trying to do is: we are trying to inquire into whether the minimum wage now paid in the communities that we propose to visit in this State, if that minimum wage has any bearing at all on vice. A. I would be very glad to know myself. Q. Do you consider that a young woman who gets $5.00 a week is properly fortified against the temptations to be met with in a great city ilike this? A. Regarding the deficit to the amount of $3.00, I do not iadmit that argument at all. Q. Suppose a young woman comes out of a home, with a father who is barely able to support the family, and you are taking the full time of this young woman, don’t you feel a moral and legal obligation for you to pay her for that week’s work so as to relieve a part of the burden from somebody else, either the father or the mother? A. Three months ago the girl was not in the store. Has he turned her loose on the world because she is working somewhere at the family’s request? ! Q. Would you employ her if you could not employ her and make a jprofit on it? Let us get together. Is there any charity in the transaction? lA. No, and I do not understand how there could be. Q. It is a question of dollars and cents. If you take the time of a young woman, all of her time, doesn’t it strike you, coming back to the Sold proposition of master and servant, or master and apprentice, that if I the services are worth anything at all, they are worth food, shelter, and the necessary raiment so that she shall be presentable in your business? A. I wHl say this, if the findings of this Committee develop the fact that iny minimum wage is too low, and we are wrong in our judgment, we 256 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee will raise it to whatever is right, whatever your findings show is right we will do. Q. What do you think is right? A. I think our schedule is all right. I have no opinion other than my own opinion and my observations. I cannot get any opinion, and the people I have talked with are in the same boat with myself. There are plenty of people who have given their life to this study, such as social settlement w'orkers and welfare people. I am going to ask them. Their knowledge, knowledge that they have, will be important to you people. The knowledge 1 get is my own personal opinion, based on observation and some little experience, but not much. Q. Then you don’t think there is a moral obligation on the manufac- turer, or the employer, to pay a wage that, irrespective of outside aid, would enable women to go to your store and work for you? A. I think there is a moral obligation, and we carry it out, too. Q. Don’t you think there is a moral obligation in paying each and every one of these young people, the 233 in the $5 class, and the 572 in the $6.00 class, and the 373 in the $7.00 class, or in the event that the sum of money, whatever it is that is paid to them on Saturday night, when they get through their work, don’t you think there is moral obligation enough on you to give them a little more than just enough to live on? A. Yes, if they get no aid on the outside. That is another thing. That is a totally different thing to the girl that lives at home. I agree with you at every step. Q. We won’t quarrel now. Have you any system of fines in your establishment? A. No, sir. Q. None at all? A. No. Q. Do you take any part of the salary for medical services in any way? A. We furnish that all free. Q. Did you ever figure what amount it would take to bring all the female employes of your business up to self-supporting basis? A. We claim they are all on a self-supporting basis at the present time, and if there is any case we do not know about, and we find it^out, we will put it on a self-supporting basis within an hour. Q. Do you consider the $5.00, $6.00 and $7.00 girls are self-supporting now? A. 1 consider that they are required to be self-supporting for the reason that they live at home and contribute to the support of the home life. They are an advantage instead of a hindrance. Q. Irrespective of what the father or mother may be earning? A. Not necessarily irrespective of that, but the moment an exceptional case develops that requires special treatment, we will attend to it. Q. Have you any opportunity of finding out what the earnings of the fathers are of those 1,143 girls? A. I have not of my own knowledge. I have no doubt that in individual cases it could be found out. Q. Isn’t it a fact that you could not take a young woman of your acquaintance, and put her out in the world, and have her purchase what is necessary to exist for the amount of money that you give to some of these girls? A. Which amount do you mean? Q. Take any one of the three lowest amounts? A. If she lives at home? Q. She tenders you her services, does she not? A. She ma3" work around the house, washing dishes or doing the ironing. Q. That is not the point. A. It is the point. Q. She may or she may not. How long does she work for j-ou? A. She works seven hours and fifty minutes. Q. And you consider that for that seven hours and fifty minutes she is not entitled to food, clothing and shoes, and the necessarj- car fare? A. She has all of those things, and she gets them. Q. She gets them from you? A. Yes. Q. Out of the $5.00? A. Yes. Q. I would like you to figure that up for this Committee. A. She lives at home, and has boarding and lodging free. [ Public Meetings and Testimony 257 ! Q. If she has some place, all right, but if she has not any place, then jwhat? A. You are trying to turn the girl loose on the world. I Q. We are trying to turn her loose on you. A. I won’t take her. I Q. You won’t take her? A. No, I am only looking for a girl that [lives at home under those circumstances. I Q. Those women in the three lower classes, you advance those girls from time to time, as they show ability? A. Certainly. ; SENATOR JUUL: Well, that is all. I THE WITNESS: A woman qualified to do better things, we hire her at a higher wage. SENATOR JUUL: Well, I am glad there isn’t any sentiment in the matter. THE WITNESS; There is a great deal of sentiment in it. SENATOR JUUL: There isn’t any sentiment in those three proposi- tions. I am trying to have, you show if a girl would get what I call the .deficit, or the missing amount elsewhere, the amount that you do not i'supply, would you say that as a matter of law or of right, the girl isn’t :i entitled to it, because forsooth she has a home? THE WITNESS; I do not consider that a deficit; I consider that ian advantage. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Thorne, if you lived on it, you would con- sider it a deficit mighty quick. THE WITNESS: If I had my board and room paid for? SENATOR JUUL: If your father happened to be out of a job and you were a girl. THE WITNESS; I claim the girl that lives at home, and who has I been supported, I do not see any reason to change that condition. If the girl goes to work and brings in $5.00 that the girl didn’t have before, I don’t see how that is a disadvantage. If I am wrong, I will be glad to ■ change it. By reason of a precedent established a long time ago, we have set it at $5.00 as being the minimum, and it seems to be the generally I prevailing custom that it should be the maximum for a girl who lives at home. That lets her buy her clothes, and after that, there is a little change left for amusement. I Q. Your $5.00 enables her to buy her clothes, and it leaves some- i thing over for amusement? A. She contributes to the household ex- j penses out of what she earns, and what she can spare the family she gives I them. * Q. You do not figure for this class of 372 girls that there are any. ^ obligations, moral or legal, no the part of your company to pay such an ii amount of money, or sum of money, as would enable that girl tomorrow to pay her own way in case her father falls down and doesn’t do it? A. Oh, yes; we would increase her, and we would be glad to pay her $8.00 at " once, if she has no other way. No one can serve us in these days, and " serve us right, and be underfed, or be sick, or be in need; they cannot be ijj in our employ if we know it, because we are anxious to help them, and we |ij spend more money for that subject than any other institution in the State ;lof Illinois, I know; and if that is not an admission of moral obligation, I II can’t say what is. i- Q. Do you think your firm would seriously object to placing all the I four classes of girls we have been discussing in a position where, without any other support, they might become self-supporting women? Do you think that it would seriously interfere with the earning capacity of your ; establishment? A. I do not think it is a question of dollars and cents. I Q. That is the stand I am taking. A. Of course, it would not. It I wouldn’t make any great difference in any way. Q. Let me tell you, Mr. Thorne, I am willing, for the sake of the argument, to admit that the scope of any investigation of this kind runs across absolute legal lines of evidence. While a lot of things that you say wouldn’t be permitted, yet a whole lot of the questions I ask wouldn’t be permitted either, but this is what this Cornmittee is setting for. A. I will be glad to help you to the best of my ability. 258 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. The sooner we come together the better off we are? A. Yes. Q. There is a condition prevalent in the community, and a feeling in particular, that people are grievously underpaid, and particularly women, numbers of young women and young girls, and we are trying to get at what is wrong; not only trying to get at what is wrong, but we have been told from day to day that if girl A, B or C goes wrong, that it is because they needed just a few dollars more, and they tell us that if they had been in a position where they wouldn’t have had to go out and somehow get hold of the two or three or four missing dollars, they wouldn’t have gone astray; and hOw far that is true we do not know, but it is in the record, and has been received under oath, and what we are trying to do is to come together with you gentlemen and have you suggest the remedy, because you are the big men, the big employers of labor, and because we haven’t any other people to go to, and if we all come together on it in a friendly way, the wrong can be righted. A. I believe it. What we are after is information. Q. But when you are down in the $4.00 or $5.00 or $6.00 schedule, Mr. Thorne, you need the strong hand of the State, and the kind ear of the men that control the big finances of this community; you need that, and it is because you are competent that we have you in here. If anything is said that don’t sound just right, why, we can’t help that; still we should come together and see what can be done. Fathers we know ought to carry the burden, but we know that oftentimes fathers do not carry the burden, and we know that a girl who is sixteen or seventeen years of age, and who stops at home, has to help out. One girl we had here told us of her work in a shoe factory. She got $3.00 a week, and she went to the devil on it, and went there fast. How many of those are going to the devil? A. If, as I stated before, the final results of your investigation show that there is a direct relation between low wages and vice, and there is anything we can do, I assure you we will be glad to help all we can. SENATOR JUUL: Yes, surely. ' THE CHAIRMAN: You will establish an $8.00 minimum wage? A. I don’t know about that. Q. Consider it and let us know. A. I don’t know that we have investigated that, as yet. SENATOR TOSSEY: You said you had a list a while ago, of what it would take for a woman to live on? A. I have four specimen tables here, if you would like them. THE CHAIRMAN: We would like to have those tables. THE WITNESS: Girl A receives $8.00 per week; pa3'S for her room $3.00; breakfast, coffee and rolls, 40 cents. I don’t know how she does it. Lunches, 90 cents. Q. All through the week? A. She can get a lunch for 15 cents in our establishment. It costs us 20 cents, and she gets it at 15 cents. SENATOR JUUL: I don’t know, the Northwestern Road give a luncheon for nothing, and their emploj-es, as a rule, kick against it. THE WITNESS: Car fare, 60 cents; leaving $1.75 remainder. SENATOR JUL^L: May I see that list. I want to see what is missing. SENATOR TOSSEY: Laundry, isn’t it? THE WITNESS: Don’t seem to be. She calls it “sundries.'” That is the way she answered the question. SENATOR BEALL: What does it add up? A. It adds up to $6.25. Q. With what wage? A. Eight dollars. SENATOR JUUL: Anything for board? A. She has accounted for the meals and room. Q. How much is the room? A. Three dollars a week for the room. SENATOR TOSSEY: How much is estimated for clothing? A. I did not estimate that. I never bought anything of that kind myself. Q. Haven’t any idea what it would cost? A. I haven’t the slightest idea what a woman’s clothes cost. Public Meetings and Testimony 259 < Q. She gets her clothing out of the $1.75? A. Out of the $1.75. j Q. And laundry bills? A. After working at $8.00 a week, she prob- Ibly gets $9.00 a week as soon as she is able, or sufficiently skilled. The f.ctual length of service is two and a half years, but in most instances jhey get married and move away, and other things happen. Q. Do they marry as a matter of necessity? A. I think there are a ^ood many reasons in one place and another, for that. t Q. What is the next? A. A girl at $8.00 a week. Girl B. Rooms |nd boards with her sister. PayS' $3.50, room, board and laundry are bcluded. She has no other expenses than that, except car fare, $1 a kreek. She lives out in the country somewhere and has to pay two fares, insurance, 24 cents; making $4.74, leaving $3.26. ; SENATOR JUUL: For what? A. Clothing and shoes. SENATOR TOSSEY: You don’t know what the clothing would ;ost? A. I don’t know. You can spend as much as you like on it. lA^hat the minimum is, is the question involved, and I don’t know what it s. That I assume is contained in these figures, because it is being done. ! SENATOR JUUL: The figures are not being given in detail, and -It is hard to check them up? A. Here is a girl, $8.00 a week. Girl C. ■pays room, board, including noon lunches, bringing them with her, $3.50. poes her own laundry at an expense of 20 cents a week. How that is :^one, I don’t know. [ SENATOR TOSSEY: Room and board, $3.50? A. Yes. Q. Don’t know what kind of a room she has? A. I do not. Q. Don’t know what kind of board she has? A. I don’t know any- thing about it. She walks on pleasant days, and her car fare only averages |5 cents. She puts 25 cents in the savings bank every week, the rest goes tor clothes, dress, sundries, $3.80. Q. Three dollars and eighty cents, she takes that for her living? A. pes. I Q. And saves 25 cents a week? A. Yes. I SENATOR TOSSEY: That is $13.00 a year. [ Q. You have another list there? A. Yes, one other girl. Girl D. [Room, board, laundry and noon lunch, $4.00. Insurance, 21 cents. She ives nearby and walks. Her clothes and other incidentals are put at $3.79. I SENATOR JUUL: Figured on a basis of $8.00? A. Yes, sir. 1 SENATOR TOSSEY: You say you have 573 employes that live on . J6.00 a week, or to whom you pay $6.00? A. These girls all live at i lome. These are the self-supporting cases. Q. How long do you keep them in your employ? A. You mean 1 It $8.00? i Q. Yes, how long do you keep them in your employ at $6.00? They ;';seem to be turned out — are they either turned off or do they quit before ; ihey get to that point? A. They are moved on up within a year to >7.00, and most of them to $8.00. li Q. I have 373 at $7.00, is that right? A. Three hundred and seventy- I'hree at $7.00. ,Q. Three hundred and ten at $8.00? A. Three hundred and six- een at $8.00. Q. So the majority drop out before they get to $8.00? A. A good nany of them do, and their places are filled from below all the time. : Q. It shows that a great majority of them quit before they get to [>8.00. A. There must be at least 800 a year that quit, because the whole [itaff changes in numerical number every half year. Q. Either quit or get discharged, one or the other? A. Yes. THE CHAIRMAN: Any further questions. Senator Tossey? ; SENATOR TOSSEY: No. » THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Beall. ' SENATOR BEALL: I guess not. 260 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee THE CHAIRMAN: That will be all. You are excused, subject to our call. (Witness excused.) Mr. John T. Pirie, Jr.’s Testimony. JOHN T. PIRIE, JR., a witness, called by the Commission, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. What is your name? A. John T. Pirie, Jr. Q. What is your occupation? A. Dry goods business. Q. And with what corporation or company are you connected? A. Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company. Q. What position do you hold? A. We have no official positions; we are a co-partnership. Q. You are one of the partners? A. Yes. Q. And as such, are you acquainted with the wages paid your woman workers? A. Reasonably well. If I haven’t anything you want, I can get it for you. Q. You have it in your power to employ and discharge employes? A. Yes, but I have never exercised it. Q. How many women do you employ at Carson, Pirie, Scott & Com- pany? A. We have 2,004. Q. What is the lowest wage any woman employed by your co-partner- ship is paid? A. You refer now to the women who work the regular hours of the store, I take it? Q. No, Mr. Pirie, let us get at this: What is the lowest wage paid any woman worker there, regardless of the hours or terms of her employ- ment? A. I haven’t it here, but I think it is from $4.00 to $7.00 a week, and including two meals a day. Not including, but additional to that. They get their board. Q. What I want to get from you, Mr. Pirie, is this: The one woman, what is she paid, the one woman who is getting the lowest amount of money? A. Those are our errand girls. Q. And how much are they getting? A. Four dollars. Q. In other words, $4.00 is the lowest amount paid to anj^ woman? A. Yes. Q. How many of those, Mr. Pirie, are there? A. Fortj’-six. Q. You have forty-six in the $4.00 class? A. Yes. Q. Then, with the exception of those forty-six who are getting $4.00 a week, have you women who are getting more than $4.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, what is the next class, Mr. Pirie? A. Four dollars and fifty cents. Q. And how many are in that class? A. Twenty-six. Q. The next class, please? A. Five dollars. Q. And in that class how many? A. Seventy-two. Q. And the next class? A. Five dollars and fifty cents is next, 620 people. Six dollars, with seventy-nine people; $6.50, nine people; $7.00, 187 people. Do you want me to go right on up? Q. What do you consider a living wage for a woman worker? A. To be quite self-supporting, $8.00. Q. Let us continue to the bread line? A. Did I give you $7.00? SENATOR JUUL: You didn’t give the $7.50 at all. THE WITNESS: $7.50, 28 people; $8.00, 249 people. Do you want me to tell you about the others? THE CHAIRMAN: That is all for the time being in that regard, Mr. Pirie. A. The average is $11.30. Public Meetings and Testimony 261 ' SENATOR JUUL; The average of all female employes? A. Yes, J |ll.30. t ! THE CHAIRMAN: Now, in arriving at that average, what is the J [lighest salary paid to any woman whose wages are included in the list you rave given us? A. I would like to show you the pay roll. I wouldn’t 1 like to answer the questions publicly; they are pretty high wages. I SENATOR JUUL: So many that they affect the general average? A. ( lYo, very slightly. Out of the 2,004, there are but three or four. [ THE CHAIRMAN: Let us get at it in another way: Eliminate now C |:he heads of departments, the buyers and the women that are high salaried, I ind eliminating them completely, what is the average wage paid to woman I vorkers in your department? A. Eliminating only the buyers? } I Q. No, eliminate the department heads, your buyers, and your higher i salaried women, the woman who is given a salary, instead of a wage. A. I vould have to get you that exactbu it is about $10.00. Q. About $10.00? A. I will get it for you exactly, if you like. I Q. You haven’t it here? A. No, I haven’t it here, i Q. You think $10.00 is approximately correct, do you? A. Yes. I j fan stop at any figure you like. Where do you want me to stop, $20.00? I Q. No, we want to discuss for the time being the girls below the bread . ine. A. Yes, all right. I Q. Now you have here four or five hundred women below the bread f ine? A. Yes. [ Q. Below the $8.00 line? A. Yes. j j Q. What is the average age of the women below the bread line, and I yrou won’t take offense at that term? A. No, I won’t take offense. I am ! acre to work with you. 1 Q- What is the average age of the women below the bread line? A. I I lon’t knowq I will get it for you. j I Q. Are they mostly girls? A. Yes, very young girls. I should say I 17, and below that, but that is not exact. That is a guess. I will get you diat information. Q. You can get it when, Mr. Pirie? A. Oh, in two or three, days. I will send it to you or bring it to you. I Q. Well, Mr. Pirie, of your own knowledge, do you know of any wo- man who has been in your employ for a period of years, anywhere from Lwo years to five years, who is still below the bread line? A. Below $8.00? Q. Belowr $8.00, yes. A. No, sir. ‘ Q. You know of none? A. No. Q. You believe that you have none such in your employ? A. Now, [he question is: Been in our employ how long? 1 Q. Anywhere from two to five years, or over two years? A. I think there are a few who have been in the employ over two years, and who get :ess than $8.00. Yes, I know there are a few. Q. Are there any who have been in your employ five years and over, who are still below $8.00? A. I think not. Q. You are not definitely informed on that matter, though? A. No. Q. Now, Mr. Pirie, w'hat do you think about the matter of low wages, ind the moral standard among women, is there any connection in your i'udgment? A. I think there is a very slight connection. Q. Very slight, but there is a connection? A. Yes, small. [ Q. And as an employer, a large employer of women, do you feel the jltnoral responsibility? A. Yes, sir. Q. Your conscience would hurt you if you knew that any girl working |l(or your firm, had fallen because she wasn’t getting enough to live upon? Ip. It would. Q. Mr. Pirie, what were the net profits of your firm during the last iscal year? A. I refuse to answer that until I have had advice of counsel. 262 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Would you say approximately that your company made over $1,000,000? A. I refuse to answer that on the same grounds, and for the same reasons. Q. Suppose, Mr. Pirie, you were to increase the wages of your woman workers, so that all of those four or five hundred women who are now get- ting less than $8.00 a week, would get a living out of it, that is, get $8.00 a week, would it seriously impair your business? A. I have never figured it. Q. Suppose, Mr. Pirie, the State of Illinois were to establish $12.00 a week as a minimum wage for women workers, would the firm of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company go into bankruptcy? A. I am not prepared to answer that. That is a very difficult question to answer. Q. In your judgment, would it be a hard matter for the firm of Car- son, Pirie, Scott & Company to get along? A. I don’t know. The effects of a minimum wage might be far reaching; I am not prepared to give you a definite reply. . Q. Then suppose, Mr. Pirie, that out of the net profits made by Car- son, Pirie, Scott & Company during the last fiscal year, you were to take an amount sufficient to have paid all your women employes, getting less than $12.00 a week, at least $12.00, would there still have been left enough profits out of your business to make it a profitable business to be engaged in? A. Yes, there would have been some profit. Q. And with that profit would you have been satisfied to continue doing business during the present fiscal year? A. I haven’t figured it out. Governor. I don’t know what it would have been. I don’t know that I would like to answer that definitely. Q. You are acquainted, Mr. Pirie, with the profits made by jmur co-partnership during the last fiscal year, are you not? A. Yes. Q. Have them pretty well in mind now? A. Yes. Q. And yet you are unable to answer this question on the spur of the moment? A. Yes, because 1 could not answer that and the other partners’ questions. That wasn’t discussed among ourselves. Q. Well, Mr. Pirie, I am personally unwilling to continue the exami- nation of any witness who refuses to make public the profits made by his business,, and, that being my position, I feel I must refrain from asking you any more questions, and will turn you over to Senator Juul. I under- stand it is a legal question. SENATOR JUUL: I was busy on another proposition, and for the moment did not hear what happened. THE CHAIRMAN: We have failed to elicit from Mr. Pirie the amount of profit made by his firm the last year, and also whether his firm can efford to pay a $12.00 a week minimum. SENATOR TOSSEY: How many female emploj-es have you? A. Two thousand and four. Q. How many of those are under $8.00? A. I can give you the schedule there. SENATOR JUUL: Four hundred and eighty-seven is what your answer figures. A. That is approximately right. Q. You could put these women on $12.00 a week, and j'et have a fair profit on your investment? A. In good years? Q. Well, take last year as a basis. A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. You understand, kir. Pirie, that we would like you to go awav from here with the idea that this is a broad-minded Committee? A. 1 have that idea now. Q. In your examination here by the Lieutenant Governor you clashed on the proposition of earnings? A. Yes, sir; but we did not clash. Q. Your minds clashed? A. Yes. Q. Now, what can be the real objection in stating 3 -our earnings. 3 I Public Meetings and Testimony 263 I 'when all the State is after is to find out the method by which a number iof employes, a number of citizens, if you please, of this State, are living ibelow what the Governor here calls the “bread line.”_ What can be the 'objection; what can be the possible theory upon which you object? A. iWe think that when we reply to you that the difference as outlined by iSenator Tossey would not materially affect our profits for last year that |that is sufficient for this purpose, and that the rest is not necessary. j; Q. Then you practically ' state you can lift the entire number of iemployes from below the “bread line’’ up to and beyond it without any ■material Injury to your firm? A. Eight dollars a week? I Q. I didn’t say $8.00 a week. A. What do you mean; what list do you mean? 1 Q. I will ask you another question: What do you consider is the 'wages a young woman in your employ can live on? A. Eight dollars. I Q. Would there be anything left for amusements? A. There would 'be a little. Q. There would be a little for pleasure in that? A. Yes. Q. You figure they could do it with $8.00? A. Yes. Q. You haven’t figured what it would take to lift this nutuber of employes up to that condition? A. Not exactly. Q. Will you say that, as far as you know, that your firm would be willing to do that without legislation being enacted on this subject? A. • I wouldn’t like to answer that question without consultation and advice iof counsel. } . ' Q. How do you feel yourself on the proposition? A. In other words, i Senator, you want to ask me if I would favor a minimum wage, is that it? Ts that what you mean? j Q. That isn’t exactly it. What I have been trying to get out of you gentlemen, that are situated as you are, is to find out if you do not feel a [moral responsibility; if you do not feel a legal one for the woman who [enter your service? A. We do feel the responsibility. i Q. You should be responsible, irrespective of her father or big brother, for the difference which is necessary to lift her up to the “bread line.” I have been trying to get from the people who have come_ before this Committee at least the statement that they feel the moral obligation, ill that it ought to be done, and I am a firm believer in this: if we are to li arouse in you the feeling, the feeling which one feels that any young [woman ought not to have to go to work Monday morning unless she 'shows that at the end of the week she will be able to pay her bare run- iining expenses, and that she won’t have to look in dubious places for that [deficit that we are trying to get from you people, so that we may be the ijjudges of whether you can be compelled to do it or not. I am one of i those who will go a long way to keep away from the word “compulsion,” ilbecause I think that the public spirit of the men in Chicago is so much ;|! higher than it is elsewhere that they will bring this about without waiting Sfor a law; that even if the law has to go into effect, that you gentlemen I will meet us. A. Thank you. ! Q. That is my idea. A. I believe it. Q. If you do not care to state to us today, there is another point: ' We have power to compel the attendance of witnesses, books and every- thing else, and compel the gentlemen who refuse to answer, to answer by compulsion and they can be indicted if they refuse. We ought to be able to t ; come together in Chicago without resorting to any drastic measures, or to use sheriffs and courts. A. I think we will. Q. I think we ought to come together like good fellows, and settle fthis difficulty, and then we will think more of one another for doing it; is that right? A. Yes. But if you want a minimum wage, how about Washington ? ; SENATOR JUUL: They tried in Washington to build a waterway for us once. I understand that they had it surveyed some thirty years sago. We don’t want the girls to wait for $3.00 that long, Mr. Pirie. I 1 264 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee THE CHAIRMAN; Mr. Pirie, I believe you must have responded in part to Senator Juul’s eloquent appeal to you, and I want to ask you again what were the profits of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company during the last fiscal year? A. I dislike to refuse you, but I have to do it until I get advice of counsel. I would like to answer your questions, but that is the only one I do not care to. SENATOR JUUL; He stated that he would see what he could do towards raising the employes to living wages. THE CHAIRMAN: How did the business of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company during the last fiscal year compare with the previous year? A. It was about the same as the year before. Q. About the same as the year before? A. Yes. Is that what you mean? I do not want to evade. _ Q. Did you report to any credit institution that the profits of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company last year w'ere the greatest in the history of the firm; did you make that report, yes or no? A. To the best of my knowledge, no. Q. And your knowledge would probably be conclusive there? A. It would. Q. Were the profits of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company last j^ear in excess of the profits of any preceding year? A. I must refuse to answer you that, until I get the advice of counsel. Q. Have you said to any one, at any time, that the profits of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company last year were the greatest in the history of the firm? A. I might have; I do not recall it. Q. And if you did, you probably would be stating the truth? A. That is my habit. Q. Then we are to judge, Mr. Pirie, that the profits of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company were the greatest in the history of your concern? A. I didn’t say it. THE CHAIRMAN; Senator Tossey, have you any question to ask the witness? SENATOR TOSSEY: What is the general condition of women in your department? A. I think it is the very best. I think they are of the highest character. I would be surprised to find one that isn’t. Q. Have you any profit-sharing methods with which to increase their wages? A. No, sir. Q. What was the minimum wage paid to women in your establish- ment a year ago? Was it any lower than it is today? A. I think it was a little. Q. Now are we to understand that a year ago, you paid girls less than $4 a week? A. I think not. We might have had one or two. I will look that up. Q. Settle it now. You think j^ou didn’t have any girls who were paid less than $4 a week a year ago? A. Not to speak of, but there might have been one or two. I would not testify positively under oath until I look it up. Q. Then the truth of the matter is, that the year before, these girls that were getting $4 a -week, shared not at all in those profits? A. No, sir, our girls — are employes are not paid profit shares. Q. I don’t mean that, Mr. Pirie; I want to show what it benefits a girl working for you, when you are making money? A. I think you will, have to take the average payroll, which is increased Q. And in what proportion? A. I will get you the exact figures; I haven’t them now. Q. The figures I would like to have, and have you produce with those figures, a statement of the profits made during the last year, or do you know if it would make a fair comparison? A. You mean the wages? Q. Sweeping the average all to one side, I am talking about the girls who are making $4. Her condition was not improved, you say, from the Public Meetings and Testimony 265 fact that you made more money last year than the year before? A. They I [were less probably last year than the year before. THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Beall, have you anything more? I SENATOR BEALL: Nothing more. THE CHAIRMAN: You are granted a recess, but hold yourself ijisubject to our call, please. I THE WITNESS: I am summoned to appear in a suit against the )iiLehigh Valley Railroad in New York. If I go, will I be in contempt } i here? i THE CHAIRMAN: We only ask you to keep yourself ready to res- t i pond to our call. We will accept a reasonable excuse. , I THE WITNESS: Is that reasonable? THE CHAIRMAN: Reasonable, and it is granted, j THE WITNESS: Thank you, gentlemen. ij Mr. E. J. Lehmann’s Testimony. 'I E. J. LEHMANN, a witness called by the Commission, having been I [first duly sworn, testified as follows: I EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. fj Q. What is your name? A. Edward J. Lehmann. |: Q. And the name of the firm, Mr. Lehmann? A. The Fair. I Q. The Fair is the name of the corporation? A. Yes, sir. ( Q. What is it incorporated for, in dollars? A. I do not wish to |i state that. f Q. You report that information to the Secretary of State, therefore I there isn’t any secret in that? A. One million dollars. Q. That is the amount of the incorporation? Have you any objection to stating what the earnings of your store were last year? A. I do not wish to. ^ 1 Q. You are being asked by a committee created by the State of jj Illinois; have you any objection? A. Yes. I : Q. Now will you state your reasons for such objection? A. Well, I I do not believe it would be of any interest to the public to know. Q. If this Committee were to find out, Mr. Lehmann, that on the :i million dollar capital, for instance, you are paying 30 or 40, or any other ; given per cent of earnings, and that if they were to find in this investiga- I j, tion that you were paying your employes a lower sum of money than it [ would take those employes to live, and that some of those employes I jj either would have to have more money, or some other sources from [[which they could get it, or would be burdens on the state, or the subjects I [ of charity, would you then sUy it was not your business to state what I il your earnings were? Would you then say it was not your business to I ‘ increase the wage of any employe of yours, through being unfit or other- L; wise, and thus making them become the subjects of charity, through want [ of mentality, sickness, etc., would you say it was no business of the state [i to investigate into it and ascertain whether or not the wage question ! I had a bearing on the moral question; would you say it was no business of I ours thus to investigate? A. I would say yes, if it proved that income ) had something to do with it. I Q. I want the gentlemen of this Committee to prove to you, no f| matter how much you make, that it is their business to know, before ij you answer the question? A. Well, I don’t know as that would come I into this matter. 1 1 Q. Well, answer it in your own way: Do you consider that you, ! as a big employer of labor, are any better or any different than any other f earning man or woman, who would be summoned before this body on I the part of the commonwealth? A. Not a bit, sir. j Q. You do not consider that you ought to be exempt from testifying 266 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee before this Committee in this case, because of the more or less questioning you will undergo? A. No, sir Q. In other words, you feel you are same as the others who have come here? A. I certainly am, sir. Q. Then we can start in on the basis of a feeling that you do not hold us in contempt: Mr. Lehmann, how many female employes have you? A. 1,750. Q. 1,750? A. Yes, sir. Q. Divide these employes into groups; will you take the figures. Governor? THE CHAIRMAN; Yes, Senator. SENATOR JUUL: Divide these employes into groups; what is the lowest paid group of employes you have? A. $3.00 a week. Q. How many are in that group of $3.00 a week? A. 74. Q. What is the next group, Mr. Lehmann? A. $3.50. Q. How many are in that group? A. 66. Q. And the next group? A. $4.00. Q. And how many in that group? A. 58. Q. How many in the next group? A. 59 at $4.50. THE CHAIRMAN: 74 at $3? A. Yes, sir. 74 at $3; 66 at $3.50; 58 at $4; 59 at $4.50, making a total of 257. SENATOR JUUL: That is what you call the juvenile group? A. Yes. Q. How old is the oldest girl in the juvenile group; approximately how old? A. Well, 55 per cent of those are under 16, and the other 45 per cent range between 16 and 18. Q. There are girls in that group of juveniles who are over 16? A. Over 16, yes, sir. Q. And as high as 18? A. I cannot say how high they go, but all of them are over 16 years of age. Q. What is the highest figure w'e have right there in that table? THE CHAIRMAN; $4.50. SENATOR JUUL: Give us the next group, and the number of them? A. We have 128 who get $5 and $5.50. I haven’t got them separated. Q. And the next group? A. 276, who get $6 and $6.50. Q. And then the following group? A. That is as far as I have them classified. Q. How many have you got in the class between $6.50 and say $8 or $8.50; say $8? A. Well, we have 149 at $7. I would have to have them divided. I have them classed in two places. 149 at $7 in one class; 67 at $7 in another class; 24 at $7.50 in one class, and 50 at $7.50 in another class. Q. Are there any in between those figures and $8? A. No. Q. How many are there at $8? A. There are 121 in one classification here, and 59 in another. Q. Now, Mr. Lehmann, will you tell this Committee whether in your opinion it would be possible for your company to pay all of these female employes, receiving a wage ranging from the lowest up to $8, a sum of money which would enable such employes to live without any outside aid; would that be possible without materiall}^ injuring the status of your business in a financial wajU A. It would naturally depreciate the income. Q. Yes, but would it give each stockholder, each gentleman or woman financially interested in your business, a decent return on their investment if such increases were to be made? A. That all depends on what you mean by decent income. Q. What do you mean by decent income. Mr. Lehmann? This is a Yankee trick, the answering of one question by asking another, and I Public Meetings and Testimony 267 . . ' . ' . {will use it by turning the tables on you; I will ask you the question back [again: To put money in the Fair would be safe as an investment, would it not? A. I could not very well state that either, without giving the income. Q. I did not ask you to give the income; we will thresh out the income proposition some other day. You might be better prepared to enter into it when the time comes. Here is the proposition; What do you consider a fair return on any investment in a mercantile establish- ment of the high standing that yours is; that isn’t a hazardous risk, jiis it? Money put in the Fair is pretty safe, isn’t it? A. It has been. [ Q. What would be fair interest on money; that isn’t asking you what you are paying? A. I would like to answer that in another way: By raising the people who are now getting seven or eight dollars Q. Or three or four dollars? A. or three or four dollars, we could not stop there; we would have to raise all the males as well, but that would make a material difference. Q. I understand that. The first question we are trying to get at, Mr. Lehmann, is, the possibility of raising these people who are not today able to take care of themselves, to pay every woman who labors in Illinois, to put her on a basis where she can go home Saturday night !with a sufficient amount of money that she wouldn’t have to get in this way and that way, but with the requisite amount of money for her labor ifrom Monday morning to Saturday night that will keep her. I am (asking you if you consider that to pay such wage would materially injure jimen and women who have invested their money with you? A. I think (so. ( Q. You think it would materially injure them? A. Yes. Q. Then you consider that if you paid what the Governor has been ;pleased to call here a wage that runs above the bread-line, that you could (not pay six per cent on the investment? A. We might possibly be able ^to pay six per cent if we did not have to pay the other help accord- fingly, which I think we would have to do. 1 Q. Why should you, or any other set of gentlemen, in Illinois or fany other state, want to depress a given number of people so low that [they would not have money enough to get their meals regularly, in order ithat others may get more? We are not trying to interfere with the con- duct of your business on a self-supporting basis, but we are trying to (find out whether people who place a number of other people below the [bread-line do it purposely; do you mean to tell this Committee that to do [that, to put them above and beyond the bread-line, would interfere with jjthe fair earning capacity of the men and women who have been investing [Itheir money in your business? A. I think it would. It wouldn’t stop [with this classification, it would go through the entire payroll. 'I Q. And you would have to make raises for the rest? A. Yes. s Q. You mean that the employes that are receiving $15, if you ele- Jvated the little girls who are receiving $3, bringing them up to the bread- jiline, that the ones that get $15 wouldn’t consider it a square deal? A. I believe so, yes. j Q. Do you mean to say that in order to continue the $15 men at $15 that you must be unjust to the three or four or five dollar girls? iA. It might appear that way. I Q. Isn’t that pretty near to your line of reasoning, Mr. Lehmann? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you think that is a good line of reasoning? A. I do not say that is the line of reasoning; I say that is really a fact; if we raise (these people, we would have to raise the others. I Q. Now, I will ask you if the State of Illinois were to establish I through its police powers a bread-line, or a starvation line, call it by whatever name you see fit to: Do you think your firm would seriously object to such legislation, and try to evade it, or avoid it, or test its con- stitutionality, or otherwise? A. No, sir, I don’t think that they would. Q. You believe you would fall in. line with it and use it? A. Yes. Q. And do what the law tells you to do? A. Yes, sir. 268 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Have you a system of fines in your establishment, Mr. Lehmann? A. No, sir. Q. You do not fine your girls? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever have a system of fines? A. A little, yes. Q. At the time that you had the system of fines, were your fines larger than the pay allowed? In other words, if a girl were half an hour late, would she be fined a higher amount for that half hour than she would have received had she worked during that half hour? A. I do not believe that would be the case, but I am not quite familiar with the fines. I think they took out the system six months ago. Q. The system was taken out, was it? A. Yes. Q. Do you charge the young women in your establishment for medical attendance? A. No, sir, they have medical attendance free. Q. They have that free, do they? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you charge them for their drinking water in your establish- ment? A. No, sir. Q. You do not have any charge for that? A. No, sir. Q. Whatever amount they receive, they receive exclusive of every- thing else on pay night? A. Unless they were members of the Benevolent Association. Q. They contribute to that, do they? A. Yes. Q. What would you say, Mr. Lehmann, as to the status of the average girl who is working for three or four or five or six dollars per week, where the home conditions are such that she cannot depend very much on the aid she would receive from the parents or brothers, what would you say as to her being fortified or not fortified against the allurements of a great city like this? A. Well, I believe — I do not believe that morality has anything to do with wages, personally. Q. Do you think that the wage question has anything to do with the honesty of an employe? A. No. Q. Do you think an underpaid cashier is more prone to fall than one who feels she is well paid? A. No, sir, not if she is an honest girl. Q. No? A. Not if she is a good girl. Q. Now, then, to figure that out: There are two methods by which a girl might increase her income — one by decency, and by immoraljty. What would you say that there ought to be a third method for making more money? A. I do not know whether I understand that question. Q. Most of the gentlemen who have preceded you, hav'e suggested that it would take $8 a week to keep a woman, keep an employe, so that she won’t have to look for outside aid. Now, in the case of the $8 employe, and a shortage of three or four dollars in the case of the four and five dollar girls, and so on, would you say that the woman who lacks three or four dollars in the making up of what it takes to just get the bare necessaries of life, would you say that she is as well fortified as the woman who gets $8? A. Yes, sir. Q. She is just as well fortified? A. Yes, sir. Q. What would you consider, if you were a girl, getting $4 a week, and you did not know where you were going to get the other $4, do you think you would be just as strong morally as the girl \yho gets $8, and do you think you wouldn’t have to go elsewhere for the difference between the four and the eight? A. I believe the girls can get more than $4 if they want to be domestics. Q. That is the point. That would be all right, if we could make servants out of them, because then they would get better food, better hours, and $6 a week, and wouldn’t have anything to pay for their food. A. Eighty-seven per cent of our people live with their parents and relatives; 13 per cent do not, and these 13 per cent average $9.50 per week. Q. Eighty-seven per cent live with their parents, you say? Yes, sir, parents and relatives. Q. Now, when her father is out of work in the winter Erne, and she still lives with her father, and there isn’t anything coming in but what Public Meetings and Testimony 269 i Ihe girl brings in, do you consider that that girl is pretty well fortified Iwith the $4 in her pocket on the Saturday night? A. In a case like that |she could come to me and get help until her father is well. I Q. Doesn’t that state of facts exist with every one of these girls? ;A. Does it exist, you say? Q. Yes, don’t you consider while at the present time there is no legal obligation on your part to pay the girls enough to live on, isn’t there a moral obligation on the part of every employer to place every employe on a sound basis? I am not talking about a fancy one. A. Yes, I think we are morally obligated to take care of them. Q. You think your firm would be willing to aid the state govern- ment in bringing about what I have called to your attention, where the female employes receive less than $8, so that they wouldn’t have to go |on dark ways and in dark places to get it? A. I think we would, if it iwere made universal throughout the state. I EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Mr. Lehmann, have you stated what you consider is the lowest amount of wage upon which a self-supporting woman can exist in the city of Chicago? A. I haven’t stated it, because I don’t know. ! Q. Would you say approximately $8? A. I have never made a study of it. From what I have heard other gentlemen say, it ranges from seven to eight dollars. Q. Now, Mr. Lehmann, I want to call your attention to one thing: I You have stated under oath that you employ 1,750 women, and that 1,131 'get $8 or less? A. How many? Q. Eleven hundred, approximately. As a man, do you think that is right? That for a living wage that $8 would be the right amount that the majority of the women workers should get? A. As I said jbefore, 87 per cent live at home. Q. You cannot shift the responsibility upon the home, can you? A. iiThere are a great many who make more. Q. I might say that this Committee is not taking very seriously the idea of shifting the responsibility upon the home. You get these girls to do work for you, and you cannot shift the responsibility of part of their support upon the home. Mr. Lehmann, have you stated what the net profit of your company was during the last fiscal year? A. No, sir. Q. And why have you not done so? Haven’t you been asked the question? A. Yes. Q. What were your net profits? A. I do not care to state. Q. You refuse to state? A. Yes. THE CHAIRMAN: The journal will show the refusal of the witness. Q. Mr. Lehmann, is there any organization among the merchants on State street that might be called in a sense a trust? A. No, sir, not to my knowledge. Q. Have you any oragnization, society or association through which the word to do or not to do certain things is passed around? A. No, sir; but we have a State Street Association — a retail association. Q. How often does that association meet? A. It meets at different times, various times. Q. What do you do at those times? A. We take up different subjects. Q. When did that association hold its last meeting? A. Well, I could not give you the exact date. Q. Within the last week? A. Not to my knowledge — no. Q. Is it likely that that association might have decided not to give to this Committee the figures regarding your net profits, or your prob- able profit; is it possible that word to withhold that information from 270 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee ihis Committee might have been passed around through that association? A. I su p pose it might^^ ha ve been , if anybody brought it out. Q. Was it, yes or no, Mr. Lehman, was it? A. I do not care to state that without advice of counsel. Q. Yes or no, Mr. Lehmann, was it? A. I wish to get my coun- sel’s advice on that. SENATOR JUUL: That is not asking you any of your earnings? A. I understand. Senator, but I should like to get counsel’s advice on it. THE CHAIRMAN: You refuse to answer yes or no until you have advice of counsel? A. Yes. Q. With whom, Mr. Lehmann, have you consulted regarding the nature of the testimony you were to give before this Committee; with whom, outside of the members of your own firm or corporation? A. With whom have I discussed it? Q. Yes. With other merchants in the same line of business? A. Yes. Q. Has any other merchant entered into an agreement with you to withhold from this Committee information regarding profits? A. I do not care to answer the question without advice of counsel. Q. With what merchants did you consult? A. I do not care to answer without advice of counsel. Q. Did the matter of wages come up for discussion at the last meeting of this State Street Merchants’ Association? (It is called the State Street Association, is it?) A. State Street Retail Association. The subject of wages, to my knowledge, has never been brought up at any of the State Street Association meetings. Q. Has this association a black-list? A. It has no black-list to my knowledge, unless it would be in the case of dishonest employes. Q. And it has such black-list in the case of dishonest employes? A. I am not positive on that; I haven’t attended many meetings; I think it did have; whether or not it has at the present time I do not know. Q. Does this association regulate the price of goods? A. Not in any shape or manner. Q. Has it ever? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Does it specify certain days as sales days? A. No, sir, it does not. Q. You know that? A. I know that positively. Q. Does this association pass upon rules for workers, woman workers? A. I do not know of any such rules. Q. Is there a general uniformity in the rules regulating the conduct of woman workers on State street? A. Not to my knowledge. They have got many different rules. Q. But in a way matters of general business policy are discussed at the meetings of the State Street Retail Merchants’ Association, are they not? A. Yes, general things are brought up at different times. SENATOR TOSSEY : How long do the girls in 3"Our employ, who are receiving five or six dollars a week, or seven dollars a week, how_ long do they stay in your employ at those wages? A. Whjq there is^ an ordinance on that, I believe, or a state law, whatever it is. I think it is eight hours for the juvenile and ten hours for other people. Q. I mean, how long do they sta^' at five or six or seven dollars a week? A. The regulation hours are eight and three-quarters. SENATOR JUUL: No; how long do they remain at those wages? THE WITNESS: I understand. SENATOR JUUL: Before they are advanced higher? A. I could not say; I do not know. SENATOR TOSSEY: You don’t know how long the girls who receive $5 a week stay at that price, or how long at $6? A. It all de- pends on their ability. Public Meetings and Testimony 271 ' ' Q. You do not know how fast they are advanced? A. No, but they • Jare advanced according to how well they do, and that is under the super- , [vision of the superintendent. I Q. Then a girl at $6 a week might stay as long as a year, or two [years, might she? A. I could not say; I don’t know. I Q. Do you know of any case, or has it ever been called to your '[attention, where any floor manager has insulted a woman in your store? |A. Yes, sir. Q. What was done with him? A. Immediately discharged. THE CHAIRMAN; Mr. Lehmann, have you heard anythin? about !a fund being raised among any business men to fight the efforts — if there . be efforts — to enact a minimum wage law in this state? A. I know of 1 [none. Q. You have contributed to no such fund? A. No, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Lehmann, a member of the State Senate of r [Illinois sends the following question to the Committee to be asked you; «i“Do you think that any corporation can justify its right to exist under •'the laws of the State of Illinois, if it cannot and does not pay a living i i wage to its employes?” A. That depends a great deal upon their I ! condition. ' Q. If the conditions are such that there is no money left for the > ['investor, wouldn’t you say, as an abstract proposition, that there should !be first money enough to pay those who earn the money? A. Every- I body should be paid enough to live on. Senator. ! Q. What we wanted to get at is, your idea, and the ideas of other ' gentlemen in similar lines. There are two factors to be paid — the living, I human factor that creates the wealth, and the capital that makes it pos- 1 sible for the living, human factor to create the wealth, and, under the law, I we believe that wages is one of the liabilities that should be paid before ' Capital receives anything' — isn’t that correct? A. Yes. Q. In other words, labor is a prior lien, and should receive its share : I before capital receives its? A. Yes. Q. Then this question; Do you believe that a corporation should ' exist under the protection of the laws of the State of Illinois, if unable or r unwilling to pay a living wage? And your answer to that is what? A. i That the people should be paid a living wage. I Q. Should be paid a living wage first? A. Yes. I THE CHAIRMAN; Mr. Lehmann, you are granted a recess until f called again. You are not finally released. Mr. Henry C. Schwab’s Testimony. HENRY C. SCHWAB, a witness called by the Committee, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows; EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. , Q. What is your name? A. Henry C. Schwab. ' Q. What is your occupation? A. Retail dry-goods. j Q. And connected with what store? A. Rothschild’s. j Q. What is your official position? A. Vice-president and secretary. ; Q. And you are acquainted with the affairs of the company? A. In . a general sort of way, yes. ! Q. You have power to engage help and also to discharge help? A. ; Yes, if I see fit. f Q. Are you acquainted with an organization known as the State 1 Street Retail Association? A. There is one, as I understand it. Q. How many women do you employ at Rothschild’s? A. The pay- roll a week ago, as I looked at it, showed 1,150 to be employed. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any woman worker? A. In the case of errand girls, the wage runs as low as $3. 272 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Are there any wages lower than that? A. I do not recall of any; there might be an exceptional case. _Q. Now, kindly tell me, first, what was the net profits of Roth- schild’s during the last fiscal year? A. I prefer not to answer that ques- tion. That information comes to me in a confidential way, and I cannot say that I care to reveal it. Q. Have you consulted counsel? A. Have I? With reference to that? I have spoken to parties about it. _ Q. Have yon consulted your fellow merchants? A. There has been a little discussion about it. Q. Have you consulted your fellow members in the State Street Retail Association? A. Have I consulted with reference to that? No, but the matter was talked over in a general way. Q. It has been talked over by members of this associationT A. I presume so, yes. Q. Has a rule or an order been passed around among members of that association to the effect that the matter of profits ought not to be divulged to this Committee? A. I could not say that it was. ■ Q. You do not know of your own knowledge? A. Put that question again. Q. You do not know whether that is so or not? A. That is? Q. That the members of the State Street Retail Merchants’ Associa- tion have mutually agreed not to give this Committee that information? A. There was some talk about it, but I do not know how far that agreement extended. Q. There is such an agreement? A. I wouldn’t say “agreement”: there has been some discussion. Q. Discussion, but not agreement? A. I could not say how far it went. Q. You know there has been some discussion with respect to your testimony here? A. Not entirely; no, sir. Q. Not entirely, but in part? A. I am taking the position that the information comes to me in a confidential sort of way, and I do not care * to reveal it. Q. You understand the full scope and authority reposed or vested in this Committee, do you? A. I think so. Q. You understand that this Committee has the right to cite before the bar of the Senate any witnesses who refuse to answer questions, Mr. Schwab? A. Yes, I presume so. Q. And power to order him imprisoned? A. I am not positive about that. Q. That is your general understanding of the subject, however? A. Yes. Q. And knowing that, you refuse to answer it? A. I won’t refuse to; I want to take the matter under further consideration. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: . Mr. Schwab, have you a list of questions that you will refuse to answer? A. I have not. Q. About how many questions will you refuse to answer? A. I will tell you if you put the question. Q. This is the situation; Every time you refuse to answer a ques- tion, and this Committee does not insist on you answering the question, you just exactly by so much lower the status of this Committee. ^Ve must either assert our right as a Committee in summoning you and in having you answer us, or make the general public of the State think we do not have authority, or that we are sitting here unwilling to exercise it. You see what an embarrassing position you are putting this Commit- tee in, don’t you? (No answer.) Public Meetings and Testimony 273 Q. Now, just a moment ago you refused to answer questions that had absolutely no bearing on your earnings at all — it wasn’t a question about your trade, either. It wasn’t a question that affected the percentage earned by your capital invested, and yet you refused the Governor to answer it. Do you think that this Committee is going to accept answers of that kind? If you do, the sooner we shut up shop and go home the better. But we have no such idea. We are here charged with a public duty, and we are going through with it. What would you do, under those circumstances? A. I would put whatever questions I saw fit to. Q. But you apparently give us the right to ask the questions, and yet reserve unto yourself the right of refusal to answer. A. I refused to answer the question with reference to the profits, for the reasons I have stated. Q. And we have held it in abeyance. How many female workers have 3 ^ou, Mr. Schwab? A. I stated that — about 1,150. Q. How many of those 1,150 women are paid a salary below $8 per week? A. Well, I can answer that in a more general way. In this way: There is a possible Q. How many at three or four dollars? A. Comparatively few. Q. How many are there at $3? A. I could not give you the exact number. Q. About? A. There is about 10 per cent earn less than $10. Q. That isn’t what we want. A. I cannot give the exact number. Q. Can you give us this fact: Are there any now receiving $3 or less? A. There are some $3 or less; I don’t know of any that are less. Q. Now, do these $3 employes devote their entire time to the busi- ness, coming on Monday morning and quitting Saturday evening? A. They are there 6 days a week. Q. How many of them are there? A. A very small number. Q. A hundred? A. No. Q. Fifty? A. Less than thirty-five; less than twenty. Q. At $4, how many would you say you have? A. I cannot give you the exact division there; about 10 per cent of them earn less than $5. Q. I already told you what I wanted. A. I haven’t the information. Q. Are there 100? A. It would be merely guesswork on that. Q. Are there 50? A. I cannot be exact; about 10 per cent earn less than $5. Q. Now, you will come to the next meeting of this Committee, after having consulted your legal talent? A. Yes. Q. And be prepared to answer questions, and willing to come with a list of the employes and the various salaries they receive? A. I shall be glad to furnish them. Q. Now, you haven’t any objection to the personnel of this Committee? A. None whatsoever. Q. You would just as soon testify before this Committee as any other Committee that you could think of? A. So far as I know, yes. Q. Would you say, from your knowledge of existing conditions in Chicago, that a young woman, such a young woman as you would care to employ in your business, what would you say would be the minimum amount of money upon which such a young woman can support life and be respectable? A. I am not qualified to answer that. I have no infor- mation. I am not competent to answer that question. Q. Mr. Schwab, some of the things you know you won’t tell us, and other things you don’t know and can’t tell us. A. You are assuming that. Q. Some of the things you know are facts; you know the price a young woman pays for her room and board? A. I certainly do not; if I did. 274 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I would answer the question. Q. You know what it costs to get board? A. I do not. Q. Have you a restaurant in your establishment? A. Yes. Q. Supposing a young woman bought 21 meals in your place, what would she have to pay for them? A. It would depend exactly on what she ordered. Q. Suppose she ordered the necessary plain food. A. I cannot an- swer that; it would depend on what she would order. Q. Will you come before this Committee next week and furnish us with a list of what it would cost eight or ten average young women in your establishment to live? A. I do not know that I could furnish that. Q. Will you call before you eight or ten of your young women and ask them about it, and bring the Committee the result? A. I will tell you what the eight or ten say. Q. And cover all the items? A. If you will furnish me with a list of the items, I will attend to the matter. Q. You know what the items are that go to make up such a list: room and board, and so forth? A. I can easily ascertain them, I pre- sume. Q. You will try to get them. A. Oh, certainly, yes. SENATOR JUUL: I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact that Mr. Schwab is not already supplied with information on this matter, that he be excused at this time. THE WITNESS: You will give me a list of what you want? THE CHAIRMAN: And at that time will you bring in a statement showing the profits earned by your store during the last fiscal year? A. I will consult somebody on that, as well as my associates. Q. But you at that time will have consulted your associates and counsel, and you must be prepared to furnish this information, or hold yourself in contempt to the Committee? A. I think so. THE CHAIRMAN: You are excused until the next meeting of this Committee, which will probably be next week. Mr. Albert Ellinger’s Testimony. ALBERT ELLINGER, called as a witness by the Committee, having been first duy sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. What is your name? A. Albert Ellinger. Q. What is your occupation? A. Merchandise manager of the Bos- ton Store. Q. That is owned by a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. Illinois corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you are acquainted with the wages paid the women in that store? A. Yes, sir, I have investigated it. Q. You are acquainted with the profits earned by that store, in a general way? A. Maybe, in a general w^ay. Q. Within the range of a million dollars? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many women are employed at the Boston tore? A. 1,658. Q. What is the average pay of those 1,658 women? A. I haven’t averaged it, but I have the pay for each clerk, and the pay of each department. Q. Well, what is the lowest wage paid any woman? A. $3. Q. How many get $3 per week? A. 12. Q. What is the next, $3.50? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many have you at $3.50? A. I could not tell you exactly; just a few, very few. Public Meetings and Testimony 275 Q. How many girls are getting $5 or less per week? A. We have what is known as the bundle wrappers; those girls are 14 and 16 years old. Q. What is the total number of girls getting $5 or less in all depart- ments; in what order have you got it there? A. Here is a list that tells it, Governor. (Witness hands paper to the Chairman.) THE WITNESS (continuing): down below (indicating). The first numbers are the department of A, B and C, and so on; those that live at home and those that board. THE CHAIRMAN: I am afraid that this will require considerable studying on the part of the Committee. It is a very interesting table, but we cannot take it in at a glance. What is the highest salary you pay any of your woman workers? A. The buyers or workers? Q. Any women that work? A. Five thousand a year. Q. By the way, where was this meeting of the State Street Mer- chants’ Association held? A. I wouldn’t like to answer that question now. Q. You will answer it a little later? A. Yes. Q. So you pay some of your women five thousand a year? A. Yes, we have six women we pay $425 a week to. Q. What did they start at — $3? A. All started at three but one, and she started at four dollars a week. Q. How long did it take them to work up? A. Fifteen or sixteen years, some of them. Q. Have you now any women who started 15 or 16 years ago at $3? A. No, sir. I think we pay the highest wages for women in a depart- ment store of anywhere in the United States. I think the figures will verify it. Q. You, I presume, are willing to testify as to the profits made by your concern during the last fiscal year? A. I beg to be excused at present. Q. You will after consultation and conference? A. Yes, but I want a consultation and conference regarding that. Q. You have been attending, of course, the sessions of this Commit- tee for the last several days? A. Yes, sir. Q. And until this moment you had no idea that you would be asked that question? A. No, I heard it right along. I heard the question asked several times, but I would like to be excused until I consult counsel. Q. Have you consulted other merchants on State street? A. I have not. Q. Haven’t even gossiped about it? A. I am here to help the Com- mittee all in my power. Q. I want you to help us, and I am going to ask Senator Juul to co-operate in it. A. If anything is wrong with our concern, I want to rectify it. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. How many women in your business are receiving a salary of less than $8 per week — that is, a permanently fixed income which comes approximately to that? A. I think we have 75 or more, but that is a guess. Q. Do you mean to say to this Committee that you are employing or paying approximately only 75 employes who are below $8? A. That is, these women. Q. I mean all classes of employes. A. I have a list here of what they make. Q. There isn’t anything in the list; do you want to consult counsel about that first? A. No, sir. 276 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Now, give us the lowest paid group of women you have. A. I will take department A. We have women in that department who make: One 13, one 23, one 28, one 32, one 35, one 42 dollars per week. Q. How would that average up for a year in that department? A. I have here a list of what was done last week. I took another week. Q. Give us some examples of cases of the lowest figures in the list? A. We have in the hardware two at $5, the highest in the hardware is $22, female help; in the clothing, lowest $11. Q. Is that the list of women? A. Yes, sir, all women. Q. Eleven dollars is the lowest? A. Yes; the highest $35. In the drugs, lowest $15; highest $18. Q. You have no women in tlie drug department getting lower than $15? A. We work on salary and commission, and this is for this par- ticular week, what they made. I have last week’s list made up today. Q. Let us get the low figures then. A. Take it in the hats and caps, one got $15 and one got $7. Q. You are talking about sales-ladies? A. Yes.. Q. What are the groups below the sales-ladies that you have got there? A. The cashiers get $7.50, and the inspectors Q. How many are there of those? A. That I could not saj'. Q. There isn’t anything lower than a cashier, is there — $7.50? A. Yes, but I do not believe anj" of the cashiers get less than $7.50. Q. You are stating that as your belief? A. Yes, sir. I can make up a correct list of each and every one. Q. What department, in your business, is down to 3 or 4 or 5 dollars? A. We have 12 cash grils who get $4. They are promoted to inspectors in 3 or 4 months, if capable. The bundle wrappers get $4.50. Those are the girls from 14 to 16 years of age. Q. How many bundle wrappers have you got? A. I could not say. Q. Well, about? A. I could not say as to that. We have 235 inspectors who live at home; they get $6 a week. Q. They get how much? A. $6, and they live at home. Q. How much money would it take to lift the entire low wage girl proposition up so the minimum wage would be $8; it would not take much, would it? A. Well, it would not take so much, and if you gentlemen would recommend it, we would certainly do it. Q. We strongly recommend it, Mr. Ellinger. A. I mean, when you get through with this investigation. Q. Do you think there is any objection on the part of your firm to taking this situation in hand, and lifting all young woman up, who are getting $8 and less to a basis of at least $8? A. Well, it would, of course, if a small girl comes to work at $3, and lives at home, we cannot very well pay her $8, because there would be no inducement for her to work up. But after you get through this investigation a little further, and you think we should pay some of our employes more, we are willing to start at once, and not wait for a law. Q. Why wait for us to get through? This is a good time to start, Mr. Ellinger. A. Why, because we want to treat them justly, and you want to treat them justly. We would not want to pay so much more than our neighbors. Q. Don’t you think your neighbors would be willing to follow 3 ’our example? A. Well, we are willing. Q. I am willing to drop you as a witness, if that is your spirit. A. Well, that is the spirit I am in. Q. _ Wouldn’t it be a good business advertisement, just as a business proposition, for the merchants of this town to start in doing that? A. Mrs. Netcher’s idea is to treat all the help humanely, and right and just, and she believes in it. Q. Have you a system of fines in your establishment? A. Not much. * Public Meetings and Testimony 277 Q. You say you know of no system of fines in your business, and you, in your capacity as business manager, would have that information? A. I would, but I never heard of it. Q. You would be free to say, if there was? A. Yes, but I never heard of it. Q. If there was a system of fines, would you fine a young woman a greater sum for the half hour than you would pay her for the same half hour, if she worked? A. No^ sir, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t allow it, and Mrs. Netcher wouldn’t allow it. Q. You are pretty sure, that this is not being done? A. I never heard of it. .SENATOR TOSSEY; What percentage of commissions do you have? A. It deoends on the department. Senator. After we pay $3, $4 a week, it depends on the sales they make. I believe that the employes of the Boston store have on deposit in the banks more than a million dollars. THE CHAIRMAN; Does that include those that are getting $5,000 a year? A. No. Q. The $3 a week girls? A. The $3 a week girls have their sav- ings. We have there a lady in charge who acts as a mother to the help, and who tries to do everything for their benefit we can consistent with the business. SENATOR TOSSEY : In justice to yourself, will you furnish the Committee with a list of the salaries paid to the employes and also a list of the commissions and percentages of commissions? A. You can very readily see from this list, who gets the two or three dollars a week. Here is the commissions. We will let you keep this if you like. SENATOR TOSSEY : Let us have it, and we will put it in the record. SENATOR JUUL: You offer to show this Committee the salaries and commissions? A. I have it right here. Q. This is A. These are the sales-ladies, and on this very list are the inspectors, and a list of what we call the overhead expenses. Q. Will you furnish that to the Committee? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Q. What is your name? A. Ellinger. Q. You and I had a talk in the hall before you came in here? A. Yes, sir. Q. You were going to surprise us today? A. I don’t know that I surprised you. Q. Don’t you think you would be getting down to it, if you would just go ahead and raise the salaries? A. Mrs. Netcher is in New York. When she comes home she will take it up. Q. Do you think she will do that? A. I think she will do anything she can consistently along the lines you mention. Q. You think if she would, you would be willing to? A. Yes, sir. And I will be glad to have you come to the store, and interview the help, see the conditions and see what we are doing for the help. SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you keep an office in the store? A. Yes, and we have a lady who comes there and looks after the girls. She is known as a civic worker. Her business is when a girl gets sick, she takes care of her. We have a benevolent association for the girls. Here is the list we had last week, last month. Q. Is that money that you have given out? A. For benefits to the help. Here is something that might interest you gentlemen, because it is ruch an unusual thing. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. THE CHAIRMAN: Have you a benevolent association? A. Oh, yes. Q. How is that sustained? A. That is sustained — the store started it with a thousand dollars. 278 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. The Boston Store gave a thousand dollars? A. Yes, sir, on the 12th day of December, we took in in premiums, including our thousand dollars, $3,449. Q. “Premiums,” what does that mean? A. Each one pays so much a month. Q. The store pays this benevolent association you are talking about. Is that another enterprise on the part of the store, which helps the girls and boys who are working there, and your firm gives one-quarter while they give three-quarters? A. Well, when there is any deficiency, we make it good. We have a deficit coming now. Q. We are interested in philantrophy. I want to ask you if this is true, this statement made to this Committee: “I do not know exactlj' how many of the girls feel, but some of them feel that they could not afford to be a member of this association, but when the time comes for them to hire female help, we are compelled to sign a slip saying that we are willing to become members of this association, and to pay a certain amount to it before the store will give us the week’s salarj-.” Is that true? A. I could not say. Q. You believe that to be true? A. I could not saj' without veri- fying it through the cashier. Q. Will you verify it before you next appear before this Committee, and then say whether it is true or not? A. I will. Governor. Q. Is it true that this association, this benevolent association of which your store is so proud, is about to give a ball or some other kind of entertainment? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is to be the price per ticket for that ball or entertainment? A. I don’t know; I haven’t charge of it. There are three gentlemen in the store who have charge of it; three on the committee. Q. The store hasn’t anything to do with that? A. I don’t know. I only heard of it in the store, that they were going to give a ball. The committee has its own officers, and they act under its officers. Q. Are the girls in your store to be compelled to pay $1 for a ticket? A. I don’t know. Q. Have any of the girls threatened to talk to the State’s Attorney, if forced to pay the dollar? A. I never heard of it; that is news to me Q. Have you heard of any of the girls consulting the State’s Attorney of Cook County? A. I have not. Q. Were they threatened with dismissal if they did not buy a ticket? A. I can assure you that nobody will be dismissed if they do not buy a ticket, not one. Q. If any such methods were used by your subordinates, it could by you be stopped? A. Yes. Q. Do these girls, who are getting $3 a week, belong to the asso- ciation? A. I could not say. Q. They do not have to belong A. I could not say. I am only an honorary member. Q. Then this doesn’t belong to the store, it belongs to the em- ployes? A. It belongs to the employes. Q. Well, when we get an institution that belongs to the emploj'es, let us not claim the credit for it. Let us give the credit where it belongs. A. I don’t want any credit. Q. You were telling us how nicely you treated the people. A. We do a good deal for them, as you can see for yourself. We invite you all over there. Q. We do not question that. I do not intend to examine you further than this one question, which I will ask you, and it is about the net profits, and that is a vital question in this investigation. Unless ;here are further questions, j^ou are excused. A. I have things coming up all the time. I can show you what happened the other day, which shows that we are trying to do the best we can. (Witness hands a book to the chairman.) Public Meetings and Testimony 279 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We have here the by-laws of the Boston Store Mutual Benefit Association, and I find that all persons now employed by the Boston Store shall be considered as members, etc., that the membership is divided into classes, according to the amount of their salary, per week. Now, may I ask if you ever saw this book, or one similar to it? A. I have. Q. And it has been passed upon by you or the other officials? A. No, sir. ' Q. The statements in this book are very probably true. A. I have never read the book through. Q. Did you glance through it? A. No, sir, except seeing my name on the back. Q. Then this association has nothing to do with the store. Now, the girls in class E shall pay ten cents per month. How do they enforce the collection of that ten cents? A. I really don’t know. My attention was called to this, because the Association loses money and somebody will have to pay that money. Q. You are just one of the philanthropists? A. No, Mrs. Netcher is the philanthropist. Q. A girl can work for your store and not be a member of that association? A. I wouldn’t say that. Nobody ever came to me to com- plain about the association. Q. You, yourself, introduced the subject of this association to this Committee? A. I simply say we have one. THE CH.\IRMAN: Just a second. I am interested in this mutual benefit society. THE WITNESS: I am glad you are. THE CHAIRMAN: Where does the money go to? A. I under- stand it goes to the sick and the people w'ho need it. Q. Is there any surplus? A. Not so far as I know. There wasn’t in the last statement given to me. SENATOR JUUL: Who is the custodian of the funds? A. Three members in the store. Mr. Weissenbach, who is a brother of the lawyer by that name; Mr. Woodley, in your district, a very fine man, and the third one is Mr. Burdock. THE CHAIRMAN: What are the qualifications of the president of the organization? A. I don’t know, it must be in the by-laws. SENATOR JUUL: I would suggest, Governor, that we wait until the next sitting and subpoena one of the young men who are the apparent managers of this benefit association? THE WITNESS: Mr. Weissenbach is the secretary. SENATOR JUUL: Let him be subpoenaed. THE. WITNESS: You do not need to subpoena him. I will have him come without a subpoena. THE CHAIRMAN: The Committee stands adjourned until further notice. Thereupon the Committee adjourned until further notice. 'jVi.'T ■ t ^ ^ i 4 » ■r'.fC,: U ' 4 - ■-,?» . V ' ;,^;=5;y£i*^ ' . T^: ' yl: v:^i» • ■>'■■■ f';'''- :t*. A ■'; ' , ■\'f'V:.; ■ ,. I,?' '<■1^; •■ ■ ‘ < . ■-.>,, ,. ^ . ■ '('■ v. , A' ju . !•'■ ■ vtP - •' '\ . ■ ''Ar / ;7:C'’'S}-Cr’«^ i' '!“• ^ '■O*-' ■‘-'•X,.’ -t '; »v, ^J\_ ■ . '' -T > .<*.'« ' \j-r ■ 7^''''f ■'*) ■ I '• ■ y , '>' ■ * SESSION IX The Committee convenes at Peoria, Illinois, and questions sev- eral manufacturers, merchants and other employers of girls for information concerning wages paid and the factors that determine wage scales. Two girls detail the circumstances responsible for their disgrace. Testimony of: Mr. W. E. Persons, manager, Larkin & Company; Mr. Frank J. Young, manager, F. W. Woolworth (& Company; Mr. Henry C. Block, president, Schipper & Block, dry goods; Mr. Edward C. Heidrick and Mr. Richard Heidrick, twine and cordage manufacturers; C— S ; P J . Peoria, 111., Saturday, March 15, 1913. The Committee convened at the hour of 10 o’clock A. M., in the convention hall of the Jefferson Hotel. Thereupon the following pro- ceedings were had : Members Present: Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Chairman, presiding. Senator Beall. Senator Tossey. I Mr. W. E. Persons’ Testimony. . W. E. PERSONS, a witness summoned and appearing before this I Committee, being now duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated, and 1 testified as follows: I i EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. ! Q. You may state your name, for the record, if you please. A. W. E. j Persons. I Q. What is your business? A. Manager of Larkin Company of |i Illinois. Q. Is that business located here in the city of Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the nature of the business the company is engaged in? A. In the manufacture of soaps, toilet articles, and sundries. ^ Q. As manager of Larkin & Co, you are familiar with the wages paid - to the girls who are employed by that concern? A. I am. Q. And you have the power both to hire and to discharge the • women so employed? A. Yes, sir. !‘ Q. Will you tell the Committee, Mr. Persons, how many girls and i n women are employed by the firm of Larkin & Co.? A. Do you mean at Peoria? . _ Q. Yes, at Peoria. A. At the present time, in the Peoria estab- ; lishment, there are 316. Q. There are at the present time 316 girls and women altogether? A. Yes, sir. Q. What has been the lowest weekly wage, Mr. Persons, that has I ever been paid to any girl or woman employed by your company — at Peoria? A. Five dollars. Q. Have you ever paid any girl, to your knowledge, less than $5 a 281 282 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee week? A. Well, when we first started operations here, perhaps, half a dozen or so were paid four dollars and a half — I think. Q. You never have paid any girl, then, less than four dollars and a half? A. Not to my recollection. Q. Your recollection would be conclusive on that matter, would it not? A. Yes, I think so. Q. What is the highest wage paid any girls or women employed at the present time by your concern, here in Peoria? A. The highest wage that we are paying now is seventeen dollars a week. Q. What is the average wage that is paid by your establishment? A. That I could not tell you, offhand, without looking it up. Q. How many girls are employed at five dollars a week at present? A. I haven’t the figures at hand and I could not state the number. Q. Just roughly, how many would you estimate, in round numbers? A. We start the girls, unless they go to the school, at six dollars. Q. What are thej^ paid if they enter what you term the school? A. If they go into the school, we start them at five dollars a week, and as soon as they can do some work alone, we pay them six dollars. Q. That is the first increase they get? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then the girls making five dollars a week are in a school? A. Yes. Q. What kind of a school is that? A. It is a school that we main- tain for girls entering our employ, and it is maintained for the purpose of preparing and instructing the girls for the duties of the office. Q. For how lotig a time, as a general average, do they remain in that school? A. That varies greatly. They may remain in the school only a month, or they might remain there for six months. Q. A girl might remain in the school for six months, you say? A. Yes, sir. Q. Might she remain there for six years? A. Oh, no, we would re- move her before that time. Q. Six months, then, is the customary time they remain in that school? A. No, it is about the longest. Q. The maximum time? A. Yes, sir. Q. But you have no arbitrary rule as to the time they remain there? A. No, sir. Q. Do girls actually remain there longer than six months-, in some cases? A. No, I would not say longer than six months; no, sir, that would be the longest. Q. How many girls have you employed at six dollars a week at this time? A. I could not tell you the number, offhand. I can get you those figures, but I did not come prepared to state them now. Q. Can you get those figures and give them to us this afternoon? A. Yes, I can do that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; I would suggest. Senator Tossey and Sena- tor Beall, that we should have the figures, as further examination is rather useless until we do have them. SENATOR BEALL: Yes. Could j^on make an approximation of the figures at this time? WITNESS: No. SENATOR TOSSEY: Can they state the number of girls employed and the wages paid, in the memorandum you will obtain? WITNESS: Yes, I will get that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will you get us that information and return here at two o’clock this afternoon? WITNESS: We close at one o’clock on Saturdays, and I can send and get the figures right away. I can have the information for you inside of an hour from this time. Public Meetings and Testimony 283 CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Then you will be excused until eleven! o’clock. (Witness excused.) Mr. Frank J. Young’s Testimony. FRANK J. YOUNG, a witness summoned and appearing before the Commission, being duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. What is your name? A. Frank J. Young. Q. And your business? A. Manager of the Woolworth Five and Ten Cent Store. Q. In Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you familiar with the wages paid to girls in your store? A. Yes, sir, I am. Q. You have it in your power both to hire and discharge the girls so employed? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many girls are employed at the present time in your store? A. We have 31 at the present time. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any girl or woman employed there? A. Four dollars. Q. Have you ever paid any lower wage than that to any girl or woman employed by you? A. Not since I have been in the store. Q. How long have you been in the store? A. A little over two years. Q. Then you can state positively to this Committee that four dollars is the lowest wage paid to any girl or woman during your connection with that store? A. Yes, sir. Q. It would not have been possible for any lower wage to have been paid without coming to your knowledge, would it? A. No, sir, I don’t think so. Q. This store is owned by whom? A. F. W. Woolworth & Co. Q. A corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. Of what state? A. New York. Q. And you report to whom? A. To the Chicago office. Q. Who is in charge of the Chicago office of your corporation? A. C. C. Griswold. Q. And you report to Mr. Griswold? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you, yourself, regulate the wages paid to girls and women employes, or are you regulated by instructions from the Chicago office? A. There is nothing said, very much, about what we should do. Q. Suppose that you were to pay ten dollars a week, would that be reported to the Chicago office? A. It would be reported, yes. Each girl’s report goes to the Chicago office. Q. In the Chicago office, they have the payroll and if you were paying a girl more money than they approved of, you would hear from it? A. We never heard of it. Q. Have you ever paid any girl as high as ten dollars a week? A. We have one at the present time to whom we are paying ten dollars a week. Q. That is the highest wage paid to any girl in your store? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long has she been in tbe employ of your company? A. I think about three years. She w'as here before I came here. Q. How many girls have you employed at a salary or wage of four dollars a week? A. I could not say, off-hand. Q. Would you say, most of the girls? A. No, I should say, prob- ably there are ten. 284 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What is the next highest wage? A. $4.50. Q. How many at that figure? A. You understand this is only guesswork. I am not giving you positive figures. Q. Yes. A. About f.ve. Q. What is the next figure? A. That will be five dollars. Q. About how many at that figure? A. I presume 10 or 12 girls. Q. And what is the next figure? A. We have one girl at $7.50. One at $9. I am not sure whether there is anything in between those figures or not. Q. In other words, Mr. Young, of the 31 girls and women employed by your concern, 25 or thereabouts, get five dollars a week or less? A. Yes, sir. Q. And five dollars a week is almost your maximum wage, unless a girl shows unusual ability, to entitle her, in exceptional cases, to a little higher salary than $5? A. We have two or three girls getting more than that. Q. May I ask you, Mr. Young, for the information of this Com- mittee, is it your instruction from the head office in Chicago, or else- where, are never to pay more than five dollars a week, without reporting it to the head office and getting their consent? A. No, sir. Q. That is not a fact? A. No, sir, it has never been brought to my notice at any time. Q. Why do you not pay your girls more than five dollars a week? A. Because it is all a great many of them are worth to us. Most of our girls are quite young girls, ranging from 16 to 18 years of age, and they are girls that live at home. They are not competent salesladies. Another thing, we have some other things in regard to the salaries which are paid these girls that help out. For instance, if a girl has been with us a year, for a Christmas present she gets $5, and if she has been with us two years she gets $10; if she has been with us for five years she gets $25 at Christmas, and $25 for every year she stays with us after that as a Christmas present. From the first day of December to Christmas, during the rush season, when the work is hard, the employes get a ten per cent raise, and the last week before Christmas no girl gets less than $6 a week. They also have a vacation. After they have been with us a year, they get two weeks’ vacation, and pay for one week. After a girl is with us for two years she gets the two w'eeks’ vacation with pay for both weeks. Q. These benefits. Air. Young, are peculiar to your store, or do the same benefits apply to every Woolworth store? A: I think they do. They are supposed to apply to every branch store, if the manager lives up to the arrangement. Q. These benefits are a part of your instructions, _ the general in- structions you receive, from the head office? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you have had no instructions at any time from the office, in Chicago or elsewhere, regarding the wages you are to pay your girls and women in your employ? A. No, sir. Q. What does it cost a girl to live in Peoria, at the present time? What in your estimation would be the lowest amount per week on which a working girl could live respectably? A. That would depend on whether she was living at home or whether she is out in the world making a living for herself. Q. This Committee sees no difference between the girl who lives at home with her relatives, and a girl who does not live at home, but in order that you may answer the question clearly, I will ask you what is the least amount upon which a girl who is not living at home can support herself in the city of Peoria? A. I could not sa}^ O. Would you say that she could do it on ten dollars a week? A. Yes. Q. Would you say that she could do it on less than that amount? A. Yes. Q. How much less? A. Considerabh' less. Public Meetings and Testimony 285 Q. You have no idea then as to the figure upon which a working girl could support herself respectably in Peoria? A. I have not. Q. How much does a furnished room, a good clean room, cost a week? A. If the girl were to pay the whole expense, I suppose $1.50 or $2. Very often two girls divide that expense. Q. Figuring that expense at $1.50 a week for the room, how much would the board cost? A. I should say two dollars and a half, to three dollars, probably. Q. Then you would estimate the cost at two dollars and a half a week for her board and a dollar and a half a week for her room, is that correct? A. Probably so. Q. What would you say a girl ought to put aside each week for her clothing? A. I don’t know. Q. You must have some idea in that direction, I imagine, as to what a girl should spend in order to be reasonably neat? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, how much would it cost a girl, working in your store, to keep herself up to the degree, the standard, of neatness of appearance that you expect of her? A. I don’t know what it would cost her. Q. Don’t you think that is a matter in which an employer should be interested? A. Well, as I say, nearly all of our girls live at home, and that is one of the things that we inquire into, and insist upon knowing about, when we hire a girl. Q. Then you believe in shifting the burden of the girl’s support on the home? A. A girl from 16 to 18 years of age ought to be at home and we don’t hire the girls unless they are living at home, except in cases where they are getting more money. Q. They ought to be at home, you think? A. Yes, sir. Q. A good many things ought to be, in tbis world, that are not? A. I suppose so. Q. Now, we have the girl paying four dollars a week for her room and board and that leaves the girl one dollar a wek for her laundry, clothing, her church contribution, carfare, and a few amusements and pleasures that she might want to indulge in and gratify. Do most of the girls working for your store here in Peoria have occasion to use the street cars coming to work? A. Part of them do. Q. What proportion? A. Perhaps a quarter of them. Q. That would be ten cents a day for carfare? A. Yes. Q. In your judgment, does the matter of low wages paid to girls have anything to do with immorality among working girls? A. I think not, or very little if any. Q. Do you think when a girl is paid six or eight dollars a week, for example, and finds that the necessities of life cost her twelve dollars a week, she is as well fortified to resist temptation, or as well fortified as the girl who is getting twelve dollars a week, and finds the necessities of her existence cost but ten dollars? A. Perhaps not. Q. Then you do think that the factor of low wages paid to working girls does have something to do with the vice question? A. Perhaps, to a certain extent. Q. How often do you get to Chicago, to meet with the other man- agers of the Woolworth concern, the managers of other branches? A. I have been there once or twice in two years, that is all. Q. There are no regular stated meetings of the branch managers? A. We had a convention last March, but we haven’t had any since then. Q. You are familiar, of course, with the profits and losses on the Peoria store? A. I think so. Q. What was the net profit made by the Peoria store of Woolworth & Company, of which you are manager, during the last fiscal year? A. I do not believe that I am obliged to answer that question. Q. Do you refuse to answer the question? Is that your position? A. I could not tell, anyway, exactly. 286 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How long would it take you to consult your books and get that information? A. An hour or so. Q. In an hour’s time you can consult your books, and also, if you desire, consult some attorney, and then be prepared to answer that ques- tion, or to enter upon our records your refusal to answer the question? A. Well, I can be prepared by two o’clock this afternoon. THE CHAIRMAN; Then the question will be waived until two o’clock this afternoon. Senator Beall, have you any questions you -wish to ask? SENATOR BEALL; Have you a record of the amount of sales last year? A. Yes, sir. Q. Could you state the amount of sales last year, off-hand? A. No. Q. Do you think if your people, with the business they have all over the United States, were to increase the pay of your girls a dollar or two dollars a week, it would materially decrease the profits of the corporation? A. It would cut into them to quite an extent. Q. Do you think the concern could afford to do that with the profits it makes? A. They could do it, yes. SENATOR TOSSEY; Do you consider yourself, as an employer of female labor, more or less responsible for the welfare of the girls? A. We try to look after them to a certain extent, yes. Q. Have you any system of looking after their welfare now? A. Nothing except the questions that W'C ask them. (Witness excused, to be recalled at two o’clock p. m.) Mr. Edward C. and Richard Heidrick’s Testimony. EDWARD C. HEIDRICK, a witness sumomned and appearing be- fore the Committee, being duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interro- gated and testified as follows; EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. What is your name? THE WITNESS; Gentlemen, I would like to have my son testify, also, as he knows about these matters. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; We will ask him to come forward in a moment or two. Q. What is your name? A. Edward C. Heidrick. Q. What is your business? A. Manufacturer of cordage and har- vester twine. Q. With what corporation, or what company, are you connected? A. The Peoria Cordage Company. Q. What is your position with it? A. I am president. Q. Is that a corporation? A. Yes, sir, under the laws of Illinois. THE WITNESS; For your information, gentlemen, this young man is my son Richard, and he has charge of that department, while I am more familiar with other phases of the business. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; We will swear your son, also. THE WITNESS; Then you can obtain more definite information on the subject. (Son sworn by Senator Beall. Witnesses hereafter designated as Senior and Junior.) CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Approximately how many girls have j'ou employed? JUNIOR; Eighty. Q. Eighty girls and women? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you employ a larger number than that, at any period during the year? A. It would not vary to amount to an 3 dhing, with the seasons. Q. That is a fair average of the number of girls employed? A. Yes. Q. What is the lowest wage that is paid to any girl in jmur emplojU A. $6. Public Meetings and Testimony 287 Q. May I ask your father if that is, to his knowledge also, the lowest wage that is paid to any girl in your employ? SENIOR: A. Yes, sir. Q. To your knowledge? A. Yes, sir. Q. If any girl was paid less than that, it would come to your knowl- edge? A. Well, things are this way: I have two sons and they each manage part of the business. I might know of things, but it might not be just at the very moment a thing happened, that the information would reach me. I make that explanation. However, I would eventually know. I am not chasing after the payroll constantly, because matters come up in a general way, as to just what takes place, you understand. (Interrogation of Senior continues.) CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is the lowest wage you have ever paid to any girl or woman in your employ? SENIOR: A. What time do you refer to, in asking that question? Q. We will say, during the last five years. A. My judgment would be that $6 would be the average of the amount of wages we have been paying for the last five years. Q. We are not now interested in the average wage. We are in- terested now in the lowest wage. There is some difference, you understand, between the average wage and the lowest wage? A. As to that, I could not answer the question. My impression is that we have been paying not less than six dollars a week. Q. Within the last year, have you paid any girl as low as $3 a week? A. No, sir, I would not say that. JUNIOR: A. No, sir, that has not happened in the last year. There has been a uniform rule, that no girl has worked for less than six dollars a week. Every girl who is good enough to go into the factory has to have $6 a week. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Are they paid salary, or paid piece work rates? A. The $6 is a salary. Our piece workers all make more than that. Q. What do you consider is the least amount on which a girl can support herself, in the city of Peoria, at this time? SENIOR: A. To be fair about that, I have not gone into that, really, along those lines. I haven’t any real information. Q. (To Junior.) What do you think about it? What amount do you say. JUNIOR: I think a girl can get fair board and room for from $4 to $4.50 a week. Q. That is for board and room, both? A. Yes, I would say $4.50 a week, but there are some good places at $4. Maybe, however, there are not enough of those places at that price to go around. You can get them for $4. For another thing, a girl in our factory does not need to be kept up, in the way of clothes, as she would need to be in a store or office. What I mean is, there is no demand or requirement made upon her in that way, and she is not under the observation of the public. Q. She has to dress a little bit, doesn’t she, no matter where she works? A. Well, there is no demand in the matter. The ordinary clothes, half worn out, that she would have to throw away, in some occupations, she can wear them out down there until they are rags. Most of their costumes consist of the burlap that we furnish to protect their clothes. Of course, there is a little wear on their clothes. Q. What do you say it would cost a factory girl to clothe herself a year? A. I don’t know about that. It is just a matter of how much i|iit would cost her for a few street dresses. As I say, there is no rule, no requirement, as to dress and she has little if any dress expense during the working day, and that is the greater part of her life, certainly. Q. How many girls do you employ at $6 a week? A. 25. Q. 25 at $6? A. That is the limit. The fact is, it is usually less than that number. Q. Taking the case of those 25 girls, they would pay, say, $4.25 for 288 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee room and board, and it leaves them $1.75 a week for clothes, amusement, and all other expenses, carfare, etc. A. Well, there is no carfare for our girls. They all live within walking distance. Q. Do you think $1.75 is enough? A. Yes, I think it is enough to keep them from going astray, and that is what I understand this is for, to get at that matter. Q. Then you think that $6 a week is a pretty good wage for a girl in Peoria, and that she can be respectable on that? A. Yes, I do. Q. (To Senior.) Do you think that is true? A. What is that? Q. Do you think that a girl can live respectably in Peoria 9 n $6 a week? A. To be honest about the whole matter, I have not inves- tigated the subject. I could not form opinions at once as to what could be done. I am satisfied it is a very meager amount to get along with, as far as that is concerned. I don’t know, however, but what a girl might get along on $7. The difficulty is, the girls we have, and the kind that we have, 1 don’t know how far they get along in school. A great many of them, I suppose, could not occupy any very high position, prob- ably nothing any higher than they are now filling. If they could, they would not do the work they are now doing, I infer. You understand, it is rather dirty work, of course, being about the machinery. If a girl could do much better than that, I don’t believe we could employ her at what we do. There are a great many more things that would enter into that question; of course it would not interest you, the reasons we are not paying more salaries. If you will pardon me, just to give you a little information, for instance, we are up against a proposition in our manufacturing — I don’t know whether others are in the same condition or not — in the first place there are about seven or eight manufacturers of harvester twine in the different penitentiaries all over in the different states of the United States. While they do not produce the amount of twine that the country demands, at the same time they make prices very low. For instance, twine that ought to be sold at 9 % to 9j4, they produce at 8 %, and it has an influence on the market. You understand that proposition. So we are really helpless, in the matter of raising the price of the manufactured goods, so that we could pay more wages than we are doing, because those prison competitors are not paying any salaries, or at least getting the labor very cheap indeed. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Would you pay the girls higher salaries or more wages if no twine were manufactured in any penitentiary? A. We would have to compete with manufacturers in other states, in the east, where most of the factories are located, and we would have to con- sult with them as to the wages they are paying, because that is a com- petition against us, and in that way we have to regulate things, or go out of business. In several years we have gone through, it would have been a good deal better to be out of the business than to be in it. Q. Then, I am to judge from that, that you could not raise your wages without consulting with manufacturers in the same line of business, and that the increase of wages would necessarily have to be uniform everj-- where? A. From this standpoint, that the profits are down to the mini- mum, in competing with others, you understand, especially on the har- vester twine. I have been here in Peoria 24 years. When I started here, I had come across from Ohio. At that time we used to sell to the jobbing trade, entirely. The penitentiary twine mills were not known at that time, except one, and that was in a very small way. Those years we could get along, and have a profit nearly as we thought we ought to, but today we are limited. Q. You came here a poor man? A. Oh, no, not exactly, or else I could not have gone into the cordage manufacturing business. Q. Your business has grown pretty nicel}’- since j’ou have been here? A. No, I could not say that. We are not making any more goods, today, in pounds, than we did 24 years ago, because we ran our mill day and night, and could sell all our goods and more too; whereas we are glad now to get enough to do on ten hours’ run by doubling up the mill. That is the real truth in the matter. y. How much would it cost your company to increase the wage of Public Meetings and Testimony 289 every girl now employed by you, from $6 a week to $10? A. Four times 25, isn’t it? Q. That would be $100 a week? A. $5,000 a year. Q. Were the profits of your company the last fiscal year not in excess of $5,000? A. Our profits? Q. Yes. A. Oh, yes. They have been somewhat better than that, of course. Q. What were your profits last year? A. Better refer back two or three years first, and then come up to the following year, and I will ; explain as to that. I Q. • We will be glad to get any figures regarding profits that you can give us? A. Three years ago we did not declare a dividend. The I reason was, we did not much more than simply hold our own. The next year, I do not exactly recollect, but I suppose we might have cleaned up something like $28,000. We have an investment there of about half a million dollars. Now, if you think that is a good investment, with the wear and tear on the investment, an investment of that amount, you can figure out whether we can afiford to raise the wages of employes or not. Q. Last year what were the profits? A. Last year was an unusual year. There was a shortage of twine, and as we were not, as a business house, established just like some of the others were, in the northwest, . we just simply asked the prices that people were willing to pay on a shortage season. It was not material to us whether they took the goods or did not. We could sell them anyway. I suppose we must have made a profit of about sixty thousand dollars that year. Q. $60,000? A. If you will take that amount and distribute it backwards to cover the last three years, when we did not make anything, ; I don’t suppose you could call that a very high average. Q. You had a profit of $60,000 last year and you have an investment of half a million? A. More than that. Q. What is your actual cash investment? A. You mean on the books? Q. Yes, sir. A. Last year it stood about $600,000. Q. How much cash did you put into the business? A. All of it. Q. $600,000? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then there is no watered stock or anything of that sort in your business? A. Not a dollar. In fact, there is a depreciation there on I the amount we put in, and it is not worth what was put in, on account of the wear and tear on the machinery. Q. In fixing your profit, I suppose you allowed a certain per cent for wear and tear? A. No, sir, we did not, on those years that I have mentioned. Q. That is included in the $60,000? A. The whole thing. I would be happier if I knew we had charged it off. Q. You say prices were pretty good in your line, last year? A. About the tail end of it. If you are not a\vare of the conditions, let me give you a little of the inside history. For instance, a railroad would come down or telegraph down that if we could have twelve cars of I twine at Minneapolis, they would give us as much as 12 cents a pound. The fact is, that the bankers and railroad folks were the people that were scouring the country for twine, in order to save the crops in the northwest, on account of the shortage in twine. I give you the illus- i tration to show you why it was because we were able to make more ■ money last year than in other years. Now every little while, if I may ; use the expression, we are catching H because we did do some things j that some of the rest did not, in the way of taking advantage of the , rising market in twine last year. Now, when we go back to get orders, i they hold this up against us. I am giving you a little of the inside facts 1 of our business, to show that when you are trying to save yourselves, i you are not always doing it in the right fashioned way, and you lose afterwards, i [ I 290 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I Q. Is there any sort of agreement among manufacturers regarding i prices? A. Not any that 1 know of, except this: The International, | as you know, are the ruling power on the question of twine, and the [ Plymouth Cordage Company of Plymouth, Massachusetts, comes next in ' size. When the International usually makes their open price known ; (for instance they made it known along about the first part of this month), then the Plymouth with only a small variation accepts it, then with such j a concern as ours we fall into line, because we are not dictators, we are I only followers. Q. You are not a party to any agreement? A. Not at all, but we 1 could not do any worse because it is bad enough as it is. 1 Q. Do you think an employer has any moral responsibifity for j women and girls who work for him? A. Well, I have always felt that i way, as to that proposition. 1 Q. Do you think that if a girl falls — even though there maj' not be very many perhaps, even though the proportion may be small, but if a girl does fall because she is being paid less than a living wage, i do you think the conscience of the employer should be bothered? A. Yes, I do. Q. The wear and tear on the girl is worthy of as much consideration as the wear and tear on the machinery? A. Yes, I have always so considered. Q. You made, last year, $60,000? A. Yes, sir. Q. According to your statement, to have increased the wages of every girl from ^ to $10 would cost $5,000. Would that not have been a good investment for you? A. Well, the answer would be simply this: that when the year was begun, we hadn’t anything in sight to give us a guarantee that the outcome at the close of the season would prove to be such as I have stated. Similarly, what there is now in store for us in the future, I cannot predict. So it is that so far as these things are concerned, I don’t know what to say or do in a matter of that kind. In my own opinion, I feel that we are paying all we can afford to pay. That is my honest opinion, taking things year in and year out. Now there you have, for instance, six hundred thousand dollars actually put in. Suppose you put that amount out in loans at 5 per cent, that would re- turn thirty thousand dollars. With the same investment I could earn that without being tormented with the mill. If it was today all mine I would rather do that, in fact, than to have the mill. You do not know how some women come to the office begging for work for their children at any old price almost. Not because we wanted to reduce the prices, but many, many times we have taken people in there that we did not want, just to help them along, because we listened to their stories. The conditions in the factories are quite different from the conditions in the dry goods stores and other places where girls have to dress and primp. We get experience along a different line. We have to do more with people who have been more closely pressed to make both ends meet, more closely pressed than these other folks are. Q. You touched upon one subject that interested me. It leads me to ask this question — would you favor some system of profit-sharing with your employes? A. There would be the condition, on what basis and how. You have got to protect your capital, haven’t you? Q. Unquestionably. A. If you had consulted me about two years ago, you could have come down to the works and have bought me out quite reasonably. Q. I am afraid I could not have purchased, at any price, for an obvious reason. A. I tell you, we are often in the soup when we would feel like getting out of it, but we have to stay. Whether the punishment is worse on the girls than us, I don’t know. If they don’t get what they think they ought to get, we certainly do not either. Some- times I feel like swapping with them a little while, to get rested up. Q. We are down here to co-operate with the employer and em- ploye. You have made a very fair and interesting witness. I want to compliment you and thank you for the frank way in which you have discussed this matter with us. We want to get your viewpoint and we Public Meetings and Testimony 291 |(vant you to suggest some possible remedy. You agree with us that [iomething must be done for our working girls? A. 1 agree with that. Q. And that low wages has a good deal to do with the vice question? K. With the environment; yes, sir. JUNIOR: I observed, in New Haven, Connecticut, five years ago, yhen in college, that out of 40 girls that had fallen, that were investi- gated, not one gave the excuse of low wages. Q. That was in New Haven? A. Yes, sir. The principal things hat cause a girl to fall, she gets her first drink with a man, and lax livorce laws cause a girl to get arr easy divorce, because she fancies iomebody else, and because she has been married she gets lax and falls )ack morally by easy stages, a fellow promises to marry and does not, nd such causes. SENATOR BEALL: You young fellows were then in school? A. if cs sir. SENATOR BEALL (to Senior): We have a bill before the general ssembly to make a minimum wage scale. The bill calls for a commission jO be appointed by the Governor, and to make up a scale. What do you jhirik would be a fair minimum wage scale for these people? We have sked this question in Chicago of a great many store managers and factory iwners. There are a great many people thinking about this problem. You re an old employer and I believe a good straight old fellow. What do !-ou say to us would be a fair minimum wage scale, if everybody had to pay It — not only you, but everybody in the State, or in the United States? A. i fhink a girl could get along very nicely with $8 a week, with conditions' as Ihey now prevail. I Q. The minimum scale? A. 1 am considering the girls in our em- 01 j'loy. 1 am not familiar with the amount of clothes they have to use in ther lines of work. I am not familiar with that. Q. Eight dollars a week, in your opinion, would be the minimum scale? U Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Senator Tossey, do you wish to ask any uestions? ■ , Senator Tossey: What penitentiaries make twine? I did not under- tand you as to that? A. Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kan- as, Missouri, Indiana, Michigan; and today my son is down in Lincoln, «eD., where he is trying to help fight the proposition of that state entering bto this line of manufacturing. I might as well tell you that; Nebraska is bnsidering now, the installation of machinery and the making of twine. S ’s Testimony. -, a witness summoned to appear before the Committee, eing first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as pllows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. j CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. C S . ' Q. What is your age? A. Eighteen the 12th of April. Q. You say you were born here in Peoria? A. No, sir. Q. Where were you born? A. Virginia, 111. I Q. You came to Peoria at what age? A. About 15. ] Q. Did you live here with your parents, at that time, when you came ere? A. No, sir. Q. You came here alone? A. I came here with a girl friend. Q. A girl friend from Virginia? A. From Galesburg. Q. You had previously lived at Galesburg? A. No, I was just there few days. And you met this girl at Galesburg? A. Yes, sir. For what purpose did you come to Peoria? A. For pleasure. Did you have any money? A. Yes. You had a considerable sum of money with you when you came? |L.. . ? Q. ! Q- 292 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee A. I did not have any considerable amount, I had some money. Q. Were you dependent upon your own efforts? A. Yes, sir. Q. You had to work? A. Yes, sir. Q. You did not have enough money to keep you going without work- ing? A. No, sir. Q. Did you find a job here in Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. With what concern, what company? A. A candy place. Q. What was the name of it? A. O. K. Candy Kitchen. Q. Where was that located? A. 1100 block in Main street. Q. What did you do there? A. Sold ice cream and candy. Q. How many hours a day did you work, when employed there? A. I began at 6 o’clock in the morning. Q. And worked until what time? A. Till 8 in the evening. Q. Serving ice cream and doing work of that nature from 6 in the morning till 8 at night? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much a week were you paid? A. $3.00. Q. Did you work Sundays, too? A. Yes, sir. Q. You were paid $3.00 a week, then, for seven days’ work, from 6 in the morning till 8 in the evening, is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did you continue working in the O. K. Candy Kitchen? A. I did not work there steady. 1 was sick and then went back. • Q. How long did you work there, all told? A. I could not say ex- actly. Q. Was it at least three months? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were you at that time a respectable girl, when getting $3.00 a w’eek? A. No, sir. Q. Were you sporting at that time? A. Yes, sir. Q. You w'ere working in that store and sporting at the same time? A. Yes, sir. Q. Could you live on $3.00 a week? A. No, sir. Q. Did the fact that you were not making more than $3.00 a week have anything to do with your sporting? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are you doing now? A. Training for a nurse. Q. Training to become a nurse? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Do you think if you had obtained a position of some kind at $8.00 or $10.00 a week, at a good trade, you would not have gone astray? A. I don’t think I would, no. Q. You think you would have remained straight? A. Yes, sir. Q. You believe that the $3.00 a week you were receiving would not support you, and you made your living otherwise? Yes, sir. Q. What became of the man you worked for in that candy place? A. Here in Peoria? Q. Yes, the one who ran this O. K. Candy Kitchen where you worked? A. His name was Ben Ketcham. Q. Is he here now? A. He is in the penitentiary. Q. He was sent to the penitentiary for having you there, was he? A. Yes, sir. Q. When did that happen? A. Last year. Q. Are you living a straight life now? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: When you went to work in, that candy kitchen, you thought it was a respectable place did you? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Did this man ask you to lead the life you did.' A. X^o, not when I first went there. Public Meetings and Testimony 293 Q. I mean later on, toward the last of j^our stay in that place? A. ii"es, sir. Q. He persuaded you, finally, to enter this life, the man you were yorking for? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you were living in that house, in the back part? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: What did you do before y'ou came to Peoria? \. I just lived home, and did housework, in Galesburg. Q. You were a nice girl then, were you? A. Yes, sir. ! Q. Your downfall was after you came here, was it then? A. Yes, Bir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The witness may be excused. Will the news- paper correspondents kindly refer to these unfortunate girls by initials only. In cases where girls are trying to lead better lives, especially, and to change their way of living, I ask of you that you protect them to the fullest extent. (Unanimous assent.) - P J ’s Testimony. P J , a witness summoned and appearing before the Com- mission, having been first duly sworn, by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CH AIRMAN O’HARA: \ Vhat is your name, please? A. P Q- How old are you? A. Seventeen last December, the 13th. Q. Where were you born? A. Peoria. Q. You have lived here all your life? A. Not all of my life. I have ' peen out in California part of the time. Q, You were born here and have traveled around somewhat? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you sporting now? A. No, sir. 11 ■' Q. Have you been? A. I have, yes, sir. , Q. How old were you when you first began sporting? A. Seventeen, —no sixteen. j;t'! Q. That is two years ago? A. A year ago last December. I Q. Will you tell the Committee something of your experience about [j that time? A. Well, I happened to be going with a friend of mine, and II the way girls go wrong, I fell into his ways and his ideas of things, and n after a time he got me to go hustling for him, as they call it. I SENATOR BEALL: In other words, you were soliciting for him? I A. Yes, sir. II Q. He received the money, mostly? A. Yes, sir. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You may proceed. What was his name? A. 5 Harry Serviss- — I don’t know just exactly how to spell it. Q. You did not keep the money you received from sporting, at that itime? A. No, I didn’t. He asked me for it and told me if I did not give it to him he would desert me, but if I did, he would spend it on me for ! pleasure and clothes afterwards. Q. You turned over all the money to him, all that you made? A. Yes, sir. d ' Q. How long did this continue? A. From about November 20th un- ; til some time in januarj^ — January 18th. Q. You hustled right here on the streets of Peoria during that time? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will j^ou kindly tell the Committee the name of the place to which you took the men you attracted on the streets? A. Well, I had a room. Q. Are your parents living? A. Yes, sir. 294 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Are they poor? A. Yes, sir. Q. They are not able to give you what some other girls have, a; much as some other girls are given by their people? A. That is correct yes, sir. Q. Did you ever work for wages? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where? A. Onken’s Laundry, and another place. Q. Where was that? A. Larkin’s. Q. Here in Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. What were you paid? A. Five dollars a week at Larkin’s and $5.00 a week at Onken’s Laundry. Q. Were you able to live respectably here in Peoria on $5.00 a week? A. Well, of course, I was staying with my parents, and was behaving my- self. I just gave the money I received every week as wages to my parents, and they kept me. Q._ You gave the entire $5.00 over to your parents ever}' week? A. Yes, sir. Q. That left you no part of the $5.00 for pocket money? A. If I ever wanted anything, I would ask them for it. If they possibl}' could spare the money, they would give it to me. Q. Sometimes, however, they could not spare the money for things? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That seems too often to be the state of affairs. Girls, who live at home and work, turn their w'ages into the homes, and they are allowed nothing of the money they earn for their own wishes or demands. SENATOR BEALL: This $5.00 a week would not have clothed you and paid your board, if you had been wholly dependent on your own re- sources? A. No, sir. Q. You went into this life because you thought you could dress better and could have a better living? A. Yes, sir. Q. This man persuaded you? A. Persuaded me to leave my home, yes. Q. Do you think that if you had been able to get a position that paid you $10.00 or $12.00 a w'eek, you would have led a straight life? A. Yes sir. Q. What do you think is the cause, mostly, of the downfall of girls, in your experience? Why do girls go astray, would you say? Do you think it is from want? Want of dress, and no place to live that is cheerful and attractive and comfortable? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: There might be some further questions asked if this were an executive session. I wdll waive them because of the publicity. CHAIRMAN O’HARA (to the witness): We wish you the best pos- sible luck. SENATOR BEALL: We all wish you happier days. Mr. Henry C. Block’s Testimony. HENRY C. BLOCK, a witness, summoned and appearing before the Committee, being first duly sworn b}' Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as follows: MR. BLOCK: Gentlemen, while I have been summoned to appear before you, I would like to inform you at the outset that Mr. Carl Block is the secretary of the company, and has more to do with the matters you are concerned with than I have, and is better informed on such matters. SENATOR BEALL: I did not just understand your statement, Mr. Block. MR. BLOCK, SR.: Mr. Carl Block is the secretary of our com- pany, and he has more to do with the help. He has all the figures, and he is a member of the company, too. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We will examine 3 -ou first, Mr. Block (Se- nior) and then we will call upon Mr. Carl Block afterward. Public Meetings and Testimony 295 j (Senator Beall administers oath to Mr. Carl Block, who takes a seat ! beside this witness.) i EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Henry C. Block. Q. Your business? A. Dry good.s Q. With what concern? A. A. Schipper & Block. Q. In Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Qi What is your position? A. President. Q. It is a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. An Illinois corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you the largest stockholders in the company of Schipper & Block? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you familiar with the wages paid by that concern to girls and I women? A. No, I have not the exact figures, and I do not carry them in my head. Q. In a general way you are familiar with the wages paid? A. No, I I am not familiar enough to say what is paid to any particular employe at the present time, with certainty, but our secretary has that information and can furnish it. Q. Is your secretary present at this time? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will he come forward? * (Mr. Carl Block indicated by the witness.) Q. O, yes, you are the gentleman referred to by this witness, the sec- retary of the corporation known as Schipper & Block? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have been sworn? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you father and son? A. (By Mr. Block, Senior): He is my 1 , nephew. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: This is a question I would like you to answer. I What was the net profit of your corporation during the last fiscal year? i MR. BLOCK, SR.: I would like to consult our legal counsel before [ answering that. I Q. You have read in the newspapers something of the work of this I Committee in the City of Chicago, prior to this time? A. Well, not espe- 1 dally. I did notice something about it. I Q. You did see something in the newspapers about the matter? A. I Yes, in a casual wajL |, Q. Have you been to Chicago in the last week or ten days? A. Yes, sir, I was up there very recently, because Ave had a meeting. " Q. Was it a trade meeting? A. We had a meeting of the corpora- I tion, of the stockholders of our concern. It had nothing to do Avith the I dry goods trade, especially. I Q. Are you acquainted Avith Mr. Simpson, avIio is the vice-president of the concern known as Marshall Field & Company? A. Yes, sir. Q. You saAV him during your recent visit to the CitA^ of Chicago? A. ,Yes, sir, I saw him then for the first time in my life. Q. At that meeting, did the subject of this Committee come up for discussion? A. Yes, sir. Q. What Avas said? A. Well, we didn’t talk very long. He told j me about the question that was put to him, asking him to testify about the profits of the concern, is about all, and that he had asked to be excused, as he wanted to see the attorneys, and the answer had been, I don’t know why, the answer had been that be need not answer any sucli question be- fore this committee, because they were not acting in that capacity in what they were doing now, and any private questions that were asked, about what concerns were earning as net profits. Avould not have to be ansAvered. I do not know much about it. I didn’t talk over tAvo minutes Avith him, all I together, and that is about all that was said. 296 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. He said that the State street stores in Chicago had consulted an attorney? A. He did not tell me that. Q. He did not mention any attorney, or firm of attorneys b3' name? A. Yes. Q. What attorney did he mention? A. Mr. Wilson. Q. Of Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did he say about Mr. Wilson and the State street stores, in general? A. Nothing more than what I have just said, that ^^Ir. Wilson had told him that this body had no right whatever to ask these questions, in the capacity in vvhich they were acting. Now, I don’t know anything much about law, and I did not ask about it especially. 1 might have gone at it in a different way and found out something further, possibly, or been able to state the basis more definitely. I did not have much time and I did not go into it. Q. This is the first time you had seen Mr. Simpson of Field & Co.? A. Yes. A Q. Have Marshall Field & Company any interest in your store? A. No, sir, none whatever. Q. Do you buy from them? A. Yes. Q. Are your relations with Marshall Field & Co. confined to buying goods? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have they ever offered you advice on matters of business policj’? A. No, sir. Q. This is the first time? A. I happened just to be sitting there, with a salesman, and he said, “I would like to make you acquainted with Mr. ,” what’s his name? Q. Simpson? A. Simpson, yes. I didn’t know him till then. He said “Mr. Simpson is our vice-president.’’ MR. BLOCK, JR.: I might state that something was being said, as a matter of information, about certain store machinerfq upon one occasion, and on various occasions, in regard to an\'thing, where we have been going through the store, and noticed anj-thing new in the way of machiner3' fix- tures, or whatever it was, they alwa3's have given us, if we asked it, their advice and opinion. Q. Extending 30U the usual business courtes3' in such matters? Yes, sir; that is all. Q. But this is the first time they have favored 3'ou with advice of a legal nature? A. (Senior): No. Years ago, I asked them when we wanted to know about a certain road, the Lake Street Elevated Road. He took me to one of the men in the office. I do not remember his name, and he told me all about it, and some small matters have come up, and we have been visiting them or doing business with them for about fift3’ 3-ears, so there might be some things coming up like that. I couldn’t tell 3’ou now. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Then 30U refuse to answer, at this time, the question concerning the profits of 3-our business during the last fiscal 3-ear? A. Yes, sir. I haven’t seen an3- lawyer about it here since I heard of it in Chicago, and so I want to have the advice of 013- law3-er. Q. On that point you desire to be consistent with the stand taken by Marshall Field & Compan3' and other merchants in Chicago? A. Y'ell, I didn’t know of any other merchants that took that stand. I don’t know now. Q. Now, how man3' girls and women are emplo3-ed in 3-our store in Peoria? I imagine the 3'oung man will answer that. MR. BLOCK, JR.: Two hundred and sevent3--nine. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any- girl working in your store? A. We have nine girls who have come in as errand girls, to learn the busi- ness. They live at home, and came in at the instance of their parents. Y e have two girls who come in at noon to wait on table for about two hours, sometimes it is longer, but usually for two hours. They- receive their din- ner and $ 3.50 a week. Public Meetings and Testimony 297 Q. What do those nine girls classed as errand girls receive? A. Four dollars a week. Q. The next class is what? A. The next class are also errand girls, and relief inspectors. They are graduated from the errand girl stage to the relief inspector stage. Their functions are to relieve the inspectors or wrappers while they are off duty at noon, and during such time in the morning or afternoon as they have absent leave from their departments. Q. How much do you pay girls of the class you are talking about now? A. There are 12, at $4.50. Q. They work how many hours? A. The usual number, eight and one-half. • Q. Eight and one-half every day? A. Except Saturday. Saturday they work ten — no, nine hours. Q. How many girls at $5.00 a week? A. Twenty-nine at $5.00. Q. At $5.50? A. We have two at $5.50. Q. How many at $6.00? A. Twenty-two. Q. What is the next class? Six dollars and a half? A. Six at $6.50. Q. How many at $7.00? A. Thirty-four. Q. At $7.50? A. Seven. Q. At $8.00? A. Thirty-three. Q. How many are getting more than $8.00 a week, now? A. I shall have to add it up. There is one at $8.50, and 123 from $9.00 up, up to $35.00. Q. Then something over half your girls get $8.00 or less, over half your girls receive less than $8.00? A. Yes, sir. Pardon me, that Q. Yes? A. Is not correct. I beg your pardon. There are 123 that get $8.50 and over. There are 33 who get $8.00. Q. One hundred and twenty-four, though, that get less than $8.00? A. I will tell you in a moment. Q. One hundred and twenty-three get less than $8.00? A. Yes, less than that. One hundred and fifty-seven get $8.00 and over, 123 get less than $8.00. Q. We will consider the 123 that get less than $8.00. Do you believe that an employer has some moral responsibility for an employe? A. Yes, I do; but I think in many instances that moral responsibility receives atten- tion at his hands. Q. Now, feeling that there is some moral responsibility, you have conducted an investigation, have you, into the matter of the cost of living of the employe? A. Yes, I have inquired from a number of girls who receive salaries from $7.00 to $12.00 or $15.00 a week what their cost of living is. Q. Have you ever inquired about it of those girls who get less than $7.00? A. I don’t think I have for this reason — because they are not de- pendent upon that wage for their living, entirely. I am giving you my experience. You cannot disagree with me on my experience. I will tell jou exactly what they have told me about it. Q. Let us have your information on that subject. A. I have found that the average cost of board and room among girls in Peoria is about $5.50 a week. Q. Room and board? A. There are some who manage to live on as low, I have found, as $3.00 a week, that is for board alone; but I do not believe that they could live, year in and year out, on that amount, without suffering. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: Board is $5.50, you think? A. Five dollars and a half is not the minimum, but above the average, and I will tell you why, a number pf our people live at a certain boarding house, which is almost adjacent. I don’t know if you can see it, the Franklin House. Some of our employes who receive as much as $50.00 to $60.00 a month live there. 298 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee and pay $5.00 a week for board and room. What they pay for clothing depends entirely upon their inclination and stipend, of course. Q. What does it cost these girls to dress, in your opinion? A. I should say that the average is $1.00 a week, possibly a little more. Q. Is that a good fair average, Mr. Block? Can a girl dress herself pretty well on that, well enough to appear in the store and look neat? A. O, yes. There are many who spend more than that. They can afford to spend more than that. Q. We do not care about the girl who can afford to spend more. We want to know about the girl who can merely spend enough. A. No doubt there are a good many girls in our employ wjio are clothed on less than that, because in their homes their mothers make things over for them and con- tribute to the cost of their clothes, in that way. Q. A girl’s laundry work costs some money — how much, say? A. (Senior): Most of them do it themselves. Q. The girls themselves do it? A. Yes, sir; I know that a good many do that, in that way. M^e close at 5:30, and a girl who is of a saving nature will do those things herself. She does not want to be on the streets, and she wants to appear neat, so she does it herself. Q. She gets home at half past five, after working all day, and does her washing? A. Yes, sir; she has nothing else to do. A girl who wants to be neat, soon finds there are simple things in the way of laundry of her own things, and mending, that she can do in the evening very well, and still have time for amusement left. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: One of our witnesses who testified at the hearings in Chicago stated that 25 cents a week was a fair allowance for a working girl’s laundry expense. We were amused when we received from Philadelphia a letter, signed by some two or three hundred girls working in one of the large department stores, asking the name of the woman who would do laundry work for 25 cents a person per week, stating that if they could get her name and address they would send the work out west to her, prepaid, by the parcel post. MR. BLOCK, SR.: Yes, they do it themselves. I do not say that all of the girls do it, but it can be done, especially in cases where they get home at half-past five o’clock. I asked a good many of our employes when I heard of these matters. Q. How many of the girls do you think do their own washing? A. I don’t know the number. Q. Quite' a number, you think? A. I just heard of it; heard of it from the girls, yes. MR. BLOCK, JR.: Of course, I know that many of the girls do it themselves, or it is done home, because nearly all of our girls live at home. When a girl comes to us for work, the question is asked where she lives. If the girl is entirely dependent upon what she earns for a living, we tell her frankly that unless she is capable of earning at least $8.00 a week, she better not assume the problem. It is always a great problem to educate a girl up to the point where she can support herself at all, and our experience and policy has been, that unless a girl is capable of earning $8.00 a week, after she has been with us long enough to understand the detail and rou- tine of the work she is doing, we hav'e made a bad bargain in hiring that girl, and the sooner we replace her with some one who is ambitious, who is capable, cheerful and energetic, and loyal, the better off we will be. It is a great expense to every business to bring a girl up to that state where she can earn enough to clothe, feed and shelter herself. It does not seem exactly right that a child — a girl si.xteen years old is only a child — who is suddenl}^ thrust upon her own resources, should become a ward of any business. It is a very unfortunate circumstance when a girl between six- teen and twenty years old finds it necessary to support herself, without any assistance, without any friends, and it seems to me it is the duty of the community, through some adequate agency, to look after those girls Public Meetings and Testimony 299 as they do after other dependent classes, morally and physically, for her best welfare, until she is in a position to look after her physical and moral welfare herself, and competent to do so. It is in that critical period of the girl’s life that she is subjected to these temptations. It is not, in most cases, I think, due to the fact that she has to have more money than she is being paid, in order to live, that she is forced to commit a crime or induced to commit a crime. I will state, as an illustration of this, the fact that every girl I can recall, who was ever detected in a theft, in our employ, did not steal articles which were in the nature of necessities. I can call your attention to a girl I will refer to as Ethel. For a girl of sixteen or seventeen years old, it was perfectly astonishing to look over the number and class of articles that girl stole. She had several bracelets, she had rings, she had a watch, bangles, everything was some article of jewelry, for which she could have no use at all, in the way of necessity, and on which she had not tried to realize any money. Day before yesterday a girl about seventeen years old — she was not employed by us, however — was detected in the act of theft. She had stolen three willow plumes, valued possibly at $12.00 to $15.00, very showy plumes, entirely out of keeping with the costume she was wearing. I might say that this matter you are investigating has, to sopie extent, had our attention for many years past. At different times I have gone into the conditions that exist in regard to these various girls. I will speak particularly of one case, where a girl ran away from home and was married. Her husband lost employ- ment. They had been very short of money, and she told me that she did not have a cent. So I asked, “What were you going to do with the plumes?” The reply was that she was going to wear them. I asked, “Were you not going to sell the plumes?” and she said, “No.” There are two typical cases in which the poverty-stricken condition of these girls cer- tainly did not contribute to their crimes, in the sense of a lack of the necessities of life. It was not a determining factor in either crime. They stole to obtain articles they did not need. I might cite your attention to another girl, who was declared delinquent, together with another girl who had worked for us. Q. She was her partner? A. She was not her partner, but she was sent to the girls’ reformatory institution at Geneva at the same time. Last Monday morning it was reported that she was absent. We did not think anything about it in particular until we investigated it, and then we found that the girl had been sent to the jail and was in the custody of the police matron. She had got into trouble, it happened, had drank, stayed away from home all night. Her parents investigated and found that she had become wayward. We investigated the circumstances of both of these girls and found that their parents permitted them to retain their savings, and thought the girls were putting them in the bank. I think it is very necessary, in struggling with these problems, as far as they concern the department store, to take into consideration the evolution of the depart- ment store. It has been a comparatively new proposition in the com- mercial field. The evolution has been slow and experimental, and today the expenses and statistics have been figured to an extent that now enables most department stores to make a living. Up to this time they have been primarily interested in building up their business and endeavoring to put the business on a stable footing, rather than the making of profits as would be the direct aim in a manufacturing or other well-established business. Q. You say primarily they have been interested in building up their stores? A. They have had to be. It was a struggle. Q. Having built up their establishments, you believe one of their chief concerns now will be, perhaps, in looking into the conditions of the girls? A. That is exactly what I want to bring out. It has taken courage, ability and intelligence to rear these vast structures, and I think that practically all people admit they are a benefit in modern life, in convenience and economy, and that they have demonstrated their fitness CO live, because they are a benefit. They have not made their advance at the expense of the small retailer. Statistics will prove that there are more small dealers today in the ratio to the large department store than there ever were at any previous time. More energy, ability and courage can be enlisted in your cause if you go at it in the right way. I don’t think there 300 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee is any employer who does not appreciate the fact that conditions of hiS lielp are going to affect the efficienc}' of his business by means of the reactionary effect upon the value of the work done by his employes. I want you to picture this situation. I bring it up because it is the one thing that has been referred to especially, in connection with the depart- ment store — perhaps more than any other one thing. It is malicious. It has done us a great deal of harm. In the instance of your own homes, when a girl comes to apply for a position in the kitchen, even though the ques- tion of morals does not directly enter into the question at all, would the housewife figure she was going to get more efficiency from a girl who was getting $3.00 a week, and was out on the street at nights adding to her income, than she w’ould receive from a girl by paying her $5.00 and requiring her to be home, or in other moral surroundings in her leisure time? The same thing is true in our business. We know that a girl cannot go out and make money in any way, in the remaining hours of the day, legitimately or illegitimately, and still give her work luring the day the right attention, and retain her health and efficiency. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: You speak of the girl being out nights. You find that out, don’t you? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do you do? A. Well, we simply cannot keep a girl of that kind. We cannot afford to keep her. The other girls will not harbor a girl of that kind in their midst. Q. It is reported to you? A. Not by the girls who are guiltj' of immoral conduct, but the girls with whom they come in contact. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Have you any other way of finding out? A. If it becomes generally known, it comes to our attention, and often people who are' customers of our house, and who are anxious to help us to keep up a high personality of employes, will let us know about these things. SENATOR BEALL: Hillman’s, in Chicago, keeps a lady doctor, and she makes a practice of going around and talking to the girls, and get- ting them to reform, if they are of that kind. Thej- are going to put on a man, who is a detective, j'ou might say. The lady doctor will report to this detective, and he will shadow them and find out if it is really so, and then take the girls up before her and give them a good talking to. Do you endorse that? A. We try to exercise as close supervision as possible, and at the present time we are negotiating with a woman to take just such a position, because we recognize the excellence of the idea. It is very difficult to get such a woman. We call her a welfare woman. It is dif- ficult to get a woman who can act in that capacity and look after the responsibilities of that position, because they are great. L^nless workers of that class can get close to the girls, can actually get the confidence of the girls, there is nothing accomplished that is of benefit. In connection with the fact that it has been popularly supposed, in fact, has been stated on what purported to be very good authority, that some department stores presume that a girl will make enough to support herself “on the outside,” so to speak, in addition to what they pay her, and they take advantage of that condition to pay girls very low wages, I want to say that this is what might be called a popular fable. It has been attributed to the largest store in each city of fair size for over a generation. The statement was made by a professor of sociology in Yale. It is surprising the class of people who will exhume this ancient myth and attempt to voice it as an original discovery. SENATOR BEALL: V’e do not think that is true of department stores. JL^NIOR: I am merelj- telling you how these stories become cur- rent. The statement was taken up before the National Dry Goods Associa- tion at a recent convention, in which the welfare problem was probably the most important proposition discussed. It was ascribed to a New York clergyman, who stated he had been shown, in a New York depart- ment store, a list of j^oung men who were willing to contribute to the support of girls. That picturesque lie was nailed in the head by the Public Meetings and Testimony 301 I National Civic Association of New York, an association that is conducting exactly the same work that this Committee has before it at this time. I had a talk with Miss Gertrude Weeks, who was at that time the secretary of the association. She told me that she had investigated conditions in nineteen of the largest department stores in New York, and she could absolutely refute the statement that such a condition existed, and that any cognizance was had on the part of the proprietors of department stores of any immorality occurring in their midst. SENATOR BEALL: Don’t you think that girls who are working for $3.00 or $4.00 a week, on which they can hardly subsist, are more I liable to go astray, and to yield to temptation, than girls getting $12.00 a : week? A. It may be that they are more liable to do that, but our experi- ; ence has. been that the reality is, with girls who commit crimes the wages were not a factor and the articles not taken to be sold. Q. This girl took the jewelry, you think, for the fun of stealing, and ! she was not going to sell it, you feel sure? A. Well, it is a problem. You don’t know why they do it. I don’t know why she did it. I might cite the problem of two of the girls who appeared before the Committee ; during the session here this morning. I don’t think it is fair to allow the impression to go out that their misfortunes were due to receiving low i wages. The first girl wTo worked from 6 to 8 o’clock every day in the i week entered, in fact, a notorious assignation house, a house of prostitution. Q. She said it was a candy store. A. Well, everybody in town knows what it is. It is harder fair to say the girl entered into a house because the wages she received were not enough to support her. I Q. What about the second girl? A. Well, to take the case of the second girl, also. It is not fair to say that the wages paid were not enough. She admitted that she gave everything she made to the man who caused her to solicit and to do wrong. If she made as much as $20.00 in a week, she would give it all to the man. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: She did not give her wages to the man; it I was the proceeds of solicitation she gave him. A. The point was brought out that she was forced to solicit. SENATOR BEALL: She was home, earning wages, and giving it to her parents, before this young man induced her to leave home and made ' her go on the street and solicit for money. A. She was not prostituting ' herself on account of the wages. So it is hardly fair to allow that impres- sion to go out. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. t CHAIRMAN O’FIARA: You stated that the Committee should co- : operate with the employers. That is your view of the matter? A. Yes, J sir. Ij Q. You believe that is the purpose of this Committee? A. Yes, sir. Q. To co-operate with the employers and employes? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. May I ask you what the net profits of your company were during the last year? A. I don’t know the amount, offhand. Q. Do you know roughly? A. I know that if we make an ordinary I interest return on the business we handle, we think we are very fortunate. ! Q. Do you know, roughly speaking, what the profits of the business I were during the last year? A. I would not say. I don’t know, exactly, j Q. I want to ask you if you think you are co-operating with this I Committee in withholding that information? A. I tell you, I am not in [ position to give it if I wanted to, so I am not opposing the Committee in I not having the ability to state. i CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I am asking that of you, as a typical em- I ployer. This Committee has been told that the matter of low wages has something to do with the girls’ downfall. We have had girl after girl, of different types, and we have had social workers tell us that. Then, we want to find out from the employers their profits, in order that we may determine from the actual statistics whether they can afford to pay the girls living wages. We ask that question of you, of your firm, and you 302 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee refuse to_ answer. Then at the same time you talk about the theory of co-operation. We are very glad to have the theory in our record and very glad to hear it, but we insist, at the same time, that you are not co-operat- ing with this Committee unless you give us the information which we have a right to get from you if we use the full power vested in this Committee. So far, this Committee is trying to co-operate, and the em- ployers who refuse to tell us their profits are not co-operating. MR. BLOCK, JR.: It seems to me, Mr. O’Hara, if I may venture the suggestion, that there are many ways, more fundamental ways, and ways of much greater importance, in which we can co-operate than by disclosing matters which are of a fiduciary nature. The things we actually could do for the employes in connection with this Committee, to create a better condition, will be more substantial in their nature than can be accomplished by giving out information which is of necessity of a private nature and should only be given out to our board of directors. Q. You are employing, roughly speaking, 100 girls at less than $6.50 a week, which amount you have just given as 3'our figures to pay for room, board and clothing? A. They do not have to depend on that. We figure that as an element. Q. How do you know that? A. We have that much interest in our girls we find it out. Q. You have 100 girls working for less than $6.50. How old are they? A. I cannot answer. Q. The range, generally. A. Afostly under twentj% although some of them might be forty. Q. Has any girl now getting $6.50, or under, worked for your estab- lishment longer than two years, would j'ou say? A. I don’t think so. Q. You say that two years is the average period of service? A. Average period? Q. Yes. A. No. I could not answer that question at all. Q. These girls, I take it from your statement, most of them are under twenty? A. Yes, sir. Q. Most of them live home? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the legal age of a woman? A. Nineteen, I believe. (Voices: eighteen.) Q. Some of these women getting $6.50 a week are above the legal age? A. O, yes. Q. Now, does it make any difference, as a matter of fact, whether she lives at home with her people or whether she goes out, rents a room and pays for her board? A. Yes, it does. I think that is the determining factor. Until you differentiate along that line, I think you cannot ac- complish the object for which >'ou seek, and I will tell you whj'. The girl who is adrift, who has not a home and its moral protection, is the girl who is exposed. It is not the girl at home. It is a good deal more necessary, it seems to me, to give added protection to the girl who is adrift some manner of adequate protection than it is to give protection to the girl at home. I would rather see legislation passed which gave $1.00 a week more to the girl who is adrift, than to the girl who is at home, who does not need it as much; in fact, may not need it at all. Q. Then you believe the home should _bear part of the burden of supporting people who give all their productive time to building up your business and making jmur profits? A. I think it is just like a bird blown out of a nest Q. Let us talk about the girls and let the birds go. A. It is analagous. When the girl is sixteen, she is still a child and unable to support herself. She is a ward of the business. Q. Are you running it as a charity or a business? A. As a business, but at the same time we have to consider the welfare of the emploj'es. Q. Do you lose money on the girl to whom 3'ou pa3- $6.00 a week? A. I think we do, in man3^ cases. Q. On the girl you pay $4.50, 3^011 lose money? A. Not on that girl, because she is running errands. She is not given any responsibilit3’ until Public Meetings and Testimony 303 she has had a chance to familiarize herself with the routine of the business. Q. Let us get down to the general rule. You hire a girl at $5.00, $6.00 and $7.00. Do you consider you are going to make money out of her work or lose money on her, and if you are going to lose money, why would you hire her? A. No, sir; we don’t expect to lose, except up to a certain point. MR. BLOCK, Senior: If you will allow me CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Yes, we would like your observation on that point MR. BLOCK, Senior: A good many girls, and young men, too, arc hired as a sort of apprentices. They are taken in to learn the business. We' keep them — for instance, if the girl is paid as low as $4.00 and $4.50 — under observation. If any of the girls come, any time of the year, and say, “Mr. Block, we ought to have a little more money,’’ that is noted. We have a record of their work. A good many of these girls are sales- women. The wages they get and the percentage is recorded. In other words, we know what it costs us to sell goods, as far as it concerns that one person. If the girls do sell enough so that we can afford to pay 6 per cent, or 5 per cent, or 7 per cent, we are satisfied; but if any girls sell so very little that instead of it costing 5 per cent, it costs, say, 8 per cent, we let them go, because wo would be losing money on them continually. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is exactly what I am trying to get at. If you lose money on a girl you let the girl go? A. First we give her a warning, unless she does better. Q. You are very just to her; but if you lose money on her, you let her go? A. Every six months, if nobody comes with a request for more money, we go over the records of the girls, anyway, or even oftener, whenever it is thought necessary, but twice a year in any event this is done. We go over the figures for all those girls, what they earn and what their percentages are. We observe that she comes down from 6 and 7 per cent, that she sells so much it costs only 5 or 4 per cent, and she gets, without asking for it, an increase in the amount of her wages. Then, on a good many articles, if they sell so much, as an Incentive, we give a percentage on the profit. We say, “If you sell $2,000, what you sell over $2,000, besides your weekly wages, you get on those sales 4 or 5 per cent extra on all you sell above that line.’’ We do that in order to get better work from our help, and the better feeling of the heln also. I feel always better when anybody does well in our employ. I feel badly when an employe is so inefficient that we cannot pay more wages, because the best help is the cheapest help in the end. MR. BLOCK, Junior: Invariably so. MR. BLOCK, Senior: I have been a clerk myself. Three 3 '^ears I worked for nothing; I got my board. SENATOR BEALL: We have a bill in the General Assembly to create a commission to fix a minimum price for women. MR. BLOCK, Senior: What is that? EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: The minimum wage; that is, the lowest legal wage. What do you think would be a fair price to make the minimum wage? I do not mean little young girls, but young women. What do you think would be the minimum, so they could be properly fed and housed, and dressed properly, and have a little amusement? I mean to be pre- scribed universally, all over the State, not only in your store, but in every other establishment of that kind. MR. BLOCK, Senior: That would necessarily have to be uniform, otherwise it would throw us out of competition with others. I should say they ought to have $8.00. Q. _ Eight dollars a week? A. If they are not worth $8.00 they are not desirable help. If we had them any length of time, and we could not give them that much, we would let them go. There is just where the difficulty comes in. They are not worth to a business, in many cases, $8.00, 304 Report of the Ielinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR BEALL: What is the lowest wages that you pay? A. Four dollars. We could do without them, because they only run errands. Q. Would you not have to use someone else for their work? A. No, sir. Q. Suppose you should advance them $1.00 a week, would it hurt your profits any, or the dividends to be paid annually on your stock? A. We have it on the percentage basis, on the clerks who sell. If we can pay them 5 per cent on their sales, we do that. If we have to pay them 8 per cent, we lose 3 per cent. Q. That does not exactly answer my question. If the State Legisla- ture should pass a law, making the minimum wage $8.00, do you think j-ou could afford to pay that, on the profits you are making on your sales of goods — do you think you could afford it? A. If the woman is worth it. Q. You would not keep her if she is not worth it. Could j-ou afford to pay it to good girls? A. If they can make it they get it now, without any law at all. Q. You say you are paying some girls in your store only $4.00? A. A girl that brings out packages is only worth $4.00. We could not afford to pay her $8.00. Q. Could you pay her; that is, the girl who is getting $4.00 — could you afford to pay her $5.00 a week? A. They mostly are getting what they are worth. I cannot say what a girl is worth as I sit here. I do not know if she is worth $5.00. I would want to find it out by testing her. Q. You have the right to hire and discharge? A. Yes, sir. Q. In your judgment they are all right when you hire them? A. Yes, sir. Q. Could you afford, on your present profits, to increase that girl from $4.00 to $5.00 or $6.00 on your present profits? A. Yes. Q. That is all I want to know — j^ou could afford to do it? A. Yes, but it is always done, anyway, if the girl earns it. MR. BLOCK, Senior: The only difficulty is that it is impracticable in some of its aspects. That is the question. I want to help my emploj'es. I give them all they are worth. SENATOR BEALL: The reason you see such a lot of members of the Senate and House present here today is because they are especially interested in this matter, and they will have to vote on the pending bill. MR. BLOCK, Senior: Let me ask this question: If j-our law makes it, say, $10.00 a week, or $8.00 a week, and a girl is not worth it. She will lose her position, surehq if she is not worth it. Instead of helping that class of people, you will do them harm, because in many cases they will not be able to get such positions as they are competent to fill._ Thej- will be incompetent to fill the places upon which there is a minimum wage they cannot earn. SENATOR TOSSEY: You could figure it as apprentice wages. MR. BLOCK, Senior: Some goods can be sold at 5 per cent profit. There are other expenses that figure in it, however. If the girl cannot fill the position for which you demand $8.00, she falls down in the scale and she will not get anything. ^Ye would not pa}’ her $8.00, and she loses her position. SENATOR BEALL: Up to two years a.go I was engaged in the manufacturing business. At that time I retired from active business. Our factory paid a union scale. Everj’thing had a fixed union scale. Every April we sign up a scale of wages for that year, and we do not have any strikes or kicking for more wages. It goes on for a year under that set scale. Wouldn’t you rather have a scale of wages, and you have the privilege of hiring and discharging whom you pleased, having a minimum scale of wages, than to have it like it is, with the help running from one store to another and inquiring for bigger wages, and going as it is now? MR. BLOCK, Senior: I guess that is so. You are a business man. SENATOR BEALL: You bet I am. I am a common every-day blacksmith, is what I am. Public Meetings and Testimony 305 I -I MR. BLOCK, Senior; Doesn’t a practical business man know the : Value of his help better than any committee? • ' SENATOR BEALL: I am with you on that; yes, sir. If the employe I s not worth good wages, we don’t want him. ill MR. BLOCK, Senior: The majority of the business men I believe i Want to do justice. If they don’t, they can’t get good help. We know t fetter, with our system. I can give you the figures, every day’s record, oi what a girl’s sales are and the percentage. We can send that record ' iiere to you, and show it all the way through. We know, for that reason, , fetter what a girl is worth than you would. SENATOR BEALL: I suppose you are a self-made man, are you? A. Yes, sir. Q. You started at the bottom of the ladder? A. Yes, sir. i SENATOR BEALL; I was talking with Ed. Hillman at Chicago the other day and he said he worked for $2.50 a week and slept on the counter, but those days have gone by and things have changed. : MR. BLOCK: Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever work for $2.50 a week? A. I came over in the steerage, so I commenced very low, and I am not ashamed of that fact. ! MR. BEALL: Neither am I. j CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Take the girls, working all over this coun- try, in stores and factories, in many cases the wages they are getting range from $3.00 to $5.00 a week. Would you not agree they should receive more wages in order that their incomes should meet at least the actual :cost of living? A. But, my dear sir, we can get help that live at home, iand the girl has a good home. We can pay such a girl $6.00. There are (hundreds of places here in Peoria where thej' pay from $4.00 to $8.00 to the servant girl, and the girls have a fine home, a better home than they can get at $8.00. Honest labor is no disgrace. ' SENATOR BEALL: My wife is paying a girl $5.00 a week and her ^board and room, and the stores do not pay it, nor the factories. Ii MR. BLOCK. Senior; Why don’t they go into the homes when they nhave no home? Honest work is certainly no disgrace. EXAMINATION RESUMED BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Is there any girl who is getting $6.50 a week that you could afford to pay $10.00 a week to, and still make money from her -services — is there one girl? A. I don’t think so. We try to make it as nearly equitable as it is possible to make it. There might be one or two cases overlooked, but as Mr. Henry Block has said, every six months he looks over the salary list — and in the meantime the superintend- ent is giving it constant attention. Q. It is a cold-blooded proposition? You are paying the girl what she is worth, no more and no less? You are paying her what is just and fair, but it is a cold-blooded proposition? A. A matter of salary. Q. It is a cold-blooded proposition, and, being such, have you any right to inquire whether the girl lives at home or whether she lives some- where in a rented room? A. I think we have, yes. Q. What right? A. Because we recognize, the same as you do, if a girl has to support herself she cannot do it on less than $8.00. If she comes to us and has not had an}^ experience, we know she is not worth $8.00. We tell the girl she should seek a position in a home, and lay up enough money to accept a position for less than that and gradually work up in this field, if she wants to enter it. There are many positions open to a girl, if she has no experience in our line of business, where she can support herself and save something toward entering some more congenial work. Every professional man has to go through a period when he is not self-supporting by his earnings in his profession. Q. If she is living at home, you pay her less than what you consider is a minimum living wage? A. If we think there is a future for hor, we try to teach her the business. Otherwise we would not consider her at any price. 306 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. If you thought in your judgment there was a future for her — not inquiring what that future migfrt be — and she is living at home, you will take her services and pay her less than what you know to be a minimum living wage? A. Yes, sir; if you put it that way. Q. These girls are less than twenty, some of them are they not? A. Yes, sir. Q. Most are under twenty? A. That would be my opinion. Q. There might be some above? A. Some might be forty. Q. Some above legal age, perhaps? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, when you accept a girl and pay her less than the minimum wage, you naturally expect the home from which she comes to make up the amount of the deficit in her support? A. Yes, sir. Q. In other words, that home is paying something toward the up- keep of your business? A. No, sir. Q. No? A. There are many cases where the amount the girl re- ceives is the alternative of no income for her. Where there are two or three girls in a family, and the mother is a widow, and has some other work to make a living. Those two girls make it possible, if they make $5.00 or $6.00 as wages, with the mother’s help, for the family to live, and the mother alone, if she had to do it unaided, could not support the house- hold, or at least, if the girls could not get a position, even at $6.00, they would all be much poorer. They live, really, on the wages of the two girls, and the mother often stays at home. Q. Do you conceive that the homes from which these girls come are as poor as the girls themselves? A. I don’t understand. Q. You say in effect that the home must pay part of the support of those girls. Don’t you think the homes, in most cases, are as poor as the girls who come from such homes? In other words, if the girls did not come from poor homes they would not be at work for wages as small as they receive? A. It is presumed the family needs the girl’s help or she would not be working. Q. We are talking about co-operation, and that is the aim of the questions that have been asked you. Don’t you think a day has come in this country when any girl or woman who works, no matter whether she lives at home or in a rented room, is entitled to and will receive enough money to pay all her living expenses? Don’t you think that day is coming very soon? A. No, I do not. I will answer that question in this wa}". While we pay inexperienced girls who come to us to learn clerking, and who begin such work in our store for the first time, practically, $6.00 a week — I do not think we take a girl at less than that; that is, a grown-up girl who is competent to clerk and should learn it readily — we would rather pay that same girl $8.00 a week experienced than to pay her $4.00 inexperienced if we could get her for $4.00. While we are paying $6.00 I we would far rather have an experienced girl at $8.00. Q. In the old days of black slavery the slave received, in return for his time and industry, his clothing, his food and his living in general. i Now, under these conditions, don’t you conceive it to be a fact that these girls, who are getting less than a living wage, are getting less than the black slave got in the old days of race bondage? A. No, sir. I do nol follow your line of reasoning at all. Q. You do not follow my line of reasoning? A. No, sir. Q. And yet you are paying girls $5.00 a week, and know it costs her $6.50, or $7.00, or $8.00 a week to live? A. No, it does not cost that much if the girl lives at home.' Q. Doesn’t it? A. She helps the famih- at home. Q. Somebody has to pay it? A. No, it does not cost the girl $8.00 to live at home. Q. Is there some sort of divine provision that makes it cheaper to maintain the girl at home? A. I do not say that it does not cost any- thing, but it costs less than if the girl is adrift. SENATOR BEALL: You say the girl that needs help is the one adrift? A. I say that the girl who is adrift is the girl that needs your attention. Public Meetings and Testimony 307 :1 j! Q. If a bill was passed for a minimum wage scale, would you favor , hat? A. If I thought it would help the girls I would. 1 Q. Don’t you think it would? A. I am not satisfied of that. In ; Jew Zealand, where there is a minimum wage scale, the tendency has j ieen to make it the maximum wage scale. It has been the cause of j browing many girls out of employment. It has been the bar to employ- I lent of those who could not earn that much money. If this proposed i Iw provides a means whereby they can reach the stage of efficiency, f ffiereby they can support themselves, it is an excellent thing, and I ! /ould like to see it go through. i Q. You would like to see it enacted? A. If it makes some pro- \ ^sion for the girls to learn the business. I EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: What would you consider a minimum wage iw should be, what price? A. As I say, if it carries with it some way of aking care of the girls who cannot earn the amount fixed Q. How taking care of girls that cannot earn it? A. If a girl can iarn $10.00 a week I think she ought to have it, but if she can only earn jS.OO a week, under a $10.00 minimum she would be out of work. I Q. If she cannot earn it, as an apprentice starting in, there could be ome provision made for an apprentice’s scale. A. I think any business 5 wrong, is unhealthy, if after she has served a reasonable time she cannot pake a living wage. ! Q. After she has served as apprentice she ought to have the minimum yage of the experienced class. What do you think that ought to be? A. t would depend on the nature of the work. I think she ought to have at least $8.00 a -week after she has worked in a business long enough to be jamiliar with it. I would not undertake to say that she ought to have that when she is not worth it, however. 1 Q. _ What would you say such a bill ought to provide in the matter of Ipprentice wages? A. In some cases they are not entitled to anything. iVe have had girls of that kind. j Q. In your own line of business, I mean. That is all you would be '.sked about. A. We can get along very nicely with $5.00. ^ Q. With a rising scale? A. Yes, sir. Q. Under a rising scale the lowest would be $5.00? A. Yes. MR. BLOCK, Junior; Gentlemen, I don’t want you to feel that nything I have said has been in the way of criticism, or has been nimical to your objects. If this is going to accomplish anything, we re just as heartily in favor of it as you are. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; We understand that, and we are obliged to j'ou. We want to co-operate with everybody. We need all the co-opera- ion we can secure. The Committee now adjourn to 1;30 o’clock this afternoon. Whereupon the Committee adjourned. wm . \()o . -li ' V . 7 'ar^'^l - . ' 'i ;-i!^ UMrJ j'j '!'.j/f.:] i/o'f bfi)=)// .ciji',-' . 1 : '■ • -Viiio j I d f H:f I ,/ ■ . gK ? ani^ J(' •, !j' “ t-;:..';'.’ • 1 .'. -''ioifjina- oi lEd rr.-j;! .in. . i>aaoqoiCf ?idJ i' •.iiii.;rt d-ji.rn jr.di rr,.-. ■ .pnaia^a V j fr doK-f., ;u:-, I Intii ' jffolfaax'j <( ti ' -Vjr,,' ‘ I y{; 'I ' < t-'J***' '■ * '■ 'n(.' If'; -' ;; .dlJ./- d-jinfra jr ii I -k 'ri>a.iulj-iw/>rtts, -jii) (f-u r* itvjj P' H, I' iiificj -'.<'ttfii-, I p.,i- . iCtiJa v{ii>'' r??;;' -tr’d ;• ifu- .it -jV-id .HiO-rr io >:.‘w -J/J r-d--. '..'i.-y ;>-Tart-f „n; i-iiKtc)? -i ;t,->t dnsii'i I ./. .i,-;-?? a'siil;; >• : ' .‘Sfia-' s .'••> /■; j' 1 ■ .r:'.-!nrrir.. i' : ■'• fdaiK; y-' ./ '■ »lf jfiwd: Ul k: , •; •■■■ -rU f.-, 'iv! 01 ^drvf •; '>i);i! •■i lijiu' -I ;'• fj'.'ft'v ;- -'i- ' •i-jii-T'.'-’.'-'jt' iff .-'■! / : ;■ if-':’; -1 ■ '■'■i Midi,, ■ ■ .ft I dna-// E 0*,. f? daa.v e ,S 9 ifinriEj ad* t' .y a i6V tfoictrmf? yp jj},- /dlFEarfnu si r.'jgfiir jjnivfl E '.J^Y fii!' -f.: |R asd ada latiA •:■?> . 'V/ ?/>£(, f»£-an .'na;3 adl )f> >'»/ j it to y-?f(J '..t i.arlt ii>’ a'iOW rtpd •'*■ ; .,v(l'. i.’ / f .iifi;. u.-l. .f'-yo-n i r 'ij- SESSION X L 111 An actress gives testimony concerning accommodations pro- ' vided for women of her profession in Illinois theatres and wages paid to theatrical women. More Peoria employers are examined. Assistant superintendent of Peoria State Hospital says his experi- ' ence with patients reveals a direct connection between low wages and vice. Two women proprietors of houses of ill-fame state their ' conclusions based on- experience with fallen women and several women of the underworld tell the stories of their surrender to ‘ temptation. Testimony of: Jeannette Fullerton, leading lady in a theatrical company; Mr. Thomas L. Greer, secretary, Clark & Company; dry goods; Mr. P. A. Bergner and Mr. Frank H. Bush, P. A. Bergner & • Company, dry goods; Mr. Persons, manager, Larkin & Company; Mr. Frank J. Young, F. W. Woolworth & Company; Mr. W. J. Roos, manager, Putnam’s Store; I Mr. H. H. Givins, retail merchant; Dr. Eugene Cohn, assistant superintendent, Peoria State Hos- : pital; Henry G. Kuch, tinware manufacturer; . Georgia Hall; resort proprietor; M C ; ,-J Bertha Hartman; G— B ; L D . ’’ Peoria, 111., Saturday, March 15, 1913. Jefferson Hotel. At 1 :30 o’cock P. M. the Illinois Senate Vice Committee recon- vened, with Chairman O’Hara presiding. Jeannette Fullerton’s Testimony. JEANNETTE FULLERTON, a witness summoned to appear before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined ind testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You may state your name, if you please? A. Jeannette Fullerton. Q. What is your business? A. I am an actress, j Q. What company are you with now? A. I am at present with Mr. Sherman’s stock company at the Lyceum Theater. Q. Do you mind telling the Committee how much you are paid for your services? A. Do you mean, telling you vaguely, or directly? Q. Well, accurately. A. My w’ages are $40.00. Q. Do you sing? A. No. Q. What do you do? A. The straight dramatic line of work. Q. How long have you been in that line of w’ork? A. Ten years. Q. How much money did you get when you started in that work? A. Tw'enty-five dollars. Q. Did you ever work in any other line? A. Nothing but straight dramatic work. 309 310 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What do you think is the least amount on which you could live A. In my line of work? Q. Yes. A. The lowest amount in my line of work which is eve paid — well, of course, there are cases where they would get under thi amount, but chorus girls get $16.00, and sometimes $20.00. Q. Does that include expenses? A. No, sir. Q. They have to pay their own board and expenses? A. Yes, sir they pay their own board. Railroad fares are paid when traveling. Q. How do the wages of other theatrical performers range? A Well, a person reading lines very seldom gets under $25.00 a week, anc it goes as high as $300.00 or $400.00. Of course, one has to have a reputa tion in order to command that much money. .The average pay in tht theatrical business, which is the best paid line of work for women in the world, in my estimation, runs from $35.00 to $75.00 a week; that is to say the normal, average salary. Of course, some performers receive ver\ large amounts, but $35.00 to $75.00 would cover the average in the dramatic line. Q. You have visited several towns in Illinois, have you? A. Yes. sir; I have traveled all over the State, or nearly so. Q. You are familiar with many theaters in Illinois towns? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are there any theaters, or theatrical places in this State, to j'our knowledge, where they have one common dressing room for both men and women, or where men and women have to dress in the same room? A. I have never seen such a thing in my life, anywhere. Q. In all of the theaters that you have seen, the dressing room accommodations have been what you term satisfactory? A. O, yes; as far as modesty is concerned. The men and women are never mixed, in any possible way, in dressing. The dressing rooms are adequate, usually. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: In what sense do you say they are adequate? A. The dressing rooms in the theaters here have running water in them, and large good mirrors. I have space enough in my dressing room to keep two large trunks there. O. Are you the star? A. I am the leading woman. The rest are about the same. Q. How about the dressing room accommodations for the chorus girls? A. We have none in our company, what you could correctly call chorus girls. It is a dramatic organization. I will say this, the theater here was not designed or built to accommodate a large company. It was intended to be used as a vaudeville theater. Two ladies might be required to dress together, using one room. It may be possible that there are theaters in some little towns where there are no dressing rooms provided, and the people would have to dress in the hotel; but I have never been imposd upon in regard to dressing accommodations, nor have I ever been mixed up in anything of that kind, where I could say I had seen it myself, or knew of it to be actually true. But I can safely say this: I have been in the theatrical business myself ten years, and my people are theatrical people, so I think I know something about existing conditions, .^s far as any theater being conducted in an immoral way, it is absurd. In fact, we are forced and compelled to walk a straighter line, possibly, than you would dream of. We are told at the outset that we are not allowed to meet anybody on the outside unless properly introduced. Ladies and gentlemen are not supposed to enter tlie rooms of each other, unless there is a crowd there, or a chaperon is present, or the door is kept open. .\11 these things are looked into, and expected to be observed. A girl entering this business receives a better wage than in any other line. Her morals and her comfort are as well looked after, or better, than they are in a restaurant, or an office, or factory. Q. In your ten years of experience and observation of women engaged in the theatrical business, would you say that in many cases girls go on the stage because they make more money on the stage, and because Public Meetings and Testimony 311 ihey are not able to make what they would consider to be a fair living • iVage in other lines of industry open to them? A. I think there are two n easons for people going into the business. One reason is that they have r in ambition, and they wish to further that ambition, and they follow the york for art’s sake. There are really three reasons. There is a certain ilass of women who drift into the business for the sake of what you ! night call the notoriety they can find in the business. However, the i |iembers of that class very seldom get above the rank of chorus girls. I 1 night add that we resent very much having chorus girls called actresses. 3 There is as much, well, let us say class distinction, as there is to any other j ine of business. I do not think they drift into it because there is more T tioney to be made. It is not a profession, it is a vocation, and you have It io be gifted to be paid the highest wages. I ' Q. The company that you are with does not employ a chorus? A. : ffo, sir. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We are very much obliged to you for com- :i pg here today. r ^r. Thomas L. Greer’s Testimony. 1 I THOMAS L. GREER, a witness summoned to appear before the j Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and I lestified as follows: ' EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Thomas L. Jreer. Q. What is your business? A. Dry goods. I am associated in i usiness with Clark & Company. Q. Of Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your position with the concern, with Clark & Company? L I am secretary and general manager. Q. It is a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. Of what state? A. An Illinois corporation. I Q. You are familiar with the wages that are being paid and have ecently been paid to woman workers in that establishment? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many women do you employ in your store at this time? A. linety-seven. Q. What is the lowest weekly wage paid to any woman working for . our establishment? A. Four dollars. Q. What is the highest? A. Fifty dollars. Q. What is the average? A. Ten dollars and eighteen cents. Q. Now, Mr. Greer, I presume you have a tabulation of wages there? t. Yes, sir. Q. Will you kindly read that tabulation into the record? A. The ist is as follows: Four cash cirls at $4.00; one apprentice girl at $4.50 that is the dressmaking department); we have six at $5.00 (those girls jre in the office). 5 Q. Six girls at $5.00? A. Yes. Then we have six at $6.00. There 're thirteen girls who receive $7.00 a week; and the others are paid from !8,00 a week upward. Q. Have you ever investigated into the cost of living for these girls? 3. Since this investigation began we have, to some extent. Q. What have you found to be the minimum expense of a girl living 1 the city of Peoria? A. Well, there are two phases of expenses, two lasses to be figured upon. Q. What are those? A. Well, the girl who is living at home, who as relatives, is in one class. Q. I am asking your estimate of expense for the girl who does not ve at home. A. It will cost her from $7.00 to $8.00 a week, I should [link. ; Q. The large employers in the City of Chicago said that in their 312 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee opinion $8.00 a week was the lowest amount on which the girls could live in that city. Now, you think that in Peoria the amount would be from $7.00 to $8.00? A. I think so, yes. That is in the case of the girls who are paying board, who are “boarding,” as we say, who do not live at home, and who have rented rooms of some kind. SENATOR TOSSEY : The girls who, in the common saying, are adrift? A. Well, I would not want to call them drifters, exactly. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Your firm is in the retail dry goods busi- ness? A. Yes, sir. Q. If there were a law, here in Peoria, which required that girl clerks in stores should be paid a minimum wage, say of $12.00 a week, it would not have a harmful effect on your business, if it were general, and applied to all similar stores in Peoria? A. Twelve dollars, you say? Q. Any uniform figure. A. W ell, 1 don’t know. Q. That is to say, your business is all local business, with no out- side competition? A. \Vell, that may be true, but it would have to be taken care of, and figured out. Certainly our business could not go along on the same basis as it is going along on now. Q. Could Clark & Company afford to pay girls working for it a minimum of $8.00 a week and still make money and not increase the sell- ing price of any of the articles? A. No, it could not be done. Q. It could not? A. You mean to add to the cost without increas- ing the selling price? Q. Yes, sir. A. It could not be done. Q. Then let me ask what the net profit was, as made by Clark & Company, during the last fiscal year of the business? A. That I could not answer. You would have to get that from Mr. Smith, the office man. I suppose he would be willing to give it to 3 ^ou. Q. You are familiar with the profit made, in a general wa^'? A. 1 was; yes, sir. Q. In a general wa^', about what is the profit, Mr. Greer? A. I could not answer that. Q. You have consulted other people about answering that question? A. WTen I left the store, is all. Air. Smith said at that time that if you would call him, he would answer that question. I don’t know whether he has consulted anybody or not. Q. Out of the profits made last j'ear. would it be possible to increase the salary of every girl working for you from the present rate of payment to the sum of $8.00 a week, and still leave part of the profits untouched? A. In order to answer that I would have to take a pencil and figure up. Q. \Ve can do that figuring for you if j'ou will tell us the profit. That is what we are trying to learn from the emploj-ers. A. Last j-ear we could not. This year, if there was a minimum wage scale of $8.00 we would certainly set our figures on that basis. 0. Last year you could not? A. Last year we could not, because that is done and over with. Our expense was over the average last year, and our profits were not over. Q. Do 3 ’ou favor a minimum wage for women, or a law of that sort, in this State? A. I would sajL yes. It would stop all this discussion. Q. The employer would fulfill his responsibilities thereby? A. Yes, sir. Q. The enactment of such a law, if sanely gone into, if saneh' enacted and carried out, would not work a hardship on \’Our business? A. Yes, it would. Q. In what way would it. Air. Greer? A. I don’t know how we would get competent girls. I don’t know how we would be helping these girls that we are now taking in and letting them work up. Just now I could not see how we could handle that question. AA'e take in a cash girl, at $4.00 a week, and in a few months she is fitted for a better position if she is any good. In this cash girl position we could not afford^ to pay $8.00 for that work under the present condition of our profits. AVe could j Public Meetings and Testimony 313 hot pay $8.00 a week for the errand girls, unless by increasijig the per cent of our profits on goods sold. Q. In the last year have you paid any woman working for your |;ompany less than $4.00 a week, at any time? A. One girl was paid $3.50, that came in and helped out as a relief, on this cash girl force. . ' Q. You have not paid any girl, except the one girl mentioned, less ijivagcs? A. No, sir. - j 0. Not under $4.00? A. That is the price we put on the cash girl ' Aithout any question, and we do not hire any cash girls unless they live ■ [home. The sales people we pay in regard to their ability. I Q. Before answering the question in regard to profits, you desire to Mconsult with other members of your firm? A. I prefer that you would ■ consult with Mr. Smith as to that. j Q. We will waive that question for the time being; and when you •> are excused, you will be excused until further summoned to appear before J the Committee. Senator Beall, have you any further questions to ask this I ’witness now? I SENATOR BEALL: No, sir; I have nothing in particular at this I time. t! SENATOR TOSSEY : What do you think the minimum wages of Ijthe girls should be, $7.00 or $8.00, you say? A. Yes, sir; we were figuring i on that basis. We are paying that now. [ Q. And for an apprentice, what should she get? If the General [Assembly should pass a minimum wage. bill, there should be an apprentice scale established, should there not? A. That could be raised $1, say. It is $4.00 now. It could be raised. I suppose, to $5.00 a week. Q. How long should she remain an apprentice, in your opinion? A. I don’t suppose a girl could work less than six months before we would [want to put her behind the counter. ; Q. And then raise her to $8.00? A. If she is competent, yes. : CHAIRMAN O’HARA; We are much obliged to you, Mr. Greer. Testimony of Mr. P. A. Bergner and Frank Bush. P. A. BERGNER and FRANK BUSH (testifying together), witnesses |{ summoned to appear before the Commission, being first duly sworn by i Senator Beall, were interrogated, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. J, CHAIRMAN: Please state your name? MR. BERGNER: P. A. Bergner. Q. And your name (to Mr. Bush)? A. Frank H. Bush. THE CHAIRMAN (to Mr. Bergner): You gentlemen are partners ' in the business concern of P. A. Bergner & Company? A. Yes, sir; P. A. * Bergner & Company. Q. Is that a corporation? A. It is a firm. Q. What is your position with the firm? MR. BERGNER: President. Q. What is your position, Mr. Bush? MR. BUSH: Secretary. Q. How many girls do r^ou employ? MR. BERGNER: Mr. Bush will give you that information better I than I can. MR. BUSH: We have 124 girls. Q. One hundred and twenty-four altogether? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any girl who is employed by you? A. Four dollars. ’ Q. How many girls work in your establishment at $4.00 a week? A. We have about fifteen or sixteen, they are bundle girls, i Q. What is the next highest class of girls in your employ? A. The 314 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee next highest is $5.00. We have two at that, and we have five girls at $6.00. There are eleven at $7.50 a week. I can read the schedule of wages and employes if you wish. Q. Do so, please. A. There are nineteen who receive $8.25, and seventeen at $10.00 a week. Do you want me to state them, on up? Q. How many get above $10.00? What is the total number above $10.00? A. I think thirty-six. Q. Have you conducted an investigation into the living expenses of those girls who are working for your concern? A. Why, in a measure, yes. Q. What do you find is the least amount that a girl can live on, in Peoria? A. About $7.00 or $8.00. Q. Suppose that the State of Illinois were to enact a law giving to every girl, whether she lives at home or not, a living wage, would that, being a general law, applying to all employers of a class in this State, seriously hurt your business? A. I don’t see how it would take care of these bundle girls and the inexperienced people. Q. How would you take care of the bundle girls — what plan can j’ou suggest? A. Well, by classing them as beginners. Q. As apprentices, in the provisions of the law as to different classes? A. I don’t see any other way. Q. How long should that period of their apprenticeship last? A. It would depend entirely on the girl, I would say as to the time. Q. Suppost an arbitrary period were fixed in the law? A. If she wasn’t any good, she would be let out of the working force. Q. Well, in your opinion, from your experience, would six months be reasonable? A. In from six to nine months we would be able to find out what she would be likely to develop into, what she would be able to do. Q. Mr. Bergner, do you think — not as an employer, now, but as a man who has studied these matters and is interested in them — do you think that the question of low wages received by working girls has any- thing to do with the question of immorality among women, or to what extent does it figure? A. Well, practically, as a rule, no. Q. Are there exceptions to that rule? A. There are exceptions to all rules. Q. You think, then, that no girl will go to ruination because she is starving? A. Starving is a different proposition. I don’t think they often fall from that, from our observation and experience. Q. You think that if a girl is good she will remain good, in spite of all temptations that may be presented to her? A. If the temptations were not there, 95 per cent of the girls would not go wrong, I believe from my observation and from what investigation I have made of that subject. Q. What do you think is the principal cause of girls going wrong? A. I believe that 95 per cent of all fallen women are the victims of a man. Q. In what sense are they the victim of a man — what factors enter into it? A. Seeking her, pursuing her in order to destroy her virtue, to satisfy his animal passion, regardless of her welfare or happiness. Q. Yes, we all admit that, and yet may we not wonder if the girl’s power to resist temptation is not weakened from receiving small wages, and from the resulting deprivations of her life? A. All I can say as to that proposition is that our experience has been that the girls who are getting better pay, comparatively, are the ones who go astraj’, and not the cheaper paid girls. Q. You find in your observation, then, that the girl who is getting more pay is more apt to go astray than the poorly paid girl? A. She is more liable to temptation if she receives higher pay, because then she lives in a different class, on a different scale, and she can afford to dress better and go around more. Do not misunderstand me, that I use this as any argument against good wages, or that because of this tendency I approve of low wages. On the contrary, we have established a precedent Public Meetings and Testimony 315 in our store, years ago, that a girl who is dependent upon her own re- sources, entirely, must not be employed at less money than $40.00 a month as a minimum. Q. What is your opinion of this matter, Mr. Bush? A. It is about the same. We are very particular about our help, and we do not hire anything except competent help, except little bundle girls, and we advance them as they advance and learn how to do the work of the store and become fitted for better work, better paid work. Q. You, too, believe that the proposition of the low wages she re- ceives has very little to do with a girl going wrong? MR. BUSH: Well, that has been our experience. I have studied that question quite a little, on account of employing a number of girls, and that is our experience, at least. Q. How often does it happen that you have to discharge girls for stealing? MR. BUSH: Well, let me see Q. In the last year, say, how many cases have you had of pilfering or thievery? A. I don’t believe that we have had three cases — I don’t believe we have had two MR. BERGNER: I don’t know of one in the last year. MR. Bush: No. MR. BERGNER: It occurs, as a matter of fact, so very seldom, that I don’t remember enough about any such case to be specific. I know of only one or two instances, in fact, where we discharged anybody for thieving. Q. In those one or two specific instances that you remember, did the girl steal because she was getting a small salary? A. No, sir. In one case the girl was getting $40.00 a month. Q. Her salary at the time was $40.00 a month, you say? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Bergner is the president of this corporation, is he not? MR. BUSH: Yes, sir. Q. Will you state to the Committee, please, what the profits of your corporation were during the last fiscal year? A. I do not care to answer that question except on the advice of my attorney. Q. You refuse to answer the question? A. Except on his advice. I think it is an unfair question to ask. Q. You understand that in refusing to answer that question you may lay yourselves liable to contempt? A. That is the reason why I would want to have the advice of our attorney. Q. On that point, Mr. Bergner, let me say in behalf of this Com- mittee that we are satisfied that we have the power to compel you to answer that question; but so far we are trying to go along in a spirit of harmony and co-operation with the employers, co-operating both with the employers and the employed, to try to get at a sane solution of this matter, one that will be satisfactory to you and to all of the people working for you. A. That is very satisfactory to us. Q. And we are asking that question in every case and putting the answer on record. A. Could I ask you a question or two on that basis, about that profit proposition? Q. I would be very glad to answer any questions you wish to ask. A. Do you want me to give you an example of the way it works out? Q. Yes, if you wish to. A. Here is a corporation, say, that is incorporated for $100,000, and here is another for $100,000, and here is a third_ one for $100,000. The first man, with fair ability, turns his capital six times, the man with less ability turns it four times, and the man with the least ability of the three turns his capital only three times in the year. The lowest man sells goods to the amount of $300,000. Now, we will concede that a man who has his capital risked is entitled to a fair profit, and to a compensation on his labor, not alone a profit on his capital. The man is entitled to compensation for his labor and to profit on his capital, and we will say he is entitled to 5 per cent on his sales. However, 316 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee it does not work out uniformly, any more than the wages of girls. One man makes $ 30 , 000 , the second man makes $ 24 , 000 , and the lowest man makes $ 18,000 on the same capital, in the same length of time. Now, if one man’ makes $ 18,000 and another makes $ 30 , 000 , how are 3-ou going to arrive at a solution of what is the proper answer. It is ability that makes the money here, and not the capital, beyond a certain point. The man who turns his capital six times absolutely can sell for less than the man who turns his capital three times, because he has more losses to take care of on undesirable merchandise. If I should be the poorest man, the smallest money-maker of the three, and another man should be the big man, would it seem just to the big man, when he makes $ 30,000 and the other makes $ 18 , 000 , to base 3'our law on that basis? CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We are seeking to find out whether the employe gets his share of the profits, his just share of the profits. You believe that the employed deserve as much consideration from the State of Illinois as the employer? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the reason we want to get an answer to that question is because we want to know if the emplo3'er is playing fair with the emplo3'e. A. But the man who makes the turn of his capital, in goods sold, six times a year — should he pay his emplo3es more than the man who onh- turns his stock three times? THE CHAIRMAN: We are not passing upon that. We want the profit as a basis upon which to reach a decision. MR. BERGNER: Well, you must take the two sides to the proposi- tion. Every business should carry its own business, and competition regulates everything in this business. If 3'ou establish a minimum wage of $ 8.00 or $ 10.00 a week, and make it universal, I don't think that an3- fair-minded merchant would object, but I will tell 3-011 what the result of that might be in actual practice. In 1113- estimation, and from 1113- experi- ence, if you make the minimum wage too high, it will operate to destr03’ efficienc3^ There will be no incentive for a girl to become proficient, be- cause she knows the emplo3'er is obliged to pa3- her $8.00 or $10.00, any- wa3L She says, “What’s the dif?” Experience teaches us that. If there is no incentive for me to conduct my business probabN' better than the other man could conduct it, if there is not some return for it, I would not make that effort, would I? Neither will 3-our minimum wage bring out efficiency if you make it too high. Another thing is, what are 3-ou going to do with this inexperienced and incompetent help that we now do con- tend with in order to make them into better material? You ma3- think that it is a cold-blooded proposition, but I tell 3-011 it is onU- too true that we have man3^ emplo3-es that we would like to discharge, but we do not because we feel the3^ are entitled to a wage, and we keep them on in the hope of making them proficient. Now. if we are compelled to pa3- an $8.00 or $10.00 minimum wage, we will certainh- go into the market and tr3' to get the best we can with that, and not tr3- to educate incompetent or inexperienced girls at all. It costs mone3- to teach them. The merchant will not suffer. No matter what 3^00 make 3-our minimum wage, the public will pa3^ for it, rest assured of that; but if the object is to connect the social evil with small wages, 3-011 are on the wrong track. Q. In y-our judgment? A. From my observation and experience. SENATOR TOSSEY: We have had witness after witness come on the stand, social workers, and girls from all over the countr3-, and persons well acquainted with that question; and the3' have sworn to this Com- mittee that that did have something to do with it. A. There is no ques- tion but what it may have something to do with it. I do not dispute that; but out of the many investigated it may- be but a very small per- centage of the whole. If y'ou go to work and investigate a concern that employ-s 5,000 women, and find 50 that have fallen through low wages, it is only 1 per cent of the whole. SENATOR TOSSEY: It shows one of the predispo.sing factors, one of the environments, however. SENATOR BEALL: I think this gentleman is right as far as he goes. I understand that; but in our investigation in Chicago — of course, it is a larger city- than this — we had girls who went on the witness stand. Public Meetings and Testimony 317 I'licy said they went to work, to a certain place, for instance, for $3.00 or $4.00 a week. They saw other people wearing good clothes, and they wanted to put on a little style, and they had no money, so they went that way. Why? A. Why are girls in that condition? SENATOR BEALL: They see other girls with good clothes, and they want them, too. In the stores they handle nice articles, they have the opportunity to see them, and they feel the entire lack of good clothes. In one instance, a girl in Chicago was getting $4.00 a week. She paid $3.75 for board, took her lunch wdth her, and paid 10 and 15 cents for suppers, and 5 cents for carfare. She was waiting on finely dressed ladies and heard them talk about how they got their money. She said to herself “I am good looking and young, and 1 will try that, too.” She had heard a woman say she could make $50.00 a week, and she felt that enough money to live on would settle all her troubles. We are trying to get at a remedy. We do not blame anybody. The testimony up to this time has led up to the proposition that they were forced to do it, or w'anted to do it, because they found they could not live on $4.50 a week, which they certainly could not do in Chicago. MR. BERGNER: If your Committee had gone to the homes and seen what the environments were in many cases, it would change your .-views. SENATOR BEALL: We are just starting out; we are just learning. MR. BERGNER: That is the place to find out. Many a man drinks, and the girl that only makes $4.00 is obliged to hand over every penny because the man spends nearly all he makes for liquor. We do not employ anybody in our store, who is dependent on her own wages to live, under $40.00 a month. That has been the rule for many years. Q. I asked you what was the lowest amount a girl in Peoria could live upon? A. That I do not know, because I haven’t had any experience in that line, except my own. I lived on $20.00 a month when I started to work. Q. Do you think you have in your employ a girl who is getting less money than she can buy her food for, pay for her room, and purchase her clothing? A. No doubt we have. Anyone who is getting $4.00 a week cannot depend wholly on herself. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You think it is perfectly proper to put the deficiency, the burden of her support, on the home, rather than on your institution to which she is giving up her time all day? A. I say, no — if you will allow me to qualify it. A man has a family of children, and he has two girls, from fifteen to eighteen. I think we do not employ any under sixteen. MR. BUSH: Not under sixteen. MR. BERGNER: That family have a hard time to get along. The girls are probably incompetent to go into housework, but in some store they can earn $4.00 or $5.00 a week. The man has a meager income of $50.00 to $60.00, say $60.00 a month. You have added by each girl, $20.00 or $25.00 a month to the income, and if you raised the income from $60.00 to $105.00, with the same number to provide for, would it not help the family considerably? The fact is, the girl you take into your business to learn the work does not begin to pay for herself. She is a burden on the business, and has to be carried by the business until competent. Q. How long a period? A. Some of them for a year and some for three months. We had a girl a year ago who started at $3.00. We did not want her. Her father was a pastor and needed the money as a help to the family income. I was finally prevailed upon to take her in at $3.00. In two weeks’ time she was raised to $4.00, and in six weeks to $5.00. When she left us she had been there a year, and she was getting $8.00. We would gladly have paid her $10.00, if she had not moved away from Peoria. Even that small amount she earned as a beginner was some help to the pastor. He probably would not want his girl to go out as a domestic servant, but she could do our work. Q. Then it is all a matter of ability? A. Certainly. We are always short of good, competent people. 318 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. The girl who will make money for you, you are willing to shove along? A. Tes, we have to, the competition compels us. y. ihe other girl, the girl you pay less than a living wage, do you make any profit on her? A. No, sir; we make no profit on the cheaper labor. Q. You feel no moral responsibility for the girl in your employ to whom you pay less than a living wage? A. To a certain extent we have a moral responsibility, but let me tell you something. We cannot be responsible lor people who are brought into the world incompetent. Now, if you establish a minimum wage, and we do not accept that class of girls at all, who is going to be responsible for them after that? SENATOR TOSSEY: What do you consider a minimum wage ought to be? A. It is immaterial to me what the minimum wage should be, because if it is made unfair, there could be no complaint, because competi- tion would regulate that, you know. If you make the minimum wage $8.00 or $10.00, are you not doing an injustice to those w'ho cannot earn it? You are investigating it, and that phase, also, is up to you. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; We need all the reliable information we can get. We appreciate that. MR. BUSH; What are you going to do with those girls who cannot earn $8.00' or $10.00, who are not worth that much to any employer? What is going to become of them, and of the father whose family needs the $20.00 a month that such a girl brings in? SENATOR TOSSEY; All those things are matters we are trying to solve. If the girl is barred from working for $5.00 a week, what would be the next wage? A. There is an arbitrary minimum of ^.00, and she can never reach the point where she is worth it, and she will be unem- ployed and worse off. Q. They could be graded in classes. That is what 1 want to ask you. What should that grade be, for an apprentice class, starting in to learn the work? A. Sometimes in three weeks a girl would show she was improving and worth more. I cited one girl who began at $5.00 and became worth $10.00 in less than a year. SENATOR TOSSEY; They could commence at $5.00 and advance in grades and classes to $10.00? You would have to provide some uniform system under the law, no doubt. MR. BUSH; You would have to take care of the apprentices in some way. SENATOR TOSSEY; I realize that. MR. BUSH; In some aspects the minimum wage could be handled very nicely. MR. BERGNER; The merchants are interested to see that justice is done all around, but the public declaims every day about the high cost of living, and under this proposition it would go still higher and noticeably so. SENATOR TOSSEY; I want to have justice done all around, and we infer that you do. MR. BUSH; Certainly. SENATOR TOSSEY; Apprentices could start at $5.00 a week and gradually advance? MR. BUSH; According to ability. SENATOR TOSSEY; You cannot make it, according to abilit}'. You have to consider the cost of living, too. MR. BUSH; Ability would be the basis in the commercial world. SENATOR TOSSEY; As to being advanced, you would consider they would be advancing rapidly enough at $1.00 a month until they got $8.00? A. Possibly. MR. BERGNER; Relative to this profit proposition, may I ask a question? CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Certainly. Public Meetings and Testimony 319 MR. BERGNER: I read the testimony of Mr. Rosenwald, of Sears, oebuck. n * SENATOR TOSSEY: Yes, sir. MR. BERGNER: I figured that made 10 per cent on the amount f goods they sold. When you compute the profits on that, do you bmpute what they are incorporated for, or the actual amount of money at is invested? j SENATOR TOSSEY : The actual money invested, of course, but^ ie are not doing the figuring. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We are simply asking for figures. We are ■ejudging nothing. MR. BERGNER: They were incorporated for $50,000,000. That ould show a profit of about 11 per cent on their so-called investment. ; SENATOR TOSSEY: Yes. MR. BERGNER: I would bet my hat to a doughnut that their actual vestment is not $20,000,000. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your investment? MR. BERGNER: Capitalized $100,000. Q. What is your investment? A. Last year about $73,000 surplus. Q. What per cent did you make on your money invested last year? C That I will not answer. SENATOR TOSSEY: Well, now, could you have paid $8.00 a week ) all your female employes without materially affecting your profits? A. have not figured how much that would be. 1 could not say. I would ive to figure that. We never know how much money we are to make itil we get working on the stock books. Sometimes we are surprised at .e actual results that are then revealed. b I SENATOR TOSSEY: You know what you have done last year. i low much would it affect your profits? A. It would not have affected ' iem to that extent we would have gone bankrupt, I suppose, if we had I! fid more. ! i CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You gentlemen are excused, subject to i ll^rther call. Persons’ Testimony Resumed. r MR. PERSONS, a witness previously appearing before this Com., ■jittee, having previously been sworn, was recalled for further interroga- bn, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA (to Reporter): What was the question asked P. Persons this morning? (Consultation.) O, yes! How many women ) you employ, Mr. Persons, at this time? A. We have 300. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any woman in your employ? 1 . Five dollars. Q. What was the lowest wage paid to any woman in your employ iring the last year? A. Five dollars. '! Q. What is the youngest age of any girl or woman so employed? I. We employ no one under sixteen. ! Q. How many girls and women are employed at $5.00 a week? A. I t the present time we have eighty-five. About fifty of those have been ;re since the first of the year and are in training. They are not con- ^red trained. Q. How many get $5.50? A. Six. Q. How many get $6.00? A. Eighty-eight. Q. How many at $6.50? A. Twenty-seven. Q. How many at $7.00? A. Thirty-one. Q. How many at $7.50? A. Eight. Q. How many at $8.00? A. Twenty-two. 320 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What is the total number of girls employed and receiving more than $8.00? A. Forty. Q. Forty girls receive more than $8.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are those girls engaged in, at what kind of work, for the most part? A. With the exception of eighty-eight, they are in the office. Q. All except eighty-eight are in the office? A. Yes. . Q- What is their work in the office, stating it in a general waj'? A. Handling of orders, shipping of orders; it is a mail order house. Q. Now, have you any girls or women in your employ who are not being paid a weekly wage, a specified weekly wage? A. No. Q. In other words, have you the piece-work system in vogue? A. They are paid by a regular wage in the office, but the wage depends, in some departments, on the amount of work they can do. For instance, to show you the variance, we have girls that earn $14, and girls that earn $6 a week, on the same job. Q. Then you have some girls whose income is regulated entirely on what might be called the piece-work system? A. Not entirely. It is based upon it to some extent, of course. Q. Just based upon it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Under that system, could a girl work six days a week, and work hard, and make two dollars for her week’s work? A. No, sir. Our mini- mum here is $5. She probably would get $7. Q. Whether a girl does enough work to reach the $5 or not, she gets $5? A. $5, yes. Q. Every girl in your employ is entitled to at least $5, no matter what she has done? A. No girl draws less than $5 a week for 47^2 hours’ work. Q. And no girl has ever, during the last year, received less than $5? A. No, sir. Q. What time do those girls come to work, who are on the piece system? A. They are not on the piece system. Q. What hours do they work? A. They work 8l4 hours, 5 days of the week, and 5 hours on Saturday, making MYz hours a week. Q. How much time do they have allowed for lunch? A. One hour. Q. Most of them use the street cars? A. I should sa 3 ' perhaps half, perhaps not that many use the cars. Q. Do most of them live at home? A. Yes, most of them. We hire very few who do not live at home. Q. You do hire some, however, who do not live at home? A. I do not suppose we have a dozen in our employ who do not live home. Q. What system have you, to ascertain whether a girl lives at home or not? A. We ask her. We get her address, find out how long she has lived in Peoria, and how manj' brothers and sisters she has, etc. O. You have a thorough system of investigation of the applicants' A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you emploj^ an investigator, to look into the applications of girls? A. One of the questions we ask — we have a blank to be filled out. I wish I had brought one with me. On this blank they give a sort of personal history of themselves, and state their education, and if they are acquainted with any of the emploj'es. W e then get all the information we can from the people they know. Q. Is Larkin & Company a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. Under the laws of Illinois? A. The Larkin Company is incor- porated under the laws of West Virginia. Q. W'hat were the profits of this corporation during the last fiscal year? A. That I do not know. Q. You are not familiar with them? A. No, sir. Lou understand this is a branch of the Buffalo house. The home office of the companj' is in Buffalo, N. Y. Q. The home office? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 321 \ Q. How often do you report to the home office? A. In what way? { j Q. Do you make monthly reports, or weekly reports, to the main 5". fifice? A. Daily reports. Q. Have you ever been instructed as to the wages to be paid for it lertain work? A. We try to maintain the standard in each city. For ■f istance, girls that have become adept, most of them earn seven and eight 1 jollars a week. Some classes of correspondents will run from $10 to $15 i j week. Q. You send your payroll to Buffalo? A. The payroll? Q. I infer you had a system of sending a duplicate copy of your pay- loll daily, weekly or monthly, to the headquarters? A. Our payroll is lade out here and is paid here, and the receipts and disbursements are eported to Buffalo daily. i Q. Have they at Buffalo a list of all the women employed here in ’eoria? A. They have a list in Buffalo of all the women and men em- loyed here, or anywhere. Q. With the salaries paid to them? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have never received a general order from Buffalo or any ither headquarters or general office of this corporation, regarding the ^rages you were to pay to women and girls? A. To girls, the minimum lere in Peoria is six dollars. Q. Have you ever received any orders from Buffalo concerning the layment of wages? A. Just regarding the six dollars. Q. That otder came from Buffalo? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Senator Beall, have you any questions to SENATOR BEALL: No. (Witness excused.) Mir. Frank J. Young’s Furthier Testimony. THE WITNESS YOUNG, previously summoned and appearing be- bre the Committee, having been sworn, was now recalled, for further nterrogation, and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Are you prepared to answer that question low? A. No, sir, I am not. That is something you will have to take |ip with the secretary of the company at number 280 Broadway, New iTork City. Q. Who is the secretary? A. Mr. H. T. Parsons. Q. I withdraw the question. As I understand it, you are in charge if the branch store or office here in Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. I think it would be unjust to ask this gentleman to divulge the irofits. Now, just a moment more, Mr. Young. You testified this morn- ing, did you not, concerning the wages paid to girls, etc? SENATOR BEALL: He testified as to everything except profits. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The lowest wages paid were $4? A. Four lollars, yes, sir. (Witness excused.) Mr. H. H. Givins’ Testimony. H. H. GIVINS, a witness summoned to appear before this Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. H. H. Givins. Q. Your business? A. Ladies’ ready-to-wear. _ Q. What company are you with? A. Givins Cloak House, an in- dividual concern. Q. What is your connection? A. Proprietor. Q. Sole owner? A. Yes, sir. 322 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How many women do you employ? A. Ten. Q. What is the lowest salary paid to any woman in your employ A. Six dollars. Q. What is the highest paid any woman? A. That is a hard ques tion. I am open for two extra good women now. I have paid $35 uj to about ten months ago. Q. How many women are employed in your place at six dollars A. Two. Q. What do they do? A. They are learning the business, as ai apprentice you might say. Q. Some of the merchants who appeared before this commissioi today have testified that they paid less than six dollars to a beginner Have you found it good business policy to pay six dollars to employes o that kind? A. Yes, sir, because 1 turn most of them down that get les; than that. Q. You pay them six dollars, but you exercise careful judgment ir selecting them? A. Y'es, sir. Q. What do you think, Mr. Givin, is the least amount of monej per week that a girl or woman can support herself on, here in the cit) of Peoria? A. That is a pretty hard problem to answer, but I imagine that if she is dependent upon herself, absolutely, about six to seven dollar; — in that vicinity, about. Q. Do you think that low wages has anything at all to do with the question of immorality among girls and women? A. To a certair extent. Q. What is your theory along that line, your idea, Mr. Givin? A I have not formed much of an opinion about it, except that some women are inclined to be wayward. The amount of salary would not make much difference in their cases. I think low wages would have some effect in some cases. Some have an inclination to want fine clothes, just the same as I have to want a ten thousand dollar automobile, although 1 know that I can’t have it and I don’t take advantage of it. Q. If you were a member of this Committee, and charged with the duty of investigating the causes of vice among women, would you look into the matter of low wages, as one of the contributing causes of vice, or immorality? A. Y'es, together with other causes. Mr. W. J. Rods’ Testimony. W. J. ROOS, a witness summoned to appear before the Committee. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. W. J. Roos. Q. What is your business? A. klanager of the ^V. D. Putnam five and ten cent store, here. Q. As such, you are familiar with the wages paid to girls and women that are employed by W. D. Putnam’s store? A. \ es. I hire them; advance them, and when necessary, discharge them. Q. First, how many women are emplo 3 'ed there in that store? A. 27. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to anj^ girl or woman, in that store? A. $4. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any woman or girl emplo 3 -ed in that store during the last 3 'ear? A. Four dollars. Q. There is not now in 3 'our emplo 3 % nor has there been a single girl, during the last year, who received a salar 3 ' as low as three dollars a week.' A.. No, sir. Q. Your knowledge, I infer, would be conclusive on that subject? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many of the girls employed there are getting $4 a week: A. 14. Q. How man 3 ' are getting $4.50? A. Two. Q. How many are getting $5? A. Five. Public Meetings and Testimony 323 ,|! Q. How many are getting $5.50? A. We have none at $5.50. ■ I Q. What is the next figure? A. $6 is the next. ‘ j Q. How many at $6? A. Two. j Q. How many at $6.50? A. None, ij Q. How many at $7? A. Two. 0 Q. Do any of them receive $8? A. Yes, one. ![ Q. Are there any who are paid more than eight dollars a week? JL Yes, one. : [ Q. How much does she reeeive? A. Thirteen dollars. 1 Q. Out of 27 girls employed, more than half, 14, are getting $4, the ittinimum wage paid by you, is that the fact? A. Yes, sir. it Q. How old are those girls who are getting four dollars a week? ||. 16 and 17. I Q. Do most of them live at home? A. All of them live at home, y^e know their parents. Q. The parents of none of those girls is wealthy, would you say? A. fo, sir. i Q. The girls work because they have to work, they need the money? . L Yes, sir, usually the mothers of the girls bring them right in, and the lothers and fathers are in moderate circumstances. I know that to be true, ecause I know the people. Q. Can girls support themselves on a salary of four dollars a week? 1. No, sir, they could not if they were not living at home. I Q. In condueting your institution, or any institution, looking at the 1 tonditions that exist, do you think it is right for those girls to work hard I 6 put in all the working days of the week and get less than a living ' l^age? A. In one way, yes. Now, those girls are really not worth that io me. There are some I would replace if I eould. • . • I; Q. At four dollars? A. Yes, beeause we have trouble in getting help. |7he girls do not care to work with us. They think it is a school, or indergarten. They work for us a few months and then they have experi- tnce. They can go then to Shipper & Block’s or Bergner’s, as being girls jif experienee in the work. They can start in there at five or six dollars nd so we lose them and have to put in other girls. To a large degree, they are mechanical, a sort of vending maehine. The goods are displayed in sight of the customers, and marked. The goods are wrapped, and there , fe a cash register, and change is made. It is not like the skill that is in- I olved in showing and selling expensive articles, in other stores. By way I if statistics, I might state our payrolls cost us 10^ per eent of our busi- ' less. In the case of the stores that are paying girls the higher prices, their I layroll cost is relatively low, and shows a mueh smaller percentage of sell- 'jlng cost on the gross sales. We are practically in the position of a school, {ir an apprentice-shop, for these girls. We make stock-keepers of them, i>ut they are hardly sales-girls, because of the simplicity of their work, i'itill, when they leave us they possess store experience and can get positions ly reason of having worked for us that they could not obtain before. ' Q. What do you think it would cost a girl to live here in Peoria? A. ; don’t think that a girl who has no home, and who is entirely dependent ipon herself, could live on seven dollars. j Q. She could not live on $7? A. That is explained by other eircum- tanees that figure in the matter. The wages we give these young girls, |vhich is all that we can give — all we can afford — still act as a considerable ,ielp to the family, as well as schooling for the girl. They have that girl ;0 support if she earns nothing. Q. How are we going to solve this problem of modern conditions? Well, I have listened to the different statements that have been made n the evidence elicited here by your committee. The difficulty that it luggests to me is this: If there is a minimum wage established, say of fight dollars a week, what will become of my little girls? What will be- ;ome of such places of business as ours, that cannot pay it, and remain in 324 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee business on a competitive footing? Who will pay my girls — young an inexperienced as they are^ — eight dollars a week? It is going to put thei on the street, in too many cases — that is my apprehension. They are nc worth eight dollars to any merchant. You can see by the scale of figure how I advance my girls. I have girls there to whom I am paying $4 a wee and even at that wage I wish I could replace them. I could not get goo help even by paying more. They will not work in the five and ten cer stores if they can get into the more pretentious places, at any salary. Q. What was the net profit of your business during the last year? I I can answer that by saying there wasn’t any. Q. Did not have any profit? A. Very little. Q. How much did you lose? A. We did not lose, but we had ver little profit — you could not call it anything. Q. What would you call a little — four dollars a week? A. That i what it might be. It is a question that is a little out of order. It was not very successful year. Q. How long have you been in business here in Peoria, Air. Roos? Four or five years, but we had a bad year last year. Q. How has it been averaging up in the last five years, here? ^ Well, you see, we have changed the character of our business entire!} We used to have a grocery store, hardware, and everything. Now w have got to the five and ten cent business. We are just getting it nicel in line. We have strong competition here. We are building up ou business, paying expenses, and hope to do as well as the rest of then Q. Did you ever try to live on four dollars a week, at any time? 4 As a boy, working, I only got $25 a year and what I ate. I had to kee myself in clothes on that amount. Q. You had some place to sleep, and what you ate was supplied? 4 Yes, I had my board. Q. My goodness, man, that is all ^fe are asking for these girls. \\ want to give them food, lodging, respectable clothing, and in return fo that they are willing to give their time, their industry, six days a weel A. They are giving their time all right. That is one thing sure. The. are not in all cases giving any more industry than can be helped. Ther are plenty of them that are willing to give their time, but they have n ability to give, and that is the trouble. If I could get the right help t come and work for me — that is, good help — they would be worth more i: some way. The minute they get worth anything to me, they go away, could make one girl take the place of two if I could get good help, have to be a kindergarten for the larger stores. There is where I thin, the help might be taken care of, by putting them into an apprentice-sho;, of some sort. Q. You are making k very interesting witness for us, because j'ou ar stating the facts frankly and honestly, and you come from a business tha is paying lower wages than perhaps an}'^ class of business before thi Committee. A. Yes, that is true. Q. And you frankly admit that things are not as they should be? A No. It can hardly be helped. We are paying lO]/i per cent. Q. What is the trouble with our American business men that the; cannot do as well by their helpers as the slave owner did by his slaves before the Civil war? A. I do not understand just what you are tryin; to get at. Q. He paid the keep of his help. Some of you American busines men are not paying the keep. A. Mdien they are living at home, it i different. We know these girls live home. Q. Well, the home in that case is paying for the keep. A. No, ther is a difference between a girl boarding or rooming with strangers, wh< take her in to make a profit, and the girl living with her family. There i a profit to be made. The girl who is adrift and has to pay her board t' the party she boards with, has certain conditions e.xisting there in orde to induce her to come and pay them her money which she would no demand at home, and thev can board her more cheaply at home, usuall} Public Meetings and Testimony 325 ' here she pays her board to strangers they have to give her quality, and ;• well make a profit. At home the conditions are different. They may lit have dessert, for instance — nothing but good bread and butter and cof- fe — and it is considered all right. Where the girls pay board they have to I've meat, steaks, desserts, and things of that sort, every meal. Perhaps fe extra cost does not do them any good. Usually they seem to have cough at home to keep up health and welfare. But in the boarding places l*e cost of help and everything is figured in and then a profit added. At hme all she brings in is regarded as that much help, as she would have 1 be fed and lodged if she brought in nothing. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: As I understand, you have a five and ten cent ;ore? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you sell goods on a very close margin? A. Yes, sir. It all cpends upon the volume of sales. Q. You buy cheap goods and sell at a less price, to compete? A. We hve to buy cheap goods. ] Q. You feel that you cannot pay more salary on the margin of profit ,1 your goods? A. If you would come and look over the books, you jOuld find that the payroll is all that the business can stand, i Q. This Woolworth concern does the same class of business as you je transacting? A. Yes, sir. : Q. The salaries that are paid are about the same, are they not? A. jurs figures a percentage of 5.08. Q. Of course, they are a big concern? A. Yes, sir. Q. You feel, under the existing circumstances, that the prices and ■ofits you make, you could not afford to make any advances? A. No, I )uld not. Q. You say also that you believe in the theory of the minimum wage i.ale? A. Yes, sir, for the good help; but not for the apprentices — no. Q. Do you think the low wages which girls receive are the cause of ‘lem going to evil courses, or a principal cause? A. No, I would not hink so, from observing my girls. I have all nice little girls. I know them ell. I have them from a year and over. I have girls getting seven jbllars a week. I can see my girls all over through the larger stores, all oing well, and all good clean girls. I think the proposition is whether they jjve in good homes and have good mothers and fathers, who take proper ire of young girls. Q. How about the girls that have no homes? Don’t you think there is fore inducement, more temptation, for them to go astray? A. Yes, of purse, if they have not a guardian or adviser to look after them. Naturally, liey fall in with a man, and he naturally shows them some pleasure in the ay of theaters, etc., and flatters them with attention and promises. By le time he is through with them they are ruined and after that reckless !id discouraged. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. j SENATOR TOSSEY : What scale would you regard as right for an Apprentice, commencing as an apprentice, and what sort of a scale upward? Well, I believe if you would take it — our business is a little different ;'om others — taking ourselves, we only have a small profit. I would say i4.50 on to $6. Perhaps a girl would be worth $5 in two months. There ,i a great difference in girls, you know. Q. Taking the average. A. This would be the average — $4.50 to $5 d six months and after that $6. , Q. And after that? A. That would be up to the girls themselves, ['hat is going about as far as we could go, as a whole, in the matter, j Q. Within the next six months, what scale would you suggest? A. As 326 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I say, that is about as far as we could go in our situation. We raigh sprinkle in a few girls at $6 and $7 or $8. Q. They would be figured as graduating, then, in six months? A Well, they go away. They can then get other places and they won’t sta’ with you. Prestige figures. They do not like after a time to be classed b] the public with beginners, as girls working in a five and ten cent store ari regarded, somewhat. Q. Have you any system of fines in vogue in your store? A. No, sir CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We thank you. (Witness excused.) Dr. Eugene Cohn’s Testimony. DR. EUGENE COHN, a witness summoned to appear before thi Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated aiK testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Doctor, state your name for the reporter? A Eugene Cohn. Q. You are a physician? A. Yes, sir. Q. Your home is where? A. In the Peoria State Hospital. Q. What is your position there? A. Assistant superintendent. SENATOR BEALE: Doctor, we are engaged in the work of making an investigation of the social problem that is commonly termed the whin slave proposition, and, as correlated thereto, the wages paid for women’: labor, and their social and living conditions, especially the girls and womei who are adrift, who do not live with relatives or friends solicitous foi their moral welfare, as strangers usually are not. We would like to heai from you, a general, frank, straightforward story of what you know abou it. Your official position gives you special knowledge of this problem ii some of its phases. We will interrogate afterward. DR. COHN: According to my theory, the basic proposition is a mat ter of constitution, the physical organization that we term constitutioi for want of any better expression. Now, the constitution of the individua is the outcome, the product, of two main factors. One of those factor; is what we call pre-disposition, or heredity, and the other is environment In most cases, the combination of these two factors is everything, anc when they are both for evil, the result is a tendency that is most com pelling and difficult to combat. With a proper environment, the weak nesses that arc inherited are often repressed, and the downfall of the gir never takes place. She lives a moral life of usefulness, for all her days With an improper environment, the girl who comes into this world handi capped with a weakly constitution, with a faulty inheritance, is very ap to fall, to be overcome by the stress of combining circumstances. Nov tendency towards prostitution, to be specific and candid, is dependent ii many cases — not, of course, in all, but in mnay cases — upon an unstable nervous system. We must take it always into consideration that matteri pertaining to sexual life concern one of the most essential and primitive elements that are possessed by all animals, including the human, and i is the use of the higher mental faculties, and the proper environment from the cradle to the grave, that protects the human being from being a victim to these vices. Q. You are a graduate of the Berlin Medical School, are you not A. Post-graduate. Q. Assistant surgeon at the hospital? A. Assistant superintendent Q. In your experience and judgment, do you think in the case o girls receiving low wages, working for $3 to $5 a week, that they ar< more liable to go wrong than those receiving larger salaries, on whicl they can live nicely and dress attractive!}'? A. I believe that low wage: paid to those girls who have to depend on their earning capacity for wha manner of living they can obtain, will be very instrumental in shaping Public Meetings and Testimony 327 woman’s life, as far as it renders the environment in which she lives n improper one, very often. ; Q. What are the wages paid the different nurses and attendants ^ the Peoria State Hospital, by the state? A. We have approximately pS female employes, not counting the female physicians. We begin our fttendants and domestics with twenty dollars a month and maintenance, j^hich means board, room, washing, and free medical care in case of ickness. Our scale of wages ranges from $20 to $75 a month. That does [ot include the female physicians, who are receiving higher wages than nat; but the nursing force, the attendant force and domestic force receive Images from $20 to $75 a month, and maintenance also, j SENATOR BEALL: Doctor, is there anything else you would like b say? You have had experience and we have not had it. We are here D try and learn something. DR. COHN: I listened with interest to several of the gentlemen lelonging to business life, regarding their opinion as to low wages, in jonnection with the temptation towards vice. I must say that I agree -with lost of them. I do believe that low wages alone are not responsible or vice. There are other factors besides that of low wages, but low yages might become, as I have stated, an instrumental factor in rendering ■he environment of the girl a dangerous one; and if that individual pos- esses an unstable organization she is apt to become a victim; and we :now from experience with the class of patients we handle (insane) that here are many, many women who undoubtedly possess an inheritance :.ir an environment which makes them all too accessible and easy victims. !Ve know also that the male sex is terribly diseased in the same manner. , would say that prostitution in many cases amounts to a diseased con- lition. ; li Q. How many female patients have you, there at the institution? ,V. Approximately eleven hundred females and as many male patients. Q. Do you lay any cause for insanity down there, as being hereditary ir brought on? A. Well, insanity just like any affliction, the causes, (specially resembling those of prostitution, are usually predisposing and Exciting. The predisposing causes are usually those that come with faulty I eredity. The exciting causes are the many stresses that come in life, [hat is, illness, worry, troubles, diseases of all kinds, and cares; but i i sually it takes a combination of the two. The one without the other IS usually not sufficient to break down the mind. When we have a case where a person becomes insane because he has had a good deal of worry, ,1 |r illness, or injury or shock, we also usually see that this same individual [ ras originally one who was somewhat unstable as far as his nervous iiystem goes. We find that his family usually had traits that point toward Tn unstable nervgus system, as a general thing; and we find in many of the tifirls who go astray, the same kind of a condition existing, as to heredity. Q. Then, Doctor, you think that starvation wages, or low wages, I krill make girls go to the bad? A. I believe it is one of the factors, ; line of the many factors that will assist, in those who are predisposed, [ jiut, please remember, those who are predisposed does not mean every ; me. , , SENATOR BEALL: That is all. Doctor. ; j CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We are much obliged. ■ ! (Witness excused.) ! ieorgia Hall’s Testimony. 1 _ GEORGIA HALL, a witness summoned to appear before the Com- hission, being sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as j follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. i CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Georgia Hall. Q. What is your business. Miss Hall? A. I am keeping a house >f prostitution, on G street, 221 North G. Q. A_ house of prostitution? A. Yes, sir, what is commonly known .s a sporting house. 328 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How many girls have you? A. Three, at the present time. Q. How long have you been in this kind of business, Miss Hall: A. For about 22 years. Q. Now, Miss Hall, I want you to state to this Committee, from the depths of your twenty-two years of experience, what are the contributing causes of girls going astraj', what it is the effect of, as you have viewed it, during those 22 years? THE WITNESS: My opinion is that it is low wages, and girls are thrown out on the world without a home. They hav^en’t anj'^ com- panionship, and they naturally fall into prostitution for the sake of com- pany and companionship. If they are servants in private residences, they have very hard and discouraging treatment. They are treated as though they were inhuman, and the most of the girls fall from these causes, simply because they fall into prostitution for the sake of companionship and getting money enough to eat. They haven’t money enough to eat, half of them, when they try to get along and pay their own expenses on the wages they get in stores, factories and offices. They haven’t enough clothes to wear to make a good appearance or to be comfortable. When girls haven’t enough to eat, nor clothing to wear, what else would cause them to fall but that? I think that is exactly- why' nine out of ten go astray. Some may do so from inclination, being simply- inclined that way; but the number is not large, of that class. I think that nine out ol ten fall for the sake of companionship, clothing and food. That is my idea of the principal cause. Q. You have talked to them and they have told you this story-, in years gone by? A. Nine out of every- ten will tell you that has been the cause in their case, either that, or bad treatment at home. Some- times the home surroundings are very bad. The girls haven’t any com- forts or conveniences at home, haven’t any ordinary kindness sometimes, and that causes them to wish to leave, and they- afterward fall. Some- times they are actually abused by- their parents. I have had girls tell me that their folks would abuse them. If they earned a little wages they would beat them because they did not bring home more, they- would take every cent of their wages and send them out to work for more, while a drunken father perhaps laid around in laziness, or a girl was forced after working hard all day to be a nurse to babies and do housework all evening without any pleasure or rest. A‘ home without any- pleasure, and not being able to spend any part of what little they- earn, causes y-oung girls to get discouraged and drives them on to fall, sometimes. SENATOR BEALL; Do you know of any- girls being brought here to Peoria and being sold as white slaves since you have been here? A. No, sir, I do not. Q. You have never heard of it? A. I have heard of them being brought, heard about such things, but I don’t know about it definitely. Q. You could not swear to it? A. Oh, no, I could not. SENATOR TOSSEY : Do you know of any- girls that are keeping men? A. Well, only through hearsay. Of course, people say- that_ there are a good many of them. I am mostly- to myself, I might say in ex- planation. I do not associate with the rest of them in any way. I don’t know what they are doing. I know of two that are living off girls. One of them is married to the girl, or they are supposed to be married, so I understand. SENATOR BEALL; He sends her out to solicit, does he? A. No. she is running a house. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: They live here in town? A. Yes. SENATOR BEALL: Do you know how many street walkers there are in Peoria? A. No, sir. Q. Could you make an estimate? A. No, sir. Q. You could not estimate the number even roughly? A. No, sir There are more street walkers than there are girls on the line, I think a good many more, I believe. SENATOR TOSSEY: Those two are the only men you know of: A. Yes, the only ones I knoyv of. Of course, I hear of others, but I Public Meetings and Testimony 329 on’t know definitely that they are, it is only from people coming and elling me about such things. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; You say your experience and your judgment ^ that girls in a good many cases go wrong because of low wages? A. . fes, sir. ■ Q. Have you a specific case in mind that you can quote to the Com- pittee, that has happened within the last year or two? A. Well, no, ; I could not. It is probable that one girl that lives with me might have some from that cause. ’ Q. When did she come to you? A. About a year ago. j Q. What is her name? A. D J . ( Q. She came to you in March, 1912? A. She came a year ago last December. 1 SENATOR BEALL: Where did she come from, when she came to rou? A. From Lincoln, Illinois. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What had she been doing there in Lincoln? ' 1 ^. She had been working down there. ,! Q. What did she say about it? A. She did not have many clothes, I fiardly any, and could not get along, so she came here and came to my I jiouse. , [ Q. Where had she been working, when she lived in Lincoln? A. She i iad been working in the hotel there. She had worked in different places, I p Columbus, Ohio, and other places. She came direct from Lincoln to my c place. T SENATOR BEALL: Did I understand you to say that nine out of t|en girls went to the bad from starvation wages? A. Yes, sir, that is my i Opinion. If Q. That is your observation, from twenty-two years of experience? A. ' [ifes, sir. * If SENATOR TOSSEY: You say there are more street walkers in iPeoria than girls in houses? A. Yes, sir; I think there are a great many pore street walkers. II Q. Those street walkers are, most of them, just beginners, are they hot? A. I don’t know about that. No, I don’t think so. I think they liaave been on the town for a good many years. The reason they are on j,he town is because they have not the money to live on, without being itreet walkers, because of the very low wages that are paid to clerks, girls [hat work in hotels and stores, etc. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Now, madam, has any girl come to you Within the last year or two from the employment of one of the retail jistablishments here in Peoria? A. No, not definitely. They did — I mean f.o say — but did not say they had been in such employment. There was i girl who came to me and said that she knew girls had been in that kind Df employment here, and they would not offer them living wages, and they isked them if they did not have a gentleman friend to help them out. Q. Girls that worked in the store? A. Yes, sir. ! Q. Did any girl tell you that such had been her own experience? A. [No, sir; she did not say that it was her own experience, but she spoke as I though she knew, definitely and positively, that it was true, and actually happened. Q. Do you believe that is the condition here or anywhere else? A. : I do. Q. I want to ask you now how many sporting houses there are iri IPeoria. A. I am sorry to say that I cannot give you the information, I because I do not know exactly the number of them. Q. Just a guess? A. Well, there are twenty-five or thirty sporting houses here, I guess, on Washington street, and one or two nearer by. Q. Are those houses owned by women? A. Not very many of them. Q. Are they owned by any one man, by several men, or does one I 330 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee man own several? A. Some of them are owned by men and others are owned by women. Q. Is there any one man here in the city of Peoria who owns more of that kind of property than any other one man that you know about? A. Well, I don’t know definitely about that. Q. Where is your house located? A. 221 North G. Q. Do you own that property? A. No, sir, I do not. Q. Who owns it? A. Mrs. Armstrong. Q. Who is she? A. She lives on Harrison street. She ran the house for a good many years, and then she moved out, nine years ago, and I have been running it ever since that time. Q. She owns the house and property — that is, the title is in her name? A. Yes, sir. Q. As a matter of fact, is the real ownership vested in her? A. She and her husband. They are married. It might be in their names, together. I could not tell about that, but I know it is in her name, in a way, because there was sornething I wanted done, not long ago, and they said they could not do it until she gave her signature. Q. Have you heard it said that any woman in the city of Peoria owned just bonds for deeds, and that this was used as a clever way to cover up the name of the actual owner? A. I have not heard that lately. I have heard it, however. Q. How long ago did you hear it? A. Some three or four years ago. Q. Has that condition been changed, since that time, do you know? A. I am sure that I don’t know about that. I haven’t heard anything about it, in the last four or five year.s — three or four years, anyway. Q. Suppose, for example, that I were to go into this business, and owned four or five or six houses; is there any way that you know of, that has come under your observation in .twenty-two years’ experience, by which I might own those places, and yet hide my ownership from the general public? A. Well, I don’t know, in regard to that. I don’t see how you could, if you had deeds to the property. The deeds are supposed to be recorded in the property owner’s name. Q. Are they always recorded? A. I could not tell you about that, definitely. SENATOR BEALL: I do not mean to say that Peoria has such con- ditions, because I do not know as yet; but I heard that in Chicago the girls have to work for from $3 to $4.50 a week, in the large stores, and some are out soliciting on the streets at night. Is there any of that done here? A. I think so. Q. Do you know any facts in the case? A. I don’t know any defi- nite facts, no; but I have heard it stated that it was done in a good many cases here, that girls had to go out in the evenings to make a living. SENATOR BEALL: Because the wages that they could earn in the day-time at their work were not sufficient to live upon? A. Yes, sir. (Witness excused.) R S ’s Testimony. R S , a witness summoned to appear before the Com- mittee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testi- fied as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is vour name, please? A. R S . . Q. How old are you? A. Twenty-one next month. Q. Where were you born? A. Denver. Q. How long have you been in Peoria? A. Two years. Q. How long have you been in Illinois, the same period of time? A. No, about six or seven years. Public Meetings and Testimony 331 Q. You have been in Peoria two years? A. Yes, sir. ; Q. When you first came to Peoria, what did you do for a living? A. iVorked in the National Hotel. Q. In what capacity? A. As a telephone operator, j Q. Were you a good girl at that time? A. I was a good girl. Q. You had not been sporting at all before that time? A. No, sir. Q. Was the National a respectable hotel? A. Yes, as far as I know. Q. It had a good reputation in Peoria? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: It has since burned down. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How much salary were you paid as a tele- |hone operator? A. $27 a month. Q. How long did you hold that position, as telephone operator? A. lix or seven months. Q. Why did you quit? A. Not being able to make my way. Q. You could not make your way, on $27 a month? A. No, sir. SENATOR BEALL: That was without your board, the $27 a month? ' L. Yes, without board or room. Q. When you were getting $27 a month, at that time how much did ; ou pay out, for board and room — do you remember? A. I was paying, s I remember, two dollars and a half for my room. Q. Two dollars and a half a week, for your room, you say? A. Yes, • ir, and my meal ticket was three dollars and a half, at the restaurant. Q. The meal ticket was $3.50? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you remember where it was you paid $2.50 for that room? i It was at State and Park streets. ' Q- Was that a hotel? A. No, it was just a rooming house. . Q. Where did you buy your meal ticket for $3.50? A. Across from he Majestic Hotel. 'i Q. What was the name of the place you bought the meal ticket? A. I The American. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That consumed about $6 a week, or approxi- ! jnately $25 a month? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will you kindly explain to the Committee how you squandered the )ther two dollars a month, that you made? A. Well, I guess that is not i hard proposition, for clothes and everything! Q. You can spend two dollars quite easily in thirty days? A. Yes, ir. Q. You endured that for six or seven months and then came to the i j|:onviction you could not live on $27 a month? A. Impossible. Q. What was the next step? (Witness silent.) Q. Where do your people live? A. My mother is not here at the jrcsent time. My father is dead. f EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. I SENATOR BEALL: Will you tell me the reason why you think girls ko to the bad? Don’t be afraid to answer. A. I have only one reason, {I think there is the only reason: a girl cannot make her way on that money, is all. Q. She cannot make her way? A. It is impossible. Q. Do you think that girls go to the bad from their choice, as much as |:hey would from poverty, if you call it that? A. It is from poverty that hhey go — poverty is what to call it. j Q. You think poverty is the main cause? A. It was my reason. Q. If you had been able to get a position with a better salary, say a salary of ten or twelve dollars a week, do you think you would have landed vhere you are now? A. No. Q. You would not? A. No, sir. 332 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How long have you been in the business? A. A little over year. Q. You think you would never have fallen had it not been for that A. No, sir, I don’t think I would. SENATOR TOSSEY: You would be willing to quit and go back a $12 a week? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: If you could have a position at $12 a weel would you go back? A. Yes, but who would give me such a plac now? (Witness excused.) M C ’s Testimony. M C , a witness summoned to appear before the Com mittee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated an testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. M C . Q. How old are you? A. 26. Q. Where were you born? A. Lewistown, Illinois. Q. How long have you been in Peoria? A. Ever since I was 1. Q. Are your mother and father living? A. Yes, sir. Q. Living in Peoria now? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old were you when you first began working? A. About 1- Q. Where did you first get employment? A. At Clarkson’s laundr} Q. Where is that located? A. It was at that time on Jefferson an Main. Q. How long ago did 3 'ou apply there and secure a position? Ho' many years ago? A. About 12 years ago. I was 14. I am a little mixe on time. Q. How much money were you paid for your services there? ? Three dollars. Q. What did you do with the $3 a week that you were paid there A. i gave it home. Q. You gave the entire $3 home? A. Yes, sir. Q. Your father was living at that time? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was he working, too? A. Not very much. Q. Why didn’t he? A. Well, he was about the same as the ma jority are, I guess. Q. What do j'ou mean by that? A. He drank quite a bit. Q. Your mother got very little support from your father, then A. Yes, sir. Q. You w'ent to work at 14, made $3 a week, and gave it to j'ou mother? A. Yes, sir. Q. It was a prett}' hard row, was it? Did 3 'ou ever weep durin those years? A. Certainly. Q. Did things go along pretty niceljH Did 3 'ou have enough t eat and plentj^ to wear, or enough to wear? A. No, sir. Q. Your mother suffered somewhat? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did this continue? A. Hp until I was ver\- near 1! Q. A period of four years? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Did 3 "OU get any advance in that time? 4 No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You were working at Clarkson’s laundry fc four years and never got more than you started in at, $3 a week? A. Ye: sir. Q, Is that laundry still in existence? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 333 I Q. Do you understand they are still paying wages like that? A. In e position where I was doing the work at that time, they are still paying .je same, as far as I know. Q. After this had continued for four years, did you go to the head that concern and ask him for an increase? A. I asked him for a fferent position. Q. What did he tell you? A. He gave me a position where I could Dt do the work. It was on a machine I did not know anything about. I went to the foreman, and told him I could not run that machine. He ^id, “Well, that is all we have for you to do,” so I left. Q. Then what did you do? A. I went home and looked for an- ther position. It semed as though positions were very scarce. I went |> Springfield and was there employed at the Western hotel. . ; Q. What kind of a hotel is t^at? A. As far as I knew, it was respec- I'ble. I Q. What did you do at the Western hotel, in Springfield? A. I as a dining-room girl, a waitress. ! Q. How long were you there? A. Not over a month, f Q. Why did you leave? A. I left simply because circumstances per- liitted it, I guess. I did not care about staying there any longer. I Q. You say that circumstances permitted you to leave, what do jOU mean by that? A. In the first place I was not making enough to ress myself. ! Q. How much were you making? A. $2.50 a week, board and room. Q. Well, you had gone up in the world? A. Yes. I Q. You had your board and room at this period of your life and [ .50 a week to squander? A. Yes, sir. Q. After leaving the Western hotel at Springfield, what was the :xt step in your career? A. I went to Jacksonville. Q. Illinois? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you do with the money you received at the Western itel in Springfield? A. I tried to buy what clothes I could. Q. Did you send any of it home to your mother? A. No. i Q. By this time, you had ceased to turn your money over to your ,iother? A. Yes. 1 Q. Then you went to Jacksonville? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. What did you do in Jacksonville? A. I went into a house. I Q. The first house you went into was at Jacksonville, Illinois? A. r’es, sir. Q. Did any man put you in that houi£, at Jacksonville? A. No, |ir. Q. How did you know about the house there? A. There was a lady Iriend of mine that told me how grand it was. I Q. Where had you met this lady friend that told you about it? 1^. I met her in Springfield. j Q. Whereabouts in Springfield? A. 100 West Mason. !j Q. Was she a sporting woman? A. Yes, sir. j Q. What brought you in contact with this sporting woman, there? When I left this hotel, I went and got a room out there, j Q. At this sporting house? A. It was not a sporting house; it vas just a rooming house. j Q. Were girls permitted to receive men in their rooms at 'that room- ing house? A. Well — yes. I Q. It was not quite straight A. It was not. Q. At what period of your life, if you will tell the Committee for )ur information, did you go wrong, when you were here at Peoria, or jvhen at Springfield? A. When I was in Springfield. , _ Q. Had you been a straight, good girl, up to that period? A. Yes, iir. 334 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. When you were working in the laundry here, you were straight: A. Yes, sir. Q. Absolutel}^ straight? A. Absolutely. Q. You went to Springfield then, went into the hotel and then you fell? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did any man profit through your going into the house at Jack- sonville? A. No, sir. Q. Is any man profiting through your connection wdth the house here in Peoria? A. No, sir. SENATOR BEALL: You say you were getting $3 a week at the laundry? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you believe that if you had been getting $8 or $9 a week, you would have gone astray? A. I know" I would not. Q. Do you believe now", if you had a position paying $10 or $12 a week, you would live a straight life? A. If I could have a position of that kind I don’t think I w'ould do anything wrong again. Q. Do other girls in your line ever talk to you? A. Yes, sir, we have talked things over. Q. What did they tell you? A. Different things. Some cases, there are men that have caused their downfall, and with others, it is because their homes have been very disagreeable and unpleasant. Q. Do you think most of the girls that go wrong go wrong from low starvation wages? A. I certainly do. Q. What portion, would you say, can attribute it to that, from your observation? A. I don’t know the number. Q. Half, or three-fourths, or a quarter? A. Three-quarters, yes, indeed, at least that proportion, in my opinion. Q. You think three-quarters of the girls that go astray do so solely on account of the low wages they received? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: I want to ask you one question. Your mother is living in Peoria now? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you see here once in a while? A. Yes, sir. Q. Does she know, did y"ou tell her, what business you are in? A. No. My people think I am in Springfield. They think I come here once a week. Q. You see them once a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you give your mother some money, at least once a week? A. Everything I make nearly, all I can, only what just buys my- clothes. Q. She thinks you are living a straight life? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you care to have your name published or would you rather give initials? A. Give the initials, please. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; As a matter of fact, is the name y"ou have given us your right name? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: How" much do you make a week? A. Some- times $50, sometimes $75 and sometimes $100. (Witness excused.) Bertha Hartman’s Testimony. BERTHA HARTMAN, a witness summoned to appear before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Bertha Hartman. 0. What is your business? A. I am supposed to run a house of prostitution here in Peoria. Public Meetings and Testimony 335 Q. Do you run a house? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many girls have you? A. Three. Q. How many houses are there in Peoria? A. On that one street, guess there are about 20, probably. Q. You have a segregated district here? A. They are supposed to i.ave, but they haven’t in reality. Q. They do not have? A. No, sir. Q. It is pretty well scattered throughout the city? A. Pretty well cattered, yes. Q. Do the police book the girls? A. I don’t know. Q. Do you know what is meant by the police booking system? V. Fine them, do you mean? Q. No. I understand that at one time in Chicago the girls were dl registered, or booked, by the police. A. No, they don’t do it here. Q. You never have had that here? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Do they arrest you here? A. They fine us, but not lately. Q. How long since you have been fined? A. Well, I think about he last of October, I am not sure. Since October we have not been ined. I am not sure whether it was in October or August. They used 0 come at us every three months. Q. How long have you been in this business? A. About six years, )ut not steady. Q. All the time in Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do the police protect the district? A. Yes, sir, we get pro- ection. Q. You get protection? A. If we need it, we call for protection ind they come. Q. Can anybody go down in the district and open up a house? Not without asking. Q. Whom do they ask? A. Chief Rose. Q. You ask the chief and he gives permission? A. If he thinks le wants .you to run, he gives protection. Q. How do you make him want 3^011 to run? A. He asks a lot Df questions. Q. He looks into your record and if you are of good moral character, ae permits you to run a house? A. I don’t know about the moral character, but if he thinks you can manage the place, he will nrobably :et you run it. Q. Why should he be interested in the management of the place? A.. I’m sure I don’t know. Q. Have you ever known of any woman giving the police any money for protection? A. No, sir. Q. Has that ever existed in Peoria? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Are the police today being paid money by the w'omen in the district? A. Well, not by me. Q. Have you ever, directU' or indirectl}^ paid the police any mone3'? .A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: Only through fines? A. That is all, -when 1 was called up for a fine; but on the beat, I was never asked to pay any lush money of any kind. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Committee is not trying to insinuate .that the police of Peoria are guilty of that. We are merel}'^ asking you 'from your experience to testify. A. A'es, sir, I understand. Q. What causes women to fall? A. There are different causes. Q. What is the main cause? A. Well, the\" have not the right kind of homes, perhaps they have a step-father, who is abusive, or a ■step-mother that is abusive. The}^ are conipelled to go out and work where the wages are not high enough in the beginning. Naturally, when 'they are very young, they cannot earn much, and the}' tr}' to live on it 336 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee sometimes, with disastrous results in health and happiness. If they liv( at home they perhaps have to turn over every penny, or thej' have no the right kind of a home to live in, perhaps a drunken, lazy father, am they haven’t any amusements except the street. Q. Do low wages have anything to do with it, in your opinion'. A. 1 suppose in some instances it has a great deal to do with it. Q. You think that bad home environments constitute the mair cause? A. It naturally does. If they see that they are not welcome a home, when they are young, and they see other girls that have nice clothes they naturally enough try to find some way to get just as good clothe: and just as good a time as others have. Q. Most of the girls in that life like fine dresses, do they not; A. All women, everywhere, like fine dresses. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: You think, from your observation and expe- rience, and I expect you have talked with the girls, that a considerable number go astray because of the low wages they receive for their work, $4 or $5 dollars a week? A. Well, I had not heard so much about it until since this subject has been written up. Q. That brought up the question in issue? A. Of course they got to talking together then, after they saw it in the newspapers. Q. What did they say then? A. They said that was the cause of it. Q. Do the girls in your house say that was the cause of it? A. Twc of them said so. Q. Had they been working in the stores outside? A. They^ had been working in hotels and restaurants, yes. Q. And they could not live on the wages they had received? A. No, they could not live on the wages and have anything. Q. Do you know, did you ever know, of men bringing girls to places, and selling them, or getting the wages of the girls? A. I never heard of it. 1 don’t know of any cases of it. SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you know of any- men living off the women? A. I cannot say that I know of any-, no. SENATOR BEALL: You believe there are such cases? A. I have heard of it. SENATOR TOSSEY: Have you heard it pretty strongly? A. In some instances, y-es. Q. What about those fines? Were you arrested or did they just send to the house? A. They just tell us to pay up. Q. Can you send the fine? A. Yes, you can do that. Q. Who do you send it by? A. By a messenger boy, or else by the house-keeper. (Witness excused.) G B ’s Testimony. C, B — , a witness summoned to appear before the Com- mittee, being first duly- sworn by- Senator Beall, was first examined by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. G B . Q. What is your age? .A.. 28. Q. How long have you lived in the city- of Peoria altogether? A. I have only- lived here in Peoria about five weeks, or a few days over. Q. Where did you come from, when you came here to Peoria.' A. I came to Peoria from Springfield. Public Meetings and Testimony 337 Q. How long had you lived in Springfield, about how long? A. I was in Springfield about three weeks, then I came here. Q. Before you were in Springfield, where were you? A. In Chicago. Q. How long were you in Chicago? A. I had been in Chicago for the past seven years. That is, what I mean to say is, I had not been in Chicago all of the time, but for the majority of the time, the past seven years, I was in Chicago. Q. Were you sporting all the time? A. No. I never was sporting until the time I came to Springfield. Q. You were not sporting then, when you lived in Chicago? A. No, sir. Q. What did you do in Chicago? A. I worked. Q. Where? A. I worked in a laundry. Q. What was the name of it? A. The laundry where I worked was the Manhattan-Perfection Laundry. Q. Where is that located?. A. Milwaukee and Leavitt. Q. What were you doing in the laundry? What kind of work did you do? A. I was working in the office. Q. How much were you getting when you worked in the laundry office? A. I was getting ten dollars a week. Q. Was that enough to live on? Were you able to get along all right? A. No. It is not enough to live on in Chicago. I was not get- ting ten dollars, either, until just two months ' before I left there. Q. What were your wages before you began to receive ten dollars? A. I drew a salary, first of seven dollars, and then eight. Q. You were raised, finally, to ten dollars per week? A. Yes, sir. Ten was the highest. Q. Why did you finally leave there? A. I left there because ten dollars is not enough, really, for a girl to live on, and live in a respectable neighborhood, such a neighborhood as she has got to live in if she wants to associate with anybody else worth knowing, and it isn’t enough if she wants to have any presentable clothes. I was dissatisfied with what I was paid, and with trying to get along on it. I had a sister who had been in a sporting house, and she used to be here in Peoria. When I came here, she wasn’t here, and I went to Springfield. In thinkinu- over things, I figured out that my sister was making a better living than I was making. I was working every day, and I didn’t have any more than she had. You see, I saw friends on the outside, anyway. Q. How do you mean, you saw friends on the outside? A. Well, I mean that I was seeing friends, outside of my daily work, I saw several people, you understand, to make up what my salary lacked of paying my expenses. I felt that if I was right in a “house” I would be able to take care of myself, take care of my health and everything, better than where a girl worked every day and has to see people on the outside at night. In a house I would have more comforts. As far as having respect of people goes, I wasn’t any more respected in that line than in any other line. I was sporting just the same, anyway. The way it is, if I am in a “house” I can get my rest, and_ I am not out late at night. I can rest and I don’t have to get up early in the morning. I am provided with good board, and with a good room, and I am able to look after my health. Q. Are your parents living? A. My mother is. Q. Is your father? A. As far as my father is concerned, I don’t even know where he is. Q. He may be living? A. Yes, he may be living. I don’t know whether he is or not. Q. Is he living with your mother? A. No. Q. Why not, if you know? A. They have been divorced since I was about eleven years old. Q. Why were they divorced? A. Columbus. Q. You misunderstood the question. Why were they divorced? A. 338 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Well, my father was not a provider, for his family, at all. He worked some times, and some times he didn’t work. Q. Was he what would be called a drinking man? A. Yes, he drank. Some people would say that he did not drink to excess, but he drank. To tell the truth, he was just lazy, and he wouldn’t work. He would have position after position offered to him. Sometimes he would go and work a day or two, and then come back and lay around home. When he had a chance to work, he would not work. When work was offered to him he would not take it, or would not stay at work. Q- Has your mother been working? A. Yes, my mother is work- ing right now, in a hospital. She has been fourteen years in one place. We lived in Ohio for fourteen years, and my mother always supported the family. Q. Was the family large or small? How many children w'ere there? A. There were seven of us children, and it was very hard on mother. We all had to work. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Did you help your mother in your younger days? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you always help her? A. Yes, we all did. When I was only 13 years old I worked, and even before that age. Q. At what kind of employment did you work, when jmu were 13? A. I was working then in the summer time, in private houses, taking care of children, and doing house work. Q. And then you went into the laundry office? A. Well, when I was old enough to leave school, I went into a laundry, and worked in the laundry for a time. I went into a grocery store, too. L did every- thing I could, everything that seemed possible, to get ahead, and to get higher wages, more money, so we could live. Q. Your mother was working, also? A. Yes, mother was also em- ployed, but we simply made just enough to scrape along on. Q. Do you help your mother now, at the present time? A. Well, I haven’t been in this business long enough yet to make much. O- You are a stranger here, and that prevents making more money? A. Yes, I am a stranger here, and my earnings aren’t anything at all to be considered, as yet. Q. What do you think is the main cause of girls falling? A. I think, undoubtedly, the low wages they are paid is the cause of the greatest percentage. They get discouraged. Q. Have you talked with other girls, about this same subject? A. I have been in the company of all kinds of working girls, and I know from my own experience, and their experience, that it is simply impossible for a girl to live, and pay board, especially if she wants to live in any sort of a presentable house at all, with any comfort worth while. Q. The expense is too great for her wages? A. Yes. I have worked and lived in Chicago, and I know that the average rooming house, where a girl can get a room, if it is respectable at all, with any kind of decently furnished rooms, kept properly warmed, and fairly clean, will not rent her a room for less than three dollars a week. They ask more than three dollars a week, if it is a room that is at all pleasant, and is_ in a neighborhood that is not down at the heels. In too many places girls are not welcome at any price. Q. How much would that leave for meals, after room rent is paid? A. I took my meals outside. Many rooming houses in Chicago do not furnish meals, and where they do, the meals are often very poor. You cannot eat a meal that has any nourishment for less than twentj^ cents to twenty-five cents. You cannot do it to save your life. The cheap places are not clean, either. When a girl is working, she has to eat to keep well. She can’t do her work and be half-starved, though some try to do that for a while. Q. You think the way you are living, j'ou can lead a better and Public Meetings and Testimony 339 I [ I I , [ ■ 1 ! i> li easier life than you can lead the other way? A. Well, I am not in- fatuated with the life, I will say that. However, it does give you a chance to live and take care of yourself. It gives you food fit to eat, and hours for sleep and rest. The house closes at a certain hour, and you are not required to do anything but rest until a certain hour the next day. You get three nourishing meals a day and a good substantially comfortable room. You have a warm room, and a bath, and every com- fort is considered for you. There is companionship, too. In a rooming house you have no companionship, many times. They expect you to stay in your room, most places. If a girl works in a private house, as a domestic servant, then you have the kitchen for your place. If anybody wants to see you, she or he comes into the kitchen. They give you no privileges at all. Their dogs or horses would be treated better, in many cases. They simply have no consideration for you, even if you are ill. They wouldn’t let anybody come to see you at the front door. You are worse than any slave that ever was in existence some places. They don’t consider you ever get tired or need rest. You are a machine, wound up in the morning, and you work till all hours in the night, in a private family. You are up in the morning before they are up, and you get your meals in a hurry ,and do your work all through the day, and then you are expected to work late at night. Their dinner is late. The usual family dinner is not until half past 6 or 7. By the time you get the work done, it is 8 or 9 o’clock. When they have company it is worse. You are up, after late work at night, at half past 5 or 6 in the morning. You work all day long, and they don’t ever stop to figure how many hours you work, and whether you need rest or recreation. They give you a salary of $5 a week, and sometimes they give a salary of $3 or $4, and think they give you big wages, because you get some dark little room and meals you are too tired to eat. They simply don’t care how many hours you work in domestic service. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Some of our witnesses have told us that it was a cold-blooded business proposition with them, and they take it up for the wages or money to be earned. A. That is true I think in nearly every case. Q. You take your employment somewhat as a cold-blooded propo- sition? A. Certainly. It certainly is not a case of choice that I de- liberately took up this kind of a life. Q. You took it up as a matter of dollars and cents, did you? A. Yes, it is just a matter of money to me, and is the only way I can make anything to speak of. I have a mother that will be on my hands now in a few years. I will have to be able to take care of her, when she cannot work any more. She is getting old and when she gets so she cannot maintain her position it will be up to me. I am preparing for that. It is the money and not any charm in the life that I am thinking of, outside of comfort that I cannot make enough to pay for, in other work. Q. Did you, in your youth, receive any kind of religious training? A. Yes, I certainly did. I was a member of the Methodist church, and my mother was a member of the Methodist church. Q. You were taught the difference between right and wrong? A. Yes, sir, I was. Q. You were taught that in the contemplation of the Christian re- ligion, that one person is as good as another? A. Yes, sir. Q. This Committee has been criticised for giving your class a hear- ing, for giving women engaged in your calling a hearing. It has even gone to the length where a protest has just been made by a minister of the gospel. Do you think you are entitled to a hearing? A. I cer- tainly do. I certainly think that the sporting women of any town are entitled to a hearing, so that people can find out why it is that girls reach certain stages. We don’t go into that life with the motive that we like the life for itself. We go into it because there is a better living to be earned in it. We are human as well as anybody else. We are citizens, in a way, anyhow, and we have a right to a hearing. We are the product of the social conditions that people tolerate, except as to the result. Any man who will come into that house where we are — 340 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I don’t care who he is — when he comes there he will respect us ki our line of business. It is a business house as well as any other kind. He respects us in that position, be it what it is, and we admit that we are. As to why we became that, if it is going to help us or anybody else to learn the reason, we certainly would be entitled to a hearing. That is as far as my opinion of it is concerned. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: What sum per week, do you believe, from your experience in Chicago and elsewhere, would be a fair wage for a woman working in stores and factories — on which she could live nicely, and comfortably, with careful management of her money? A. How much she ought to receive to live comfortably? Q. Yes, what amount per week? A. I do not see how a girl who is entirely dependent on herself can live below a certain cost without discomfort, and injury to her health. The girl who lives at home is entirely different. She pays her board and the rest of her salary is her own. Ihe girl who receives some help from relatives is also situated differently from the girl who is entirely alone, financially. When a girl is entirely dependent on herself, and has to pay for room and food, washing, clothing, medicine, and everything required for mere existence, with absolutely no income on the outside, it is impossible for her to live on less than $12 to $15 a week. Even then she has only a moderate living, if she has any place to take care of herself and live right. In figuring this, you have to consider that a girl loses a few weeks in a year. She may be out of work or ill. L’nexpected misfortunes throw a cost that is high and unexpected on her and throw all her figuring out of line for weeks or months. I have tried to manage on the wages paid a girl, and I am 'not a thoughtless young girl. I have tried it and I have worked in all the lines open to girls of ordinary education and equipment for work. I know positively that you cannot do it for very long on the wages usually paid. There must be outside help of some kind. SENATOR BEALL: Poor wages, low wages, then, is one of the chief factors in making girls go wrong, in your opinion — it is on account of starvation wages? A. Yes, I call it starvation wages. That is the cause with the average woman, with most of them. Of course the envi- ronment might figure wdth some people, with a few. Some people have rather weak minds, and of course there are lots of people who are stronger minded than others, who can resist temptation. ^lore than that, I want to say the temptation is something great, upon a girl trying to get along on a pittance. Nobody can realize it except those who have been out on the mercy of the world themselves, how a man will tempt a woman, especially when she needs a little money very badly, for the ordinary needs of life or for ordinary pride of appearance in clothes and things. Men whom you would never suspect at all will almost hound a girl with temptations, men that are supposed to be highly respectable men, who have a wife and a family of children of their own. The men of family are the very worse tempters of the whole bunch. I know, because I have had the experience. People who hold up a church and neighborhood reputation, and wLo have a fine family of children, with young daughters of their own, take advantage of a working girl’s poverty and the fact that she has no men in her family who will protect her. She is safer prey than any other class, in many ways. Q. You refer to men that are supposed to belong to a church and whom people would think to be Christians? A. Yes, and I know it is true. I know positively that men who are active members of churches are the runination of many wmmen, men with families and daughters of their own. The cloak makes them more dangerous and more successful W'ith girls. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you contribute to your mother’s support now? A. Yes, sir. Of course, just now I do not have to contribute very much, as mother is earning a salary just now, on which she can live very nicely. Public Meetings and Testimony 341 SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you know of any considerable number of girls who contribute to the support of their mothers or sisters? A. You mean girls in sporting houses? j Q. Yes. A. I eould not say anything about the percentage because I am not acquainted with any of the sporting people, or that is to say, ! there are very few that I know. I have not been in the business long ! enough to know very many. j (Witness thanked and excused. Rev. Barlos Carpenter called, but ! not present in the audience.) ■ L D ’s Testimony. 1 L D , a witness summoned to appear before the Com- mittee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and i testified as follows: ! EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. 1 Q. What is your name? A. L D . : Q. How old are you? A. I will be 25 in May. Q. Of this year? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your business — sporting? A. Yes, sir. I Q. Where were you born? A. Lafayette, Indiana. Q. How long did you live there? A. About 17 years. Q. You attended school there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you do any work there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where did you work? A. A candy factory. I Q. In what line? A. Making candy. Q. What were you paid? A. $1.50 a week. Q. How many hours did you work in that candy factory for $1.50? A. Seven in the morning till 5:30 at night. Q. How old were you then? A. Fourteen to fifteen. ! Q. How many years did you work there? A. Two years. Q. Before that time, you attended school? A. Yes, sir. Q. How far did you go in school? A. Until 14 years old. Q. What grade did you get into? A. Seventh grade. Q. Your father and mother were living? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was your father a pretty good sort of father? A. Pretty good, yes. |, Q. Did he make enough money to keep the home going along nicely? i A. Some times. j Q. Did he other times. A. Sometimes he did and sometimes he ! did not. Q. You remained there until you were 17? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where did you go then? A. Indianapolis. Q. You went alone? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you do in Indianapolis? A. Waited table. Q. Where? A. 320 E. Washington street. Q. In Indianapolis? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was that a respectable place? A. Yes, sir. i Q. A boarding house? A. Hotel. I Q. What was the name of it? A. Ferris Hotel. I Q. How much were you paid? A. $3.50 a week and board, j Q. Board and room? A. No, sir; I roomed myself, i Q. Out of the $3.50 how much did you pay for a room? A. $2. Q. That left you $1,50 a week for luxuries, clothing, etc.? A. Yes, 342 Retort of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How long did you remain in that work? A. Three and a third years. Q. Did you ever get more than $3.50? A. They raised me to $5. Q. Raised you to $5 and no more? A. That was all. Q. That took you up to 21? A. Yes, sir. Q. Had you remained a good girl all this time? A. No, sir. Q. When did you cease to be a good girl? A. About 19. Q. You were a good girl until you went to Indianapolis? A. Yes, sir. Q. By a good girl, I mean strictly good? A. I was strictly good. Q. Until you went to Indianapolis? A. Yes, sir. Q. You remained in Indianapolis about a year before you ceased to be a good girl? A. Yes, sir. Q. What brought about your downfall? The first step, I mean. A. I did it myself, I guess. Q. Was the first step for money or affection? A. Money. Q. You were paid? A. Yes, sir. Q. At that particular time, when you took that step for money, were you very hard up? A. Yes, I was, very hard up. Q. Very short of money? A. Yes, sir. Q. You continued at Indianapolis, working at that place, for $3.50 and $5 a week, and at the same time sporting on the side? A. Yes, sir. Q. That was the condition up to your 21st year? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where did you go after you left Indianapolis? A. I did not leave Indianapolis. I went down the line. Q. You went down the line in Indianapolis? A. Yes, sir. Q. You came to Peoria one year ago? A. I have been in Peoria since May. Q. You came here from Indianapolis? A. Yes, sir. Q. How did you happen to come to Peoria? A. I just wanted to come, is all. Q. Have you any relatives living here? A. No, sir. Q. No friends? A. No, sir. Q. Whose house were you in, in Indianapolis? A. Maj’' Williams’ house. Q. Where is that? A. 528 East court. Q. That was the last house you were in, when in Indianapolis? A. It is the only one I was in. Q. When you decided to come up here, what suggested Peoria to you? A. I just wanted to come. Q. You didn’t know anybody in Peoria? A. No, sir. Another girl and I came here at the same time. Q. You came together? A. Yes. sir. Q. Before coming, did you get a letter from anybody in Peoria? A. No, sir. Q. Did the madam running that house get a letter saying they needed girls in Peoria? A. No, sir. Q. You just came on the chance the house might not be filled? A. That is what I thought. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I think this girl has told her life story and the story speaks for itself. Do you wish to interrogate this witness at this point. Senator Beall? SENATOR BEALL: What wages were you receiving when you went sporting? A. I was about 21 Q. No, I mean what wages? A. $5 a week. Q. Why did you go sporting? A. Because it was not enough money. Public Meetings and Testimony 343 Q. You could not live off it? A. No, sir. Q. You went for that reason solely? A. Solely. Q. You could not live on that money?- A. Not well enough to be satisfied. Q. Do you think if you had a position with good pay you would quit this life? A. Yes, sir; if I had enough to live on. Q. What could you live on? A. I could not live on less than $10 or $12 a week with much comfort. Q. What do you make now, all you can get? A. Yes, mostly. Mr. Henry G. Kuch’s Testimony. HENRY G. KUCH, a witness summoned to appear before the Com- mittee, having been duly sworn by Senator Beall, was interrogated and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Henry J. Kuch. Q. What is your business? A. Manufacturing tin cans and tin ware. Q. With what company are you connected? A. Steuber & Kuch. Q. What is your connection? A. One-half interest. Q. Are you the president, or an officer of any kind in the company? A. It is just a partnership. Q. Did you hear some of these girls who have been testifying here? A. Yes, sir. Q. These girls from the underworld? A. Yes, sir. Q. You heard their stories? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do you think about the subject of vice, as connected with the matter of low wages? A. Well, to a certain extent, low wages might have something to do with it, but I do not think it is low wages altogether. Q. Do you think it is a commendable proposition for us all to co- operate and try to make conditions better for working girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. And without injuring business interests? A. Yes, sij". Q. How are we going to go about it, Mr. Kuch? A. In our case, if all the competition were put on the same basis Q. It would not affect you adversely? A. I think not, no, sir. Q. Would you favor a minimum wage for women in this state, or such a law? A. I cannot say that I would or could, because we have competition at Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Kansas City, Minneapolis, St. Paul and St. Louis. Q. Then you believe there should be a uniform law in all the states? A. Yes, sir. Q. If there is to be any enactment of law, fixing minimum wage scales? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many women do you employ? A. Married and unmar- ried, we have 56. Q. Fifty-six in all? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the low^est wage paid to any one of those women? A. They all work piece work. We have a few that are under 16 years old. Their average pay is $5.64 a week for 8 hours a day. Q. Now, if you please, we do not want the average pay. We want to find out what is the lowest pay — the lowest wage. A. I can hardly get at that, because they work piece work. They are all paid on the same basis of payment. Q. Take last week’s pay roll, did any girl get as low as a dollar for her week’s work? A. No, sir. Q. What was the lowest amount paid to any girl on last week’s pay roll? A. A girl between 14 and 16, the lowest we pay them to get them broken in and started on the work, is $4 a week; but then we only have girls that stay at home for that work. 344 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Have you last week’s pay roll at hand? A. I have the pay roll of the week before. Last week’s is not ready. Q. What is the lowest amount on that pay roll? A. $4.50, for 8 hours’ work. Q. That was week before last? A. Yes, sir. Q. Week before last no girl employed by your firm was paid less than $4.50? A. That is correct. Q. To that statement you can swear? A. Yes, sir. Those are 8-hour i girls. The 10-hour girls make more money. Q. How do you treat your women workers — treat them pretty well? A. We aim to. . Q. Suppose they are not working as fast as they should, have you anybody to drive them? A. No. If they do not work as fast they ought to, we let them out. Q. Do you give them any notice? A. No, not especially. Q. Do you ever fire girls on the spot? A. Not unless they have done something. I don’t know that it has happened in the last year or two that any have been discharged on the spot. Q. How much notice do you usually give them? A. It is very rarely we discharge them. Q. When you do discharge them? A. It depends on whether they have done something offensive, or done something in the way of cheating on the piece work. Then we let them go on the spot. Sometimes the parents come down the next day to see what is wrong, and then we sometimes take the girls back again. Q. Are you of German extraction? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know of the system in some parts of Germany regarding the discharge of employes? A. No, sir. Q. There is a system whereby workers can only be discharged quar- terly. Would you favor that system? A. I don’t know about that. Q. Before each quarter, two weeks’ notice must be given the em- ployee. How would that system work out in this country? A. It might work all riglit with some people, but not with others. Q. How would it work out in your business? A. I could not tell. It would depend upon the provisions. Q. What do you think is the least amount upon which a woman can live in the city of Peoria? A. Vy wife used to be a servant girl. She lived on $3 a week. Q. And board and room? A. Yes, sir; she was a servant girl. Q. Well, now, suppose that the girl has to go out and pay for her board and room. What is the least amount she can live upon? A. I don’t know. I could not state. Q. I think that this Committee would be pretty well satisfied if all the girls in Illinois M’ere getting their board and room and three dollars a week besides; but we are finding that a good many of these girls do not. Now, the girls to whom you are paying $4 and $5 a week are not getting their board and room and clothing, are they? A. They have homes where they stay. Q. Who supports the home? A. The father and mother, very likely. These are young girls. Q. How old are they? A. Between 14 and 16, as I stated. Q. You have a tabulation there. Would you mind giving us that, or reading it? A. You can have it. I brought it for you. Q. Shall we put it into the record, with your consent? A. Very well. Q. First, how many girls are getting $5, there? A. There are none of them, in particular. There won’t be one found, who is getting exactly $5, there. The average is $8.72 a week. Public Meetings and Testimony 345 SENATOR TOSSEY; Are those 8-hour girls, or 10-hour girls? A. Those are 10-hour girls, and the average wage is $8.72. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The average wage for 8 hours is $5.64? A. Yes. They are all paid on the same basis. You will see the different wages. Some are making as high as $12 and $14 a week. They are all paid on the very same basis. Q. Those girls who make less than $7 a week — are they all living home? A. It states there, those that are living at home, and those that are boarding. Let us take the case of this girl. I will not call out her name. We will call her L. T. She is single and boarding, getting $6.50 a week. Q; Do you know this girl A. Yes, I know her. Q. Is she getting along pretty nicely on the sum of $6.50 a week? A. I don’t know. Q. Has she»ever complained to you? A. She has never, as she is paid on the same basis as girls that make $10. Q. Taking her as an individual case, she is single, boarding, getting $6.50 a week. As far as you know she has no other means or income? A. No, sir. Q. Do you know where she boards? A. No, sir. Q. Have you ever sought to inquire? A. No, sir. Q. Suppose that girl, as an example, should fall, because she finds it impossible to live on this $6.50 a week — would you feel the pangs of conscience on her account? A. Well Q. Would you feel as an employer you had been a little too lax in your duty not to inquire into this girl’s life a little more? A. Well, I have never given it any thought. Our thoughts are coming to us when we read the newspapers. When I came from Denver, night before last, I was thinking there were a lot of things to be learned, that it would pay me to investigate. What would you do in a case of that kind? Q. It is a hard ma’tter to say, some times, just what should be done. A. There is competition that enters into it, and especially trust compe- tition, that enters into it. Q. But talking as man to man, the employer has some moral respon- sibility? A. It might place it in such a position that we would have to let her out and take on somebody that has a home. You see, there would not be anything left for profit, if you had to pay high v/ages to everybody. Q. What were the profits last year? A. Just 8 per cent. Q. What was it in round numbers? A. (Note: Witness answered frankly, but answer is not printed here, for reason appearing below.) Q. On an investment of how much money? A. (Note: See note above.) Q. Those are net profits? A. Net profits. Q. You have to subtract, of course, a certain per cent for wear and tear of machinery, etc.? A. About 2 per cent, and that is not enough. Q. But the amount quoted is a net profit? A. Yes. Q. Now, have you figured up A. Is all this profit talk going into the papers? I don’t think we want all that published. I don’t think they are questions that ought to be answered, but I am willing to answer them for the information of the Committee but not for widespread publication in the press. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Committee will ask the newspaper men not to make public the profits in this case. SENATOR BEALL: The gentleman is very accommodating to give it, and I think he should be treated right. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Especially about using the name. I think you could quote the 8 per cent. PRESS CORRESPONDENT: Is it all right to state the figure without quoting names? 346 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Yes, if you do not disclose the identity in other ways. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: We have a bill in the legislature to make a minirnum wage for girls. What do you think would be a fair minimum for girls, so they could live comfortably, and have decent clothes, and be a credit to the community? I am not talking about little bits of girls but girls from 17 years up to 25 or over? A. I think our average of $8.72 is fair, and I have never heard any complaint of it not being enough. Q. We have heard estimates all the way from $8 to $12, in the places we have been. What would you say? A. The minimum wage would be all right, if all the states would accept the same. Q. You manufacture tin cans? A. Yes, sir. Q. I suppose you know about Beall Brothers, of Alton, Illinois? A. Oh, yes. Q. I was president but have now retired from the active manage- ment. A. Yes, I know of you, Mr. Beall, in connection with that con- cern. We have done quite a lot of work for Oldin, down there. Q. You have quite a large factory here? A. Employing about 185 people. SENATOR BEALL; I think the answers of this witness have been unusually frank and fair. I do not think of anything else to ask. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: You say the average is $9 a week, or rather, $8.75? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, for apprentices. What scale would j'ou want to pay the apprentices? A. Well, the young ladies that start to work under 16, at $4 a week, and over 16 years of age, at $5 a week. Q. You would grade them according to the ages of the girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. How would you have the scale raised? How much would you raise them, in a month, or two months? A. We do not raise them. M e put them on piece work as soon as they want to go on it. They have the preference. Q. In framing the bill, j^ou would have to fix specifically the amount and how long it would be before they could be raised. A. In that class of work, we have to educate them from thirty to sixty days, or until they would be sufficiently capable at the work so they could earn probably, by that time, a dollar a day. Q. Starting at five dollars a week, in thirty days they could be raised to six dollars a week? Is that your idea? A. Yes, sir. Q. In thirty days more they could be raised again, to what figure? A. In 30 or 60 days, probably, to $7. Q. Then in thirty days more theA" could be raised to eight dollars? A. Something of that kind. Of course, it all depends upon the young lady. Q. We have to fix a scale, of course, and it would be somewhat arbi- trary in its specifications. You could not have an employe as an ap- prentice, whom you would keep as an apprentice. She rvould have to graduate out of that class some time? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The session of the Committee now stands adjourned. Whereupon the hearing was adjourned. SESSION XI En route from Springfield, 111., to Washington, D. C., the Committee visits Harrisburg, Pa., and confers with Governor Tener and other state officials. Proceeding to Washington the Committee waits upon the President of the United States and presents a request that he call a meeting of state representatives to consider the enactment of uniform state laws to protect Ameri- can womanhood. Examination by the Chairman of volunteer wit- nesses who appeared before the Committee at a public meeting, including — Mr. Ardeen Foster, International Commissioner of the British Federation for the Emancipation of Sweated Women, Girls and White Slave Victims. Mr. G. Stanley Finch, Special Commissioner for the Suppres- sion of White Slave Traffic, Department of Justice, United States Government. Mr. W. W. Husband, United States Department of Labor, formerly connected with the United States Immigration Com- mittee. Captain J. Thomas Hollinberger, Captain of Police, City of Washington. Mrs. Adolph Kahn. Mrs. Archibald Hopkins, Chairman Welfare Department, Dis- trict of Columbia Division of the National Civic Federation. Mrs. Virginia Ransome. Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley, representing the Housekeepers’ Al- liance of the District of Columbia and the Consumers’ League. Mrs. Clara Neligh, Settlement Worker. Hon. Robert P. Hill, Member of Congress. Dr. William G. Woodward, Health Officer of the District of Columbia. Mrs. A. A. Bimey, President of the Mothers’ Congress. Mr. Robert S. Barrett, testifying for Mrs. Kate Waller Bar- rett, President of the National Florence Crittenden Mission. Dr. Elnora C. Folkmar. Springfield, 111., March 20, 1913. The Senatorial Vice Committee at 11 :55 A. M. today, left for Washington, to confer with President Wilson for the purpose of appealing to him to call a national conference for the study of the “White Slavery” industry. The members en route were Lieut. Governor O’Hara, chairman ; Senator Beall and Senator Woodard. Chicago, 111., March 20, 1913. The senatorial comfiiittee arrived here at five o’clock P. M. and were joined by their associates, Senator Juul and Senator Tossey. At 5 :30 the committee departed for Washington on a Pennsylvania train. Harrisburg, Pa., March 21, 1913. The committee arrived here at 2 o’clock P. M. and were received at the depot by a committee composed of Hon. George E. Alter, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania ; Hon. Thomas L. Montgomery, State Librarian; Mr. Walter H. Gaither and 347 348 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Mr. William D. Grimes, by whom the members were escorted to the Senate Hotel, where luncheon was served. A little later the committee visited the State House where it was received by Governor John K. Tener. The members of the comfmittee were presented to Governor Tener by Lieut. Gov. O’Hara. The chairman of the committee explained the object of its vi^t and a discussion of its object was | freely indulged in. The governor of Pennsylvania expressed deep | sympathy with the movement and intimated that he would send a i special message concerning it to the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives. At 5 :30 the committee left for AVashington. Washington, D. C., March 21, 1913. The committee arrived in this city at 8 :30 tonight. AVashington, D. C., March 22, 1913. The members of the committee, by special arrangement, visited the W’hite House at 1 1 :50 A. M. to confer with President AAdlson. Congressman McDermott, of Chicago, accompanied the committee and presented Lieut. Governor O’Hara to the president. Addressing the president. Chairman O’Hara said in part: Mr. Presi- dent, this committee was appointed to make a study of the problems confronting our womanhood. We earnestly recommend that you call a meeting of representatives of the different states to discuss the matter of uniform state laws, and also perhaps national laws, which will remove from American womanhood some of the menaces which that womanhood now must face. This meeting we respectfully suggest might profitably be attended by the members of the various committees which have been appointed and are to be appointed by the various states, and we would like to have it called here in Washington, some time in the fall or in the summer. Besides the members of the committees, this conference ought to be attended by the governors of these states, as well as by delegates selected by these governors, and by the mayors of all of our important cities. It should form a national commission to study all questions pertaining to vice. At the close of his remarks Chairman O’Hara presented Senator Beall, who said : “I spent four months in Europe recently studying conditions in France, Holland, Germany and Belgium, and I came home impressed with the idea of the importance of this problem. Therefore I offered the resolution which created this committee. I believe in womanhood, motherhood and anti-race suicide. I know of no one in this country who is in a position as 5-ou are to render not only effective assistance in this direction but to have placed on the statute books legislation that will promote the happiness and guard the virtue of the working women of the United States. We have already replies of thirty-two governors endorsing our motives, and I am convinced if you call the meeting suggested by Governor O’Hara, that the whole question will be settled in the interest of the human race.” CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. President, I desire to present Senator Juul, the Dean of the Illinois Senate. SENATOR JUUL: Mr. President, the first thing impressed on us was the advisability of making this matter a nation-wide moyernent. If the causes are studied and their cures applied, only in Illinois, it would mean a matter of injustice to that state. For instance, if the minimum wage law were to apply only in Illinois, it would be an injustice to our Public Meetings and Testimony 349 manufacturers because of the competition of the states where they have no such law. It seems to me that one thing the national government can do is to establish in each great commercial center a home where women can be taken care of when they cross the state line in search of employment. The government takes care of a pound of tobacco. It follows the commodity from Kentucky or Virginia across the state line and even counts the number of cigars made out of that pound of tobacco. If the national government can devote so much time to a pound of tobacco or a pound of butterine, it surely can devote some time to the protection of womanhood traveling from one state to another. The need is so crying that if we were to attempt to tell you, Mr. President, how bad it is as shown by the evidence we have taken, it would almost be unbelievable. The impression seems to have arisen that this committee is studying merely the question of wages, but such is not the case, I assure you, for it is going into all phases of the vice problem. The greater part of the data we have gathered is unprintable. It reveals conditions so horrible, so revolting, that most of the states need the strong arm of the national government back of the states to make any remedy effective. PRESIDENT WILSON: Gentlemen, I appreciate to the full the gravity of this question and if you will be so kind as to leave with me the suggestions you have made in either printed or written form, I shall give the matter the fullest consideration. I thank you. Senator Beall then handed to the president the resolution which he, Senator Beall, introduced in the Senate of Illinois, February 4, 1913 creating the commission. Washington, D. C., Saturday, March 22, 1913. The Illinois Senatorial Vice Committee met at two o’clock P. M., on the Mezzanine Floor of the New Willard Hotel. Present: Lt. Gov. O’Hara, chairman; Senator Niels Juul and Senators Tossey, Beall and Woodard. THE CHAIRMAN: The meeting of the Illinois State Senatorial Vice Committee will come to order. Senator Juul, the Dean of our State Senate and the attorney for the committee, will explain our purpose to those who have honored us with their presence this afternoon. •Whereupon Mr. Juul outlined the work undertaken and the results achieved and contemplated by the committee. He concluded: “One of the large employers who was subpoenaed before this com- mittee stated that the moment we try to establish a minimum wage for the manufacturing interests in Illinois we will isolate Illinois, drive the manufacturing interests out of Illinois, and he turned around to the committee and said. ‘You cannot do this unless you make it a national movement.’ So, ladies and gentlemen, we started out in our little inno- cent Japanese way, trying to make it a national movement if we can. We are here to ask you, ladies and gentlemen of Washington, to help us. We called on the eovernor of Pennsylvania yesterday, and he has prom- ised to heln us. Governor O’Hara has communicated with most of the governors in the country, and they have oromised to help us. Todav we called on the president of the United States and we believe he will help us. THE CHAIRMAN: Senator Beall, the father of the resolution creating this committee, will make a statement. Whereupon Mr. Beall explained further the work of the committee and its purpose in visiting Washington, 350 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR BEALL: Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen — I hav, now passed the years of three score and five, and I have always bee, a champion for women. I believe in womanhood and motherhood. 1 have nine boys and a pair of twin daughters, and therefore I believe I am prepared to talk. My greatest anxiety when I was first married forty- five years ago, was the wish and will for my daughters. I wanted them to live a virtuous life and marry good husbands, and my wishes have been fulfilled. Last summer I spent four months in Germany, Holland and Belgium, investigating the question of good roads, vice and different matters per- taining to those countries. I returned home fully satisfied that foreign countries were doing more towards the protection of women than we are doing in our country. This resolution that the governor alluded to, I offered in the senate, creating a vice committee, or white slave committee. Ladies and gentlemen, we want to enlist your sympathy. We want to enlist your friendship and your help. The governor has received some thirty-two letters from different governors of the United States offering their assistance. We hope every one of you will insist on your people in your states, in your country, doing something to further this cause. We are willing to lead every time, to do all we possibly can. We expect for the next two years to give this our study, our time, and do everj-- thing we can to promote this cause, and if there are any of you who want any private interviews with our committee, we will be glad to give | the time to you and tell you what we have found out. THE CHAIRMAN: We want to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that this committee has never attacked the morality of the American working woman. Our investigation has shown that the American work- ing women constitute as pure a class of womanhood as the world has seen, but we do know that the American w'orking woman is forced to face menaces that she should never be called upon to face, and that if i America is to be a land of real gallantry, we must remove those menaces from the paths of the American working girl. Mr. Ardeen Foster’s Testimony. i EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. | The first witness today will be Mr. Ardeen Foster, international j commissioner of the British Federation for the Emancipation of Sweated I Women, Girls and White Slave Victims. j THE CHAIRMAN: What is your present occupation? MR. FOSTER: I am the international commissioner of the British Federation. Our work is the emancipation of sweated women, girls, and white slave victims, who happen to be such as the result of starvation wages. THE CHAIRMAN: As such, Mr. Foster, you believe that there is such a condition as white slavery? MR. FOSTER: Positively. THE CHAIRMAN: You believe that it is an organized business or industry? MR. FOSTER: Speaking from the London end of it, I know that it is an organized industry, for the simple reason that we have, sad to say, in our midst, over two thousand, five hundred men, that is, beings in the shape of men, that are procurers, and men who live upon the illegal proceeds of women. I speak of London alone. THE CHAIRMAN: You have in England the whipping post as a j punishment for white slavers? I MR. FOSTER: Yes. On the second day of November, the House ] of Parliament passed one of the greatest laws ever engineered through | the parliament of the United Kingdom. L^pon the first day of January, | 1913, that law went into effect. It is this: Any man who is arrested I and convicted of living on the illegal proceeds of a woman is taken | Public Meetings and Testimony 351 before a magistrate, and upon his conviction, his back is bared, and he is given thirty lashes. The punishment has already been dealt out to quite a number of men, and I am very happy to say it is having a tremendous effect. The class of men, 1 am also proud to say, with very few exceptions, are not English-speaking men, but they are foreigners of the lowest type. As a result of this flogging law or the Capps law, as we some- times call it, they are gradually losing their hold upon the white slave and becoming less, that is to say, a man once flogged will never come back for a second flogging. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe, Mr. Foster, that there is any direct connection between low wages and immorality? MR. FOSTER: I will begin in this way: When 1 was a reporter on a certain newspaper, in a certain great city, 1 had a very peculiar assignment given to me. During the course of a great religious revival, the conductors of the revival set aside a week for fallen women; that is, every night at a certain hour the fallen women were to come to that meeting, which they did attend very liberally. The newspaper with which I was connected assigned me to interview the proprietresses and the inmates of every house in this great city. There were over two hundred houses in a certain district. I did investigate, I interviewed, and I found out that eighty per cent of those people owed their fall directly to starvation wages. That was my first investigation. Down in the slums of London, where it was my great privilege and my great joy to work, sometimes day and night I found that at least sixty per cent of the fallen women of the United Kingdom owed their fall to starvation wages. There is no getting back of that. I went right down into the heart of the thing, and I will just give you one incident. Just before I came away from London, crossing a bridge from the Surrey side over to Middlesex side, I saw a woman who darted out and across the bridge and made for it as though she were going to leap off. I stopped her and asked her what she was doing and led her carefully away towards the Queen street side. I got into her confidence, and found where she lived, and before I quit her I found that she was making about a pound a week, which is five dollars. On that pound she was endeavor- ing to support an invalid father and mother and two brothers, one of whom she was trying to send through college. She told me she was driven to this act of desperation through the fact that her conscience had bitten her, for the reason that in order to keep this little family together and from starving, she had been the mistress — pardon me for speaking so plainly, but I must call a spade a spade — of four men during the last year. Now that is one example. In going around from place to place, I find these women on the streets, I find them in various places, and I never fail to ask the question, “What brought you here?” Sixty out of one hundred say, “Starvation.” To give you one example, a woman with twelve children and a husband, down in the east of London, is making trousers under the sweated con- ditions of two pence half penny a pair, which is about five cents. Out of that two pence half penny, she must pay for her thread and cotton, and that brings her profit down to about two cents. The consequence is, that, at the end of the week, this woman has only five shillings and sixpence to her credit, which is about $1.12. She has a beautiful daughter of about 19 years. The woman said to me just the other night, before I left, “Suppose I were to lose my little business here, and my daughter, who is bringing me in five shillings a week, were to lose her position, one of us would be obliged to go out on the street and sell our body.” It is a sequence, they speak of it as a sacrifice. I am not speaking about the other portion of humanity which we would have to go back millions of years to reconstruct; if we put them on the right path, but I am speaking of the direct cause of sixty per cent of the white slave traffic. THE CHAIRMAN: And the other forty per cent, to what do you attribute that? What are the other causes ending in white slavery or in prostitution? MR. FOSTER: Well, all sorts, disappointments,! for one thing. 352 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Twenty per cent of it is the fault of the man. The others go wrong for various reasons. In the first place, not alone here in the States, hut in England, we are all living too fast. W’e see things in a wrong light. The women wear fine clothes and the poor girl goes bj' and says, “I would like to have a dress like that” or “a bonnet* or a hat like that.” That has a great deal to do with it, and then of course there is a certain per- centage of humanity whom it would be hard to control. I will not go as far as a doctor told me in New York, who said that eighty per cent of humanity was constructed with passions which would lead them down, but I will say that there is a percentage of humanity which would go wrong under any circumstances. I think I have accounted for the other forty per cent as near as possible. THE CHAIRMAN: Have you in England a minimum wage law? MR. FOSTER: A minimum wage law in England came in applying to the men in 1909, but I cannot say that it is a success, for the simple reason that the law which governs the little city of Leeds would not govern London, any more than a minimum wage law which would govern Wash- ington would apply to New York. I do not think it is a success; I mean, taken w'holly. Our idea of that minimum wage is to give the women enough to live on. For example, the woman with twelve children would get what? For instance, what would a minimum wage of twelve shillings a week amount to wuth her as compared to the woman with her two children? We look to giving that woman enough to live on, whether she has five, seven or twelve children. Here is another thing to contend with: The waistcoat I have on cost me, at my tailor, sixteen shillings, which is $4.00. I will show you where the minimum wage would not apply. The woman who makes these waistcoats whom I found in the east end of London gets three pence for making it. That is six cents. There is another woman who gets three pence for finishing them off, which is twelve cents all together. I asked my tailor what he paid for making the waistcoat, and he said, “That woman has been in m\' father’s family and mine for years, and we pay her four shillings, six pence, which is $1.12.” I said, “What is the recognized wage which the manu- facturer pays to the sweater or to the contractor, or whoever it may be, who takes this work out?” He told me $1.12, and I found that that rule applied. The sweater was getting one dollar clear profit on every one of these garments. That woman makes that waistcoat for three pence, but when sbe goes to get the work she will find in the same building three or four other women. The sweater will say to her, “How much will you make these waistcoats for?” One woman will saj-, “I will make them for four pence,” which is eight cents. Another woman will say, “I have two children more than you, I will make them for three pence.” Another woman will say, “I will make them for two pence.” So they bid each other down. SENATOR JULIL: Would a prohibition of the sweating system help? Would the prohibition of sub-letting prevent this? ? MR. FOSTER: That is what we are trying to do. The minimum wage should apply to the women. It does apply to a certain degree amongst the men for the reason that their labor is perfectly organized. The British Federation is endeavoring to abolish that sweated condition and at the same time abolish a large percentage of white slavery by taking the younger girl who assists the mother in making trousers, match- boxes, brushes and waistcoats, and other things, and take those girls out of their sweated conditions into a training horne which we have aud turn those girls to doing anything thej' like, serving, nursing, millinery and dressmaking. Now the mother or the grandmother are too old to go as servants or dressmakers or to learn a new trade. Where they have been making trousers for two pence and half penny a pair, or where they have been making ten thousand match-boxes for ten shillings, where they have been making brushes and knocking out five shillings a week, or waistcoats and knocking out five shillings a week, we take those people with their respective trades and put them into the co-operative work, so that they receive just as much through our co-operative_ plan as they would if they were to receive the wage. Now, I say this simply for the Public Meetings and Testimony 353 reason that factory work for all of these people would be harder, pos- sibly because they are a class of people, in the first place, who never have worked in factories and their homes require them. That is the way we get rid of that. Therefore, I say, the minimum wage would not apply. Mr. G. Stanley Finch’s Testimony. G. Stanley Finch, Special Commissioner for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic, was then summoned to the witness stand. SENATOR JUUL: 1 would prefer to have Mr. Finch relate his own story. Kindly tell your story in your own way, Mr. Finch. MR. FINCH: As Special Commissioner of the Department of Jus- tice, it is our effort to suppress the interstate traffic in women for im- moral purposes. The work of the department is based on what is known as the White Slave Traffic Act, which makes it a crime for anybody to in- duce a girl or woman to go, or to transfer a girl or woman from one state to another for an immoral purpose. In order effectively to enforce this law, it was very early found that it was necessary to take extraor- dinary measures. Ordinarily, as you doubtless know, laws are enforced by running down complaints and prosecuting anyone found guilty of violat- ing the I’aw about whom a complaint has been made, but owing to the very large number of men who were found to be engaged, professionally, ' you might say, in the business of procuring women and girls for houses ■ of ill-fame, the number, amounting to thousands, in all parts ot the country, it was found necessary to adopt a special system, a system that we [j might reasonably hope to be effective, and consequently, the depart- ment has undertaken to take up effective work in every city in the United ' States where a house of ill-fame is located. Already this work has been extended to over two hundred and fifty cities. In every one of those cities ,| we have a representative who keeps track of the arrival of new inmates I at houses, and in every case where a girl goes into a house of ill-fame, I the matter is inquired into very carefully to see whether or not she has ■ been brought from some other state in violation of the white slave law. !* Thus far we have sent to the jails and penitentiaries over five hundred ; men in all parts of the United States. We have, in common with the work of keeping track of these arrivals, secured the names, descriptions and other data regarding over L twenty-five thousand of these women, and I am now preparing forms I for the purpose of collecting information regarding the manner in which these women were led into immoral lives, and in a few months we expect i to have a very complete statement as to the causes which have actually : led to immorality on the part of these women. Thus far, however, our : work of collecting data has been confined to the business of collecting I information as to violations of the white slave law. From this data, 1 ; most valuable information can be obtained, but the information relates 'i primarily to the manner in which the girl is procured by the white slave : trafficker, and in many cases does not show the cause which led to her F immorality in the first instance. For the same reason, the connection \ between the minimum wage, to which reference has been made, and the , white slave traffic, cannot clearly be shown by these statistics that are J available in cases which we have prosecuted. We are now preparing ' complete statements, which I hope to have published and available for ' distribution, as to the facts in every one of these more than five hundred white slave cases. As far as we can make any deductions from the facts ; in the cases, gathered from the evidence given in the trials of the cases, ; it does not appear with any large percentage of these girls that the ' crime would have been prevented by a minimum wage. As a matter of ^ fact, in so far as we know of the information concerning these victims in . These white slave cases, the greater percentage seems to come from 1 domestic employment, girls who work in homes and who work in res- i' taurants and hotels. There are a few who come from factories and some |i few from stores, but comparatively few of the victims in those cases, in so far as our records show the facts, come from employment of that kind. i One fact about these cases is the very large percentage of victims 354 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee who are the wives of the procurers. In looking over one hundred cases this morning for the purpose of getting some statistics in my mind, I found that in seventy-five per cent of these cases, the victims were the actual or the supposed wives of the white slave traffickers. As a matter of fact, the common method, the general method, you might say, through which, and the most effective method by far, the procurer gets his victim today, throughout the entire country, is through the promise of marriage or through the actual marriage ceremony, and in a very large percentage of cases, the girls are courted and married in a perfectly legitimate manner and taken away from home, and then, by a process of threats, abuse, beating, starvation, and by actual force and confinement in rooms, they are reduced to a condition where they first, involuntarily, and later, voluntarily, sell their bodies. Of course, there are a very large number of persons engaged in this traffic in this country. We have estimated the number at 25,000 men. i I think the estimate is conservative. Thus far we have the records of i possibly fifteen hundred of these men, and we have barely touched the i surface. We do not expect to convict all of these white slave traffickers. I am glad to say the work of the government in attempting to enforce ] the white slave traffic act is resulting in a very great decrease in the traffic i in women. i It has already resulted almost absolutely, in the destruction of the | nefarious practice we found when we started our work, of holding girls i for debt, that being an offense against the Federal law, or violations of j the peonage law, and we have been able to stop that practice to a very large extent in practically all of the cities where our work has been in- stalled. Likewise the practice of confining girls in rooms and holding them absolutely against their wall as slaves has been largelj"^ stopped in those cities. We have so far extended our work through all states east of the Mississippi, with the exception of the New England states, and to Arkansas and Missouri. We have not yet undertaken any work in New York City or Chicago, for the reason that the funds available for this w'ork have not been sufficient to undertake that at the present time. We are hopeful, however, that the next Congress will provide funds sufficient to extend this work clear to the Pacific Coast, and also to enable us to undertake some important work, which is necessary in New York, Chicago, Boston, and some of the larger cities. MR. H. MARTIN WILLIAMS: What percentage do your investi- gations show girls that have come from the rural districts or sections? MR. FINCH: We find a very considerable number from the rural districts. In most cases where girls come from the rural districts they are led into immorality through the promise of marriage, through actual engagement and a trip to the city wdth a promise that the mar- riage ceremony will take place when they reach the city.. Frequently those cases are brought to our attention, and I should say that the greater part of the girls w'ho come from the rural districts are procured in that way, or through advertisements w'hich promise lucrative employment in the city. Unfortunately, there is no federal law which makes it a crime to use the United States mail for spreading false advertisements through the mail, promising lucrative emplojnnent to girls, and thus inducing them away from their homes, although there is a statute which makes it an offense for using the mails for the purpose of defrauding people of their money. THE CHAIRMAN: What laws. Mr. Finch, would you recommend to the respective states as state laws that would strengthen your national work in this line? MR. FINCH: Along that line, I might say that we have compiled for the use of our white slave officers in those 250 cities, all of the laws of the different states which relate to crime against immorality and every white slave officer is furnished a copj' of all the laws in these states. Public Meetings and Testimony 355 Some of the states have excellent laws, and others have laws that are very defective. Whenever one of those officers learns of a violation of the state law, it is his duty to bring it to the attention of the officials and aid them, and in that way we have secured a lot of convictions under the state laws. There are a number of laws that are necessary in these states. In speaking of this, I will have to use plain language, and to call them by their proper names. In the first place, most states have a law prohibiting adultery, pro- viding a serious penalty for adultery. Some few states, for instance, Maryland, have no law of that kind worthy of the name. In Maryland the maximum punishment for adultery is ten dollars. There should be, in my opinion, a very strict law on that subject, especially for the reason that, as I have said, it is a comon practice for men to marry their victims and then drive them into this form of slavery. Comparatively few states have any law making fornication a crime. Maryland has no law what- ever on the subject, and some other states are lacking in that respect, whereas in a few states the crime involves a penitentiary punishment. It seems to me that there should be a law covering this matter in every state. The crime of seduction is not ordinarily covered in an effective manner by the different state laws, and I have some very vicious and very pitiful cases of young girls that are brought to our attention, and are constantly being brought to our attention, where deception and fraud of all kinds is practiced on the young girl, but where it is impossible to punish the man who is guilty of the crime. THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any of those cases in Illinois? MR. FINCH: I do not recall any case of that kind in Illinois. THE CHAIRMAN: You have not investigated into the matter of vice as connected with low wages? MR. FINCH: Not especially; no, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe that a girl receiving seven dollars a week, and finding that she cannot purchase the necessities of life for less than eight dollars a week is as well fortified to resist temp- tation as a girl receiving twelve dollars a week? MR. FINCH: Certainly not. The low wage has at least an indirect bearing on the white slave traffic, as well as the social evil. SENATOR JUUL: How do you define an indirect bearing? Do you not call that a direct cause? MR. FINCH: To my mind, the direct cause of the social evil and the white slave traffic is not twenty per cent, but ninety per cent the fault of the man. It is due to the fact that while the girls get a small wage, the men make a large wage. Possibly, in a somewhat light vein, I might say we might have a very effective way of dealing with the problem of the social evil that would be a sort of correlative of tbe minimum wage, if we had a maximum wage or maximum expenditure for men. The trouble is that men not only have a wrong attitude towards women, and a wrong disposition, but they have so much money with which to tempt the women. If a woman receives a seven dollar wage, and has only a small amount of money for dress, she might be tempted by a man who has a comparatively small income and can spend a compar- atively small amount, but if she receives more than twelve or fifteen dollars a week she will get better clothes, and still there is the man who has one hundred dollars or five hundred dollars a week to spend, and he will tempt that girl. Until we can educate the men to appreciate the enormity of the offense of which they are guilty, and the fact that they are offenses against the criminal statute, against society, that should not be tolerated, we will have a problem before us in the social evil regardless of what the w’age is for women. THE CHAIRMAN: What do you think about the institution of the whipping-post as a punishment for the crime of seduction? MR. FINCH: In a great many of these white slave cases, it is my own 356 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee private opinion — other people may not agree with me — that hanging is not any too good for them. In many cases it is certainly merited, be- cause the offender is guilty of the crime of rape for which the punishment is hanging, in many states, and so far as the punishment by whipping is concerned, I think that in many cases, it would be very beneficial. I would not want to say the laws I have mentioned are the only laws necessary, but I know the time is too short to go into the full list of all laws. MRS. OWEN KILDARE: I would like to ask Mr. Finch if he has formulated any reason as to why so many of the women who are house- workers enter the white slave traffic. MR. FINCH: If I had time, I could give 3'^ou an illustration. It is hard to give a reason for that in a few words. In the cases where we know the real facts, it is due to the fact that the girl who is in the home is apart from her fellows, and is more easily subject to temptation. We have numbers of cases where young girls are acting as nurses or waitresses, and if they are nice looking girls, they attract some one connected with the household and through the display of money, or furnishing of rnoney, or the offers or favors of different kinds, the girl is sometimes seduced, and in that way is led astray and eventualh" is driven into a house of ill-fame. Then, of course, the girls who work in houses are not so well educated as the girls who work in stores, and I think in factories, too; and, being more ignorant, they are more easily the victims of the white slave traffickers. I do not know whether that answers the question satisfactorih^ W. W. Husband, of the Department of Labor, was the next witness. THE CHAIRMAN: Have you investigated the industrj'^ of the white slave traffic? MR. HUSBAND: Formerly I was connected with the United States Immigration Committee, which did make an investigation of the importa- tion of women for immoral purposes. THE CHAIRMAN: That report has been published? MR. HUSBAND: That report was presented to Congress in Decem- ber, 1909. The work was directly under the supervision of Professor J. W. Jenks, then of Cornell LTniversity, and I had to do with it simply as the executive secretary of the Commission. I will say that whatever j'ou may find in this report is vouched for as to its accuracJ^ THE CHAIRMAN: Further than what is in this report, j'ou have nothing to say? MR. HUSBAND: Further than Avhat is in this report I would not qualify as a witness. THE CHAIRMAN: We are very much obliged to you for appearing before us. I will now call Captain Hollinberger. Captain J. Thomas Hollinberger’s Testimony. THE CHAIRMAN: What is your occupation? CAPT. HOLLIN- BERGER: Captain of Police. THE CHAIRMAN: In the District of Columbia? CAPT. HOLLIN- BERGER: Yes. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe in segregation? CAPT. HOL- LINBERGER: Yes. As long as these women want to lead that life, I do; yes, sir. In the sporting district in my precinct, there is no woman allowed unless she is a known sporting woman. A woman cannot come into that district under twentj"-one A^ears of age, and she has to be knoAvn. If a Avoman is forty years of age, and neA^er lias been in sporting life, she cannot go doAvn there. THE CHAIRAIAN: Before she can become an inmate of a house in Washington, she must, prior to that time, haA^e been a sporting AA'oman in some other city? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: Most all of the inmates here are inmates from other cities. SENATOR BEALL: Hoav many houses have you in the city? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: We hav-e about fifty-tAvo. THE CHAIRMAN: Hoav many' inmates? CAPT. HOLLIN* Public Meetings and Testimony 357 BERGER: Possibly 340 or 350. The inmates here go from one house to another. They move about. . THE CHAIRMAN: Have you what they call the booking system here — that is, where you keep the name and record of every girl that is an inmate of one of those houses? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: How does that system work out? CAPT. HOL- LINBERGER: We depend largely upon the Department of Justice, the white slave department. I am hand in glove with the Department of Justice. All I keep is a record of the girls in the houses. The keepers of these houses have to notify me if they leave, and where they go to. SENATOR JUUL: How would you say the houses in the district are recruited? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: They go from house to house, sir. SENATOR JUUL: That would not increase the number? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: No; the houses are being decreased. SENATOR JUUL: I suppose that perhaps unfortunate women die even faster thafi ordinary mortals. From whence, would you say, comes I the supply? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: That is a hard question to I answer. There are girls who come here from time to time. In fact, prior to the inaugural period, there were fifty or seventy-five girls who came here. They were turned down. We would not allow them to enter. SENATOR BEALL: Where did these girls come from? _ CAPT. ; HOLLINBERGER: The sporting districts in other towns. For instance, a good many came from New York and Chicago. MARTIN W. WILLIAMS: I understood the witness to say that the Police Department kept a record of the number of inmates of houses of ill-fame. Will he be kind enough to tell us what the records show, and what number of inmates are in the houses of Washington city? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: The number of inmates in the houses in my district 'are between three hundred and forty and three hundred and fifty, and there are fifty-two houses. In 1900, I suppose there were about one hundred and ten or one hundred and fifteen houses, and the inmates were probably more than double what they are now. MARTIN W. WILLIAMS: The decrease is a little over half? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: Yes. R. O. E. DARNELL: Do you keep a list of the patrons? CAPT. HOLLINBERGER: I do not. MRS. VIRGINIA RANSOME: Do you think that that would be ljust as effective as keeping a list of the inmates? CAPT. HOLLIN- : BERGER: No; the police force would not be large enough. II Mrs. Archibald Hopkins’ Testimony. Mrs. Archibald Hopkins was then summoned. As Chairman of the I Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation of the Washington Section, she told of efforts to improve housing conditions particularly, “and : we feel that is a subject which is very closely allied to this problem,” she said, “that the more you can improve the conditions under which girls and women live, the easier it will be for those girls and women to lead proper lives.” SENATOR JUUL: Then you believe that the condition of wages has something to do with vice? MRS. HOPKINS: I think, given the fact : that the girl lives in a nice home, with a room of her own, and with the decencies of life in every way, she is more likely to live a good life than the girl who lives in a slum, tenement or some hovel in an alley where people are sleeping promiscuously, with no bath, no privacy, and nothing which , tends to keep a woman’s standards up. Yes; I think so, in that sense. ’ SENATOR JUUL: Have you formed an idea of what would be the ; minimum amount of money which a young girl who works for a living, ■ either in a store or factory, has to have in order to live well, morally and decently? MRS. HOPKINS: I believe it has been said nine dollars would ' be about right in Chicago and about the same amount in New York, but it is less here. I think you can live rescectably here on $7.80, or something of that sort. 358 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR JUUL: Then a young woman with a salary of about five dollars a week is short about two dollars and eighty cents? MRS. HOPKINS: The theory of the shopkeepers here is that they will not take anybody who does not live in her own house, on those wages, of four and five dollars a week. A girl is taken on that pay only on the condition that she lives in her own home. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you regard good housing, in a sense, as a means to good morals? MRS. HOPKINS: It would improve the morals, i although it might not make a bad person good. If conditions were im- proved, it would make people more self-respecting, and raise their stand- ards. THE CHAIRMAN: Good housing, in a way, is dependent upon money? MRS. HOPKINS: It does require money — yes. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you trace a connection between low wages and immorality, between a reasonable living wage and a higher moral condition? MRS. HOPKINS: Possibly. But I know a great many people whose morals are not concerned with money. I know very little about the mini- mum wage and I never talk about things I do not know about, but I doubt whether the minimum wage question is going to make the whole world good. I think there should be education in the schools, no matter at what cost, at a high standard. I think there is a tremendous field for education in the Boy Scout Movement. I think the best of people of the present day are more or less prone to put their children in charge of irresponsible people or under the charge of people who will not give them the proper educa- tion morally. Much of the evil that comes into a child’s mind comes through that channel and I think all universities should hawe a chair of hygiene to teach young men what this all means. I do not want to criti- cize mothers, but 1 think the trouble is that the bars which were up so strong and high in my youth when we always stood in the presence of our fathers and mothers and called them “Honored Sir,” and so forth — I think the reaction from that has been so tremendous that it has gone off on the other side, and it has gone too far. There is too much liberty and too much license. I think all of this automobiling has its bad effect. I think there is too much license in general. It may seem a little hard for one mother not to allow her daughter to do what the other girls do, but I think in many cases it is better. As some one said the other day, you never hear anybody talk now about prin- ciples. In my generation, people talked about whether a girl or a man had high principles. You do not hear much about that now. SENATOR BEALL: Times have changed, madam, since you and I were young. MRS. HOPKINS: Yes. I want to speak of the good influence that is being exercised here in the settlement houses. \Ve have four of them — the Noel House, Neighborhood House, Friendship House, and the Colored Social Settlement. There are a certain amount of pleasant amusements for the young people and they play the proper kind of games. Thej’- can dance, but they must dance modestly. They can have amusements, but they are of the innocent kind. The home-keeping and the oversight of the young people is very rigidly enforced, ^and it has had a noticeable effect in all communities where the settlement houses exist. Mrs. Adolph Kahn’s Testimony. Mrs. Adolph Kahn was the next witness. THE CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Kahn, you are interested in club work in this city? MRS. KAHN: 1 have been for a great many years and have been interested in work for girls, foreign girls particularly. From my observation I believe that most of the girls who work in the stores are moral girls and I believe that the proper training of young boys to make them strong and healthy and to have the right idea and to have the proper respect for their mothers and sisters, is the paramount thing. I also believe that it is a question of resistance. It is a question of not being able to withstand temptation. I believe if a girl is properly trained in her home up to the age of sixteen, there is very little difficulty after that time. I think Public Meetings and Testimony 359 very few girls go wrong because they have not fine clothes; I think it is a matter of temptation only. I think it is a matter of being pursued and not being able to stand it. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you think that a girl getting $5 a week and finding that she cannot possibly live on less than $6, is as strongly fortified against temptation as the girl who is getting six? MRS. KAHN; I believe the matter is not of great enough significance. Perhaps I am expressing myself wrongly, but I have seen girls who worked for $5 a week exist and I believe they are just as strong morally or stronger than girls who get $8 or $10. I believe that the eight-hour law has more to do with it than the wage, and I believe helpful recreation is the biggest thing to do with it. I do not believe the minimum wage is the solution by any manner of means. I believe the poor girl has a great deal more resist- ance very often than the girl who has money. SENATOR JUUL: I believe that the matter of the desire to with- stand temptation is as great in the poor girl as it is in the rich girl, and possibly more. You say you do not think that the minimum wage has anything to do with her resisting temptation? MRS. KAHN; I do not make it that sweeping. I said I do not believe it is the paramount thing. SENATOR JUUL: What do you think is the paramount thing? MRS. KAHN: Training in the home up to the age of sixteen and training the boys. SENATOR BEALL: What is to become of girls getting three and four dollars a week in wages? MRS. KAHN: The girls I have worked with in Washington are foreio'ii girls who have no homes, in a great many cases. They come from abroad and our organization gets the records of them from the ports and we undertake to look after them for a period of two years. They come here and work for very little money to start on, and when they do not get enough they simply make sacrifices and get along the best they can. SENATOR WOODARD: It would not be fair to compare the for- eign girls with our own. MRS. KAHN: I do not know that there is any reason why not. The foreign girl is under greater disadvantage. SENATOR WOODARD: But the conditions under which they are raised — do. you think that would make a difference? MRS. KAHN: In what way? SENATOR WOODARD: Different environments, for one thing. MRS. KAHN: Thei^ require food and lodging. They do not know our habits. SENATOR WOODARD: I think abroad they are often submitted to deprivations that they do not have here. Is not that so? MRS. KAHN: I do not know any reason why our girls cannot stand just as much sacrifice as a foreign girl. JULIAN PIERCE; Mrs. Kahn referred to the alleged fact that a girl who worked on low wages became very tired when night came and when she went home she was ready to go to bed. Would it not be advis- able to make the stores increase the working day to twelve hours, so they would all get tired and get home? MRS. KAHN: I said that proper recreation is a great thing and I also think the eight-hour law' is a greater thing than the higher wage. I do not say they would get tired and go to bed. I said the girls make their small wage and go home, probably, and there is not the attraction probably for those who pursue them because they have not the attractive clothes, as have some of the girls who have the higher wage. MRS. VIRGINIA RANSOME: I would like to ask the lady if any of her immediate family are connected with any mercantile firm in this city which has to do with the hiring of women and girls in its employ. MRS. KAHN: Not my immediate family. I happen to have very close friends and I know that in Washington the condition of many of the girls in stores — if that is what you are speaking of — is not at all de- 360 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee plorable. I mean I have investigated and the only place I found where girls have unpleasant surroundings and small pay are in the few small tailor shops and pants factories, but they have mostly moved to Baltimore. JULIAN PIERCE: As to there not being deplorable conditions, are you not aware of the fact that the investigation of the United States Department of Labor relative to the conditions of women employes in the laundries and in the stores in Washington shows that the condition is deplorable? MRS. KAHN: As a matter of opinion, I happen to have investigated a few women. I know some of the laundries, and I could name them, that I consider the conditions very good indeed. I have personally investi- gated some of them, and it may be a matter of opinion. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you think that the employer has any moral responsibility for the employe? MRS. KAHN: Certainly. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe that if any employer gave a girl less money than she could live upon, or paid her, as we express it, below the bread line, and the girl went wrong as an indirect result, that the em- ployer would have anything to pain his conscience? MRS. KAHN: I might say only recently I had a little conference with one of the gentlemen who was at the head of one of the largest department stores in New York and he has been giving away millions for various charitable enterprises. I asked him why he did not pay his girls enough in the first place, so that they could save enough money and use it for themselves, rather than give it away afterwards. I do believe that employers are responsible in every way for those that are under their care, just the same as the schools are, and other organizations. THE CHAIRMAN: Madam, I wish to ask one more question, on the matter of moral responsibility. Do you think that the employer who has in his employ girls who are getting wages below the bread-line, has any moral right to give away to outside charities large sums of money? MRS. KAHN: I do not. MRS. RANSOME: Do you know that one of the most generous proprietors on Seventh Street pays his girls less than $2.50 a week? kIRS. KAHN: I do not know of any such place myself. Sometimes those figures are not exactly correct, and you will find that true in a great many cases. THE CHAIRMAN: What is the low-est wage that you have heard being paid to any woman worker in Washington? MRS. KAHN: I know some girls in the ten-cent stores get $3 a week. THE CHAIRMAN: How do they live? MRS. ICAHN: Most of them live at home. A girl who does not live at home cannot w'ork for that amount of money. SENATOR BEALL: What becomes of those girls? They have to live. MRS. KAHN: I might remind you that kir. Finch said a great many girls who w'ent wrong are in domestic service. It is not a question of board or food with them, but it is a question of temptation. I have rather made up my mind that it is absolutely wrong to connect the tvage wdth vice, and I think it might lead to such a condition as this, that if you give girls $9 a w’eek they would go on a strike and sa 3 % “If j^ou do not give us $12 we cannot live properly and we will all go wrong.” SENATOR JUUL: You said that you did not believe there was any salary in Washington as low as $2 or $2.50 a week, I believe? kIRS. KAHN: No; I did not say that. SENATOR JUUL: Except they were bundle wrappers? MRS. KAHN: I said they might be bundle wrappers. SENATOR JUUL: Now, I want to know, do not the women of Washington think that the morality and the life of a bundle wrapper or the life of the girl in the five and ten-cent store is as valuable to this nation as that of any other girl? MRS. KAHN: I do not think the question of moralit}" has anything tp dp with it, although I do think a minimum wage is a fine thing and Public Meetings and Testimony 361 should be had. I think it is the question of ability to withstand temptation. SENATOR JUUL: Can you withstand the temptation on $2.50 a week? MRS. KAHN: Yes, sir If the home training is right, I would say yes SENATOR JUUL: If the home is in no condition to add to that deficit which is needed to make up a living wage — and you say there are women in Washington working for $2.50 a week or possbly $2 a week — what is the way out of it? MRS. KAHN: Such a girl might go into domestic service and that would solve the question for her. It is not essential that the girl who cannot earn more than $2.50 a week should go into a store. If she is worth more the proprietor will gradually give her more. All merchants are looking for good help. SENATOR JUUL: Then you believe there are women who are entitled to less than what it takes to feed them, clothe them and house them. In other words you do not figure on the mere fact that she is a living human being and that she is entitled to clothes, food and shelter? MRS. KAHN: Yes, but it does not make it obligatory for a merchant to pay her. It is only obligatory for him to pay her what she earns. SENATOR JUUL: Who decides that? MRS. KAHN: The mer- chant. SENATOR JUUL: And if he decides she is only worth one-third what it takes to feed her, that is what she gets, irrespective of what be- comes of her? MRS. KAHN: Those are only exceptional cases. Mrs. Virginia Ransome’s Testimony. Mrs. Virginia Ransome was then summoned to the witness stand. MRS. RANSOME: Mr. Chairman, I did not expect to testify and I never testified before in my life, but I had a friend who, winter before last, told me the story of a family, that the man had left his wife and three children. The woman had gone into a laundry to work for a very small sum, possibly four or five dollars a week, and she could not possibly support those three children on that. She had one little girl 14 years of age working for $2 a week. The girl of course swore that she was 15 and it made no difference to her employer if she had been 10, as long as she swore that she was 16. THE CHAIRMAN: He did not investigate her statement? MRS. RANSOME: No, of course not. My informant found out this family through the Associated Charities and she told the mother of the child if she would take her from the store she would give her $2 a week out of some private fund of her own, so she could stay at home at night and be home during the day and look after the two small children, have her mother’s dinner hot when she came home at night and keep the house tidy so her mother could keep her strength. She asked me if I would give a pint of milk a day to the little girl, who was not well, and I said I would. The milk man at that time was charging me at the rate .of 4 cents per pint. She did not know that I was furnishing the milk and he charged the woman five cents a pint. That shows you that they take advantage of them. The child is now working at another store — Kahn’s, I believe — for $2 per week. THE CHAIRMAN: If Congress should authorize the appointment of a committee similar to this committee, with power to investigate the wage conditions in the District of Columbia, would you furnish that committee with the name of this girl working in the city of Washington for $2 a week? MRS. RANSOME: I can furnish it at any time. Yes, sir. I can find it out even now over the telephone, if the woman is at home because she gave them $2 a week for about two years and they lived down in South Washington below the Agricultural Department. I know another store where small girls are paid $3 a week. SENATOR JULIL: You stated this p'irl worked for $2 a week in Washington, D. C.? MRS. RANSOME: Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Do you know what the mother was receiving in the laundry where she was working? MRS. RANSOME: I might 362 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee be wrong, but I think it was $5, but sometimes on Saturday she had to work from seven o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night. SENATOR JUUL: What other members of the family were there? MRS. RANSOME: Two little girls. THE CHAIRMAN; Four in the family? MRS. RANSOME: Yes. SENATOR JUUL: And the combined earnings of the two working women were $7? M'RS. RANSOME: Yes. SENATOR JUUL: And in order for the women to make the $7 a week it was necessary for her to work from what hour in the morning, did you say? MRS. RANSOME; She started to work at 7 o’clock some days and she got off earlier, but on rush days she would work until 9 and 10 o’clock at night. SENATOR JUUL: To the best of your knowledge and belief that was the case of a family of four, with two breadwinners and the com- bined wages were $7 a week? MRS. RANSOME: Yes. SENATOR JUUL: What would you say as to the necessity for a similar committee to the one we have formed in Illinois being formed here in Washington. Do you think it is necessary to let in the daylight on the wage question? MRS. RANSOME: Just as necessary here as it is in Chicago. SENATOR BEALL: What do you estimate the cost of living for a girl in Washington — the lowest you think she could live for, a girl from 16 to 18 years of age? MRS. RANSOME; I do not see how she can live on less than $7 or $8 at the very lowest. Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley’s Testimony. Mrs. Harvey W. Wiley was the next witness. MRS. WILEY: I represent the Housekeepers’ Alliance of the Dis- trict of Columbia, the Consumers’ League (District of Columbia branch) and the Society of Suffrage. The District Branch of the National Con- sumers’ League stands for clean and healthful conditions of work. This league is about twenty years old, and was organized in about 1890. There are about 56 leagues in the different cities. The Washington League is only a little over a year old. The Consumers’ League’s label, placed upon all white-stitched goods, stands for obedience to factory laws in the district in .which the factory is operated and that no children are em- ployed in the store under the legal age in that state and that the work is finished on the premises. That is the great point for which we stand. There is no sweat-shop work bearing the Consumers’ League label. The work is done under clean and healthful conditions in the stores. When- ever anyone purchases a Consumers’ League article they are sure of those four conditions. That label insures right conditions in the factory where the goods are made. The League also stands for right conditions in the store where the goods are sold. THE CHAIRMAN: What laws are recommended by your organi- zation? MRS. WILEY: The National Consumers’ League stands for a limited working day, and in the last session of Congress, just before the closing of the session, the National League had drafted the bill which, through the work of Senator ‘La Follette and Mr. Peters, was mtroduced in the House, which stands for the eight-hour day in the District of Columbia. This bill was favorably reported in the Senate but did not suc- ceed in going to the House. We hope to get our friends to reindorse it in the next Congress. THE CHAIRMAN: Do vou favor a minimum wage law? MRS. WILEY: I do. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you think there is any connection between low wages and immorality? MRS. WILEY: I am not prepared^ to speak from experience in this matter. I can only express an opinion. I do believe so. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe that girls fall because they are not paid enough upon which to live? kIRS. WILE\ : It is more dif- ficult to resist temptation when they have not the money to secure proper Public Meetings and Testimony 363 conditions of life, recreation, clothing and the necessities of life. THE CHAIRMAN: You believe that these hardships work upon the nervous system until the nervous system is not as well able to throw off the temptation? MRS. WILEY: I am not prepared to speak from experience. This is my opinion. SENATOR TOSSEY: What do you think are some of the other causes that lead girls to go astray? MRS. WILEY: I could only tell from what I have heard. I have read Mrs. Adams’ splendid book on “The Ancient Evil” and the “New Conscience,” and it states from domestic service a large number of women enter this horrible life. I think the Housekeepers’ Alliance has a good work ahead to educate domestic servants. I think if this is done in Chicago perhaps we can cut down the supply from that source. In addi- tion to the minimum working day I believe in instruction in hygiene. In addition I believe that we should have women police in everv city. Finally, the great thing for which I stand is votes for women. I believe when the women have our franchise and can stand with the good men we can get these things, we can raise the age of consent and make it over the legal age. Now a w'oman cannot vote, but she can give away her hodv. SENATOR BEALL: How much does it cost a girl to live in Wash- ington — the lowest amount she can exist on? MRS. WILEY: I would say S8 was the minimum. THE CHAIRMAN: Do vou consider that any emplover who pays girls less than a living wage has any moral right to give large sums of monev to charity? MRS. WILEY: I do not. THE CHAIRMAN: What should he do with the monev — that por- tion he gives to outside charity — if he must give it away? MRS. WILEY: I believe that his nrofit should not be so great. I believe if a living wage was paid to his employes, his profit could not be so great. Mrs. Clara Neligh’s Testimony. Mrs. Clara Neligh was then summoned. THE CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Neligh. vou are interested in Settlement work? MRS. NELIGH: Yes. Mr. Chairman, it has been my work for six years in Washington to help protect and provide for the girls with whom I have come in contact in those settlement houses as well as others who have lived at further range, and I have done most of my work along the line of prevention, in keening the girls from getting into the condition which we are rliscrissing this afternoon. We have tried at all times to raise the standard of living in our neighborhood, among the girls and the boi^s as v'ell. I do not think a girl who has not enough to live on can live the right v’^av nhvsicallv or morallv. I do not think the girl who lives in a crowded house, where she has no nrivacv and no room for her rights, can be whai she ought to be and can be. T think she is entitled to good living conditions. We are facing changed conditions. The girls whose recreation is in the moving-picture show, iov riding and rag-time dancing: thev all mean temptation to her. I think it is our business, if we are going to see our girls taken from the home into these public places, to make those places the right kind of places for the girls to go to. I think we should endeavor to control the iov ride which has led some girls to temptation. I do not think we can do too much against the rag-time dancing, because the girl who does it is plaving with fire. We have not allowed it in the settlement hoiit;e among the girls in mv neighborhood I have had more trouble vritV. these society girls who have come down there and volunteered services. As to what it costs a girl to live, the cheapest place I know a girl can find a room in our neighborhood at all decent is iHI 2.S a week, that is fur- nished room and if she is to have food, which will nroperlv nonrisli her. it costs !li4,n0 a week in southwest Washington. That makes S'!. 2.1 for something to eat and a room. Her carfare is 10 cents, which is !tl.1.71. ^or a place to get something to eat. and a means of going back and forth to her work and a place to sleep, it has amounted to $5.75. Where 364 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee she is going to get enough for recreation, is the question we are trying to answer today. The bare necessities of life' cost more than two dollars a week, two dollars and a half, or even three dollars a week, according to the way I want girls to live, who are going to live the right way. SENATOR JUUL: Has any organization which you are connected with ever approached the merchants of this city and attempted to establish living conditions for the girls working there irrespective of what their home conditions might be? MRS. NELIGH: Not as an organization. I know some individuals who have been interested. SENATOR JUUL: Do you know any reason why the women of Washington have not tried to reason with the gentlemen who employ female _ labor, to try to reach them, the heart of them, and establish a condition that would, as a mere matter of rights, entitle a woman, or for that matter, a man, to a sufficient wage, irrespective of what the home condition may be, to food, clothing, and furnish a bed for every woman that is working, irrespective of her capacity, on the basis that she is a human being? I ask you why, as a social worker, somebody has not started a movement of that kind? MRS. NELIGH: I cannot answer that. SENATOR JUUL: Do you think that would be a good movement to start in Washington? MRS. NELIGH: I do. SENATOR JUUL: I will repeat the question asked Mrs. Kahn in order that I might not be misquoted. Sometimes we are misquoted, and I wrote this down. Would you be willing to join the starting of an organization to give the preference in your trade relations to such mer- chants and manufacturers as you find, upon proper investigation, are using humane conditions in dealing with their employes? MRS. NELIGH: I would. SENATOR JUUL: Do you think you could start a movement here of going to merchants and saying to them, it takes so much for a young woman to live on. and I think your figures are reasonable. Now, Mr. Merchant, where do you expect that young woman to make up the dif- ference? Do you think you could have somebody help you start that* kind of an organization? MRS. NELIGH: Yes. MRS. HOPKINS: We have the Children’s Council, the Young Men’s Christian Association and the Young Women’s Christian Association have also done it. Miss Helen Taft was at the head of one of the movements. SENATOR JUUL: Just a few moments ago you testified that you did not know whether wages had any bearing on vice MRS. HOPKINS: I did not know enough about it to talk. SENATOR JUUL: Since then we have learned that there are young women in the city of Washington who are working for two dollars a week. You may have learned the trick in Washington how to do it, but in Chicago we have not learned it. We have come east to learn it. Here is a young lady who has worked as a social worker and she has not learned it. If you have not learned how to live on two dollars a week, and the girls cannot do it, then the only way is to teach the merchants how to pay more. You ladies either have to teach the girls to be able to show that they are absolutely living within the wage they are getting, or the merchants will have to pay more. Mr. Robert P. Hill’s Testimony. Congressman Robert P. Hill was then called. THE CHAIRMAN: Congressman Hill, will you be sworn b}”- Sena- tor Beall? (The witness was thereupon sworn by Senator Beall.) THE CHAIRMAN: You are a resident of Illinois? MR. HILL: Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: From what district? MR. HILL: Twenty- fifth Illinois district. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hill, we have heard from witnesses ap- Public Meetings and Testimony 365 pearing here before this Committee, in the city of Washington, that girls are being paid as low as two dollars a week for their services. The Committee has no jurisdiction, of course, in the District of Columbia, but a similar committee could be appointed, we understand, by the National Congress, with jurisdiction to investigate the matter of vice and wages in this district. As a Congressman from our State, the State whose people have sent us here to conduct this investigation, will you, at the next meeting of Congress, introduce a resolution providing for the ap- pointment of a committee to investigate low wages and vice in the District of Columbia? MR. HILL: I will most gladly. Dr. William G. Woodward’s Testimony. Dr. William G. Woodward, health officer of the District of Columbia, testified. THE CHAIRMAN: Will you give the Commission the benefit of your study, observation and opinion in the matters within the scope of our inquiry? DR. WOODWARD: Such study as I have made of the matter of vice among women has been brought about by my general interest as a citizen and partly by my interest as health officer, and as an officer of the District of Columbia who has charge of the compilation of vital statistics. I have here some figures that may show something as to the prevalence of vice and I think may show something with respect to the extent to which a minimum wage might have an influence, if any. The figures I refer to are figures showing the number of illegitimate children born in the District of Columbia and legally registered at the health office every year. Of couse these cases indicate merely cases of vice which have resulted in the birth of a child. They can be accepted there- fore merely as an index to the prevalence of vice, we might say, through- out the community generally. There were born in the last calendar year, 1912, and reported to the health office 775 illegitimate children, that is, births and still births. As indicating the extent to which that represents the prevalence of vice, we may say that that is ten per cent, to speak accurately, 10.3 per cent of all reported births. The figures are not materially different for previous years. In the year 1911, for instance, it was' 9.7 per cent. There is a marked depression in the illegitimacy with respect to race that I think may indicate something with respect to earning capacity, because in 1912 of all the births and still births reported among the white people 2.3 per cent were reported as illegitimate, whereas among all births and still births reported among colored children 23.1 per cent were illegitimate. In other words, practically one in four of every colored child born in 1912 was frankly reported as an illegitimate child. It stands to reason, I think, that there are some illegitimate children born among both classes of population that are not reported. An interesting figure with respect to the age at which vice begins is shown by the distribution by age of the matters of these illegitimate children. The figures for 1912 are not yet available but there is no reason to believe that they vary to any considerable extent from those for previous years. In the calendar year 1911, when this study began, three children were born to thirteen-year-old mothers; four were born to fourteen- year-old mothers; 17 were born to fifteen-year-old mothers; 33 were born to sixteen-year-old mothers; 49 to seventeen-year-old mothers; 54 to eighteen-year-old mothers; M to nineteen-year-old mothers and 46 to twenty-year-old mothers. The distribution of the births of these illegiti- mate children with reference to age-period indicate that immoral practices begin well before the earning period. Clearly a minimum wage law would not save these thirteen-year-old children. We have had one, and I think two births this year in 1913, to a twelve-year-old mother. That is a case that is quite beyond the reach of the minimum wage law for niothers and the same thing with respect to the question of wages is indicated with respect to the colored people. I do not believe there is any reason to regard the colored people as 366 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee essentially more immoral than the white. Their opportunities, however, are lower. We have never had occasion here to take up the matter of minimum wage, but as I have followed it in the daily papers and as I have heard here, the question of minimum wage discussed, it has appeared to me that the matter of wage is simply an index to the circumstances under which the employe has been raised and under which the employe has been allowed to live. In other words, an index to the physical and the moral stamina of the girl and we may say also the young man. I do not believe that a minimum wage established and fixed by law' would materially change the situation unless the minimum wage could be fixed, not in dollars and cents, but with respect to purchasing power, which we know varies from year to year and unless it might be fixed with respect to the particular desires of the recipients. To one emploj'e a minimum wage of $7 might seem ample. To another, w'hose aspirations were somewhat different, a minimum wage of $15 to $20 would seem grossly inadequate, and, as Mr. Foster has pointed out, there are variations with respect to the actual needs of the wage earner. So it is hardly fair when it comes to the matter of the $2.00 wage to say that is a gross injustice, because we recognize here in this District a certain obli- gation on the part of parents. A parent is under the obligation to support the child until the child is able to earn a living w'age. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you think that the parent is under that obligation more than the State? DOCTOR WOODWARD: I am glad you have raised the question. The thought comes in this w'ay to my mind: The State has virtually taken over the matter of education, yet under our present system of education we are turning out thousands of children, actual graduates, who are not able in the market of labor to earn enough to support themselves. THE CHAIRMAN: Should not the State undertake to see that all of its working citizens do receive the equivalent of a living? DOCTOR WOODVi'ARD: Undoubtedly the State should see that they do earn enough. THE CHAIRMAN: Let me ask you a question. Does a girl working for $2 a week come from a home of luxury or a home as poor as this girl herself? DOCTOR WOODWARD: She comes from a home presumably as poor as the girl herself. THE CHAIRMAN: Then is it not the duty of the State to see tha' she gets enough to support herself without shifting the burden on the poor home? DOCTOR WOODWARD: It is the duty of the State to see that she gets enough by taking her in hand and fitting her to get enough. Take this very problem of the $2.00 girl. Here is the father with many children and it may be he desires one of them to learn some particular line of work and earlier than he possibly desires he has to put her into that line of work. Then she goes into that business, receives $2.00 a week and relieves the father of just so much of the burden and at the same time she is fitting herself for a larger income. Now, if the state can take hold of that girl and fit her for earning a larger income before she goes to work, all well and good, but unless the state can do that before she goes to work, clearly it is a matter of sound reasoning to allow the father to put her into that line of work and to learn to earn a little to help along. SENATOR WOODWARD: In other words, you believe in a girl serving an apprenticeship? DOCTOR WOODWARD: Yes. When it comes to the accumulatior of enormous dividends, there is a different way of getting at that, rather than by saying you must pay a larger wage, it seems to me through the taxing power. We will take from the corporation a certain part of its proceeds as taxes and apply that to an improved school system so that w'hen young people leave the school they can go into the world prepared to work. Public Meetings and Testimony 367 THE CHAIRMAN: You mention about the money raised in that method being applied to school work. I will agree with you if you will set aside a certain amount of that money, not for the erection of school buildings, but for the keeping of these poor children attending that school. DOCTOR WOODWARD: The trouble is with our system it does not take into consideration the fact that that child has to go out and be taught some particular kind of work. They are crowded with high ideas of life which are not necessities and the child has no direct training with respect to self-control and that, after all, is at the bottom of it. We have to teach the child self-control. We have to give the child in school sound ideals of the essence of life. We have furthermore to fit that child for some way of earning work so when the child steps from school it can step out into the world and do its own part. There is another factor with respect to the mini- mum wage that has not been touched on here and I do not believe it can be ignored. You can see I am not an advocate of a minimum wage law at the present time, but if minimum wages are to be established it would certainly be essential to take into consideration the establishment of a minimum wage for man, because, after all, as we have heard this evening THE CHAIRMAN: Would that be constitutional? DOCTOR WOODWARD: I understand you are going to amend the Constitution to get the other. Your minimum wage will not amount to much annually until you prohibit your young man to marry before he is 27, 28 or 29 years of age. You have these men who are now forced by social conditions into lives of celibacy, who are subject, as all human beings are, to passion. Formerly they married at the age of 21 or 22, but now there is that increase in the period of temptation for the young men. That is a thing that has to be reckoned with. When are you going to do away with this 90 per cent of vice that occurs at the instigation of men? We have in both cases the matter of education. Men and women have to be educated with respect to these matters, but they have to have recrea- tion. You cannot say to any one man or to any one woman, “You have to put these immoral ideas away from your mind.” No one can put an idea away from his mind until he can put another idea in its place to crowd out the former, but until you have provided for these poor men and women recreation and ideas that will crowd out the immoral ones, you will not accomplish very much. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you believe that all women and men should undergo a physical examination before being granted a marriage license? DOCTOR WOODWARD: Theoretically, I would say the men ought. Practically, we know there is no necessity for the women. But as we clean up the men, the women will have no trouble. The w'omen who move in good society and are afflicted with troubles of this kind get them in wed- lock from men who may or may not get their disease out of marriage. THE CHAIRMAN: From your study, what would you say was the percentage of men whose blood is not untainted? DOCTOR WOODWARD: The figures that I know of that come most nearly to being reliable are figures that are collected from certain hospital records. We see many general statements as to the extent to which venereal diseases prevail in a community, based on estimates. It is well known wTien a patient goes to a hospital or a dispensary a clinical state- ment is taken and the questions are asked as to the previous existence of those venereal diseases, and, under the authority of the American Fed- eration of Sex Hygiene, I may say that records of that kind of a large metro- politan hospital show that approximately fifty per cent of the patients in the wards, fifty per cent of the men admitted, that they have had gonorrhea at some previous time, which indicates, of course, that the larger percent- age has actually had it and ten per cent frankly admitted that they had syphilis. That shows, of course, in a general w'ay, somewhat more than ten per cent is afflicted with syphilis and somewhat more than fifty per cent afflicted with gonorrhea. SENATOR WOODARD: What would you recommend as a State or National remedy? How would you go about this as a social problem in the stamping out of the disease? 368 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee DOCTOR WOODWARD: We know that the places for unlawful sexual intercourse are, as I think somebody described them, simply the morasses from whence these diseases come. We have to do what we can to control those places and eliminate them as rapidly as possible. SENATOR WOODARD: To control them by law? DOCTOR WOODWARD: No. I would not say that, because I am not sure by any means that control by law is effectual. I have shown you the extent to which illegitimacy exists outside of that district. That does not speak of what has been accomplished with reference to control by law. SENATOR WOODARD: I mean control of those places you are sneaking of, as to the matter of hea:lth and not morality. DOCTOR WOODWARD: That is a question I am not prepared to answer. SENATOR WOODARD: Would you say that the city, the state or the nation ought to step in? DR. WOODWARD: I would say that no system of registering the inmates of those places, and no system of medical inspection, so far as I know of or am informed, has ever yet accomplished anything. On the other hand, we know, of course, that certain prophylactic remedies that have been adopted in the United States Army and the United States Navy have served, beyond question, to protect the men. They have done nothing for the women. Whether we are going to recommend that young men be instructed with respect to this matter, as is actually jdone in one segregated district in a city not far from here, I am not prepared to say. It is a prob- lem, very frankly, I have given a good deal of thought to, but with equal frankness I say I do not know what is right to do. The whole problem comes down to a state of education with respect to efficiency and love, and that comes down to what are the essentials of life, and then to teach the people to earn their own living. Mrs. A. A. Birney’s Testimony. Mrs. A. A. Birney was the next witness. THE CHAIRMAN: You are the President of the Mothers’ Congress? MRS. BIRNEY: Yes. THE CHAIRMAN: What kind of work is that Congress engaged in? MRS. BIRNEY: I have listened with a great deal of interest, this after- noon, and you have touched this question from a great many points, but not from the mother’s point, and that is the single standard of purity. When we get that, we will solve a good deal of this trouble jmu are trying to down. The Mothers’ Congress have been very much interested. We have between sixty and seventy thousand members all over the United States, and this is one of the things we are teaching and preaching. It must be the education, not only in the school and in the state, but in the home, from the time the child is born. One gentleman here said that he wanted his daughters to be pure, good women, and marry, of course, pure, good men. We must have that standard. We cannot get along without it. THE CHAIRMAN: How are we going to do it? AIRS. BIRNEY: By teaching the mother and father that they must have that one standard. THE CHAIRAIAN: Our states must co-operate with our mothers? AIRS. BIRNEY : Of course, the state must co-operate. THE CHAIRAIAN: How can the state best co-operate? AIRS. BIR- NEY : I think by circulating and paving the way straight through the home. If the home standard is high, if we have the one standard there, the state Vill soon recognize that it must come and help. THE CHAIRAIAN: Why is it that our American girls do not like to go out into domestic service? AIRS. BIRNEY: They look upon it as a degradation. They think the stores with the low wage is something because they can be independent. The Alothers’ Congress is trying to have the schools as a social center at night, so that these girls who are working and have not any place except the dance hall and the low forms of amuse- ment to attend, that they can come into these schools and they can have the right kind of dancing if they want it. They can have any form of amusement, but it will be of the right kind. There will always be some Public Meetings and Testimony 369 parents and teachers there, and it will be a club-house, so to speak, for the working girls. SENATOR BEALL: What do you think of the dress of the girls twenty-five or thirty years ago as compared with what we have on the streets today? MRS. BIRNEY: I object to the suggestive patterns. SENATOR BEALL: Are the mothers to blame? MRS. BIRNEY: We come back to the mother every time in all our work. I put the blame there. Mr. Robert S. Barrett’s Testh tony. Robert S. Barrett took the stand. THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Barrett, you have a report from Mrs. Kate Waller Barrett? MR. BARRETT: Yes, sir. THE CHAIRMAN: Have you that -report written out? MR. BAR- RETT: No, sir. I have to deliver it verbally. As representing Mrs. Kate Waller Barrett, President of the National Florence Crittendon Mission, which is the largest institution of its kind in the United States dealing with girls of the character which you are now investigating, she wished me to say that this institution has 78 homes located in different sections of the United States, that it has under its care at the present time over 3,000 girls and 1,500 children. During thf thirty odd years since this institution was established it has cared for more than 20,000 girls; that permanent records have been taken of all these girls, and that the statistics, such as you desire, are at your disposal any time you may wish them. THE CHAIRMAN: Has this organization ever found a connection between low wages and immorality? MR. BARRETT: Mrs. Barrett de- sires me to say that that is one of the last reasons that she believes has any bearing on immorality. THE CHAIRMAN: If that is the last reason, what is the first reason? MR. BARRETT: A great many of the girls are brought to the city, or were brought to the city, up to the time of the passage of the Mann Law, through white slave agencies. Other girls have been brought to the city by promises of marriage, and others have been brought to the city to obtain work, either domestic or in stores or shops, and they either have not been able to find work or have gone into lives of ill-fame because it was the easiest way. THE CHAIRMAN: This wmrk is supported how, by private con- tributions? MR. BARRETT: Both private and state. THE CHAIRMAN: Can you name me the largest individual con- tributor to the work of this organization during the past year? MR. BARRETT: Of course. It is the estate of Charles S. Crittendon, a druggist of New York, who died leaving $500,000 for the work. The city of Washington, I may say, contributes approximately $3,000 a year to the work. THE CHAIRMAN: Have you among your large contributors men who employ women? MR. BARRETT: Not to a large extent. Some of the contributors are men who employ women, but I should say we have no large contributors, that is, no- contributors over $100 a year. The most of the contributions to the Florence Crittendon work, for instance in the city of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Boston, are from $5 to $50. A large portion of the money is raised in churches and through charitable organizations. Mrs. Barrett is my mother and I am interested in discussing the work with her and I am also editor of her various publications and magazines. She wished me to call particular attention to the fac.t that during the enforcement of the Mann Act by the United States authorities, the White Slave Act, the Florence Crittendon Mission has cared for those girls who are turned over by the United States^ authorities. In Washington at the present time we have four girls in the Florence Crittendon Home who a week ago were arrested in our little town of Alexandria across the river. I would like to take exception to the statement made by the lieutenant of police to the effect that no girl is allowed in the District of Columbia 370 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee except those who are known to have had past records. The experience of the Florence Crittendon Mission shows that that is not correct. Within the last year I call to mind two cases, one a case where a mother placed her daughter in the Florence Crittendon Mission. The girl had gotten into trouble in a little village in Virginia and her mother came to the Mission, secured possession of the girl by tellinsr them she was going to take her out and place her at work and immediately carried her into the division and sold her into white slavery. THE CHAIRMAN: The mother did? MR. BARRETT: She did. The girl was brought back to the mission and the woman *was sentenced to several years in the penitentiary. She is either in Leavenworth or Atlanta. THE CHAIRMAN: How long ago was that? MR. BARRETT: Within the last year. I can get the facts from Mr. Einch of the White Slave Bureau. That girl was taken from the home by her mother under the pretense of taking her out to work, but instead of taking her out to work she placed her in this house. The mission has a great number- of cases of girls who come from all sections of Virginia and Maryland into Washington and the great work the mis- sion tries to do is to get hold of girls before the}'- enter these houses, to give them a place where they can live and try to start them on the right path and educate them along lines where they can earn their own living. At the present time they have girls in every profession of life, stenographers, bookkeepers, doctors, trained nurses, housekeepers and in practically every line of life. There is one point I would like to bring out:* I would like to ask the Committee a question of this sort, because I know there are some ladies and gentlemen here who would like to know: If a minimum wage is established this year will that wage be changed next j-ear? If the high cost of living, as it were, is beine- raised }'-ear by year, will the same minimum wage apply now that did five or ten years ago or will within the next five or ten years? THE CHAIRMAN: Any man who has studied political questions at all knows that the cost of living, as expressed in dollars and cents, is an unknown quantity. We do not talk in dollars and cents. We in- sist that any American girl, regardless of her ability, is entitled to clothing, food, a room, a reasonable amount of pleasure; and we do not speak of it in dollars and cents. Now I want to ask you a Question. Your organ- ization has done a lot of good, but your organization has always main- tained — your representatives we have talked to, at least — that there is not the slightest cennection between low wages and immorality. MR. BARRETT: We do not say not the slightest, but the Florence Crittendon Mission would certainly not be doing right to the great majority of working women throughout this country to sav that their wages was the real reason why they went into vice. The Florence Crit- tendon Mission has found, by absolute statistics, which you gentlemen can examine and find out. that there are just as many society women and iust as many girls that have good homes, girls with high wao'es, who have fallen inmates of the mission, as there are p-irls who have fallen on account of low wages: a far greater number, and if you will go to the mission and investigate the statistics themselves, you will find this out. THE CHAIRM.AN- Can you furnish those statistics to this com- mittee? MR. BARRETT: I haven’t them in that shape. SENATOR WOODARD: You sav the higher the wages the less morality? MR. BARRETT: No; I did not say that. SENATOR WOODARD: You said there was more vice among the higher wmge girls than the low paid ones. AIR. BARRETT; _ I said just as much. You will have to get the statistics to see. You will have to take the conclusion as we follow it from year to year and from years of experience in handling these girls. SENATOR BEALL; We do not want you to think for a moment that we, in any manner, shape or form, implv that- the poor girls are bad. but in our investigations the girls whom we talked to told us — not all Public Meetings and Testimony 371 of them, but I will say three out of every five — that low wages was the cause of their downfall. You disagree with the girls, do you? MR. BARRETT: I can only tell you that in all the experience of Mrs. Barrett in rescue work for 30 years, that during that time she has had from 25,000 to 30,000 girls under her care. She spends her time in traveling from one state to another and she makes, as far as possible, |, the personal acquaintance of each one of these girls. I am not giving ; you my views. She is not able to be here and I talked the matter over “ thoroughly with her and she made it very clear to me, that so far as her personal experience is concerned, so far as the several hundred em- ployed workers and matrons of Florence Crittendon Homes over the the United States are concerned, who are dealing with girls who have gone wrong, that there are very, very few, a very, very small percentage, who come and say that they have been brought to this trouble by low wages. SENATOR JUUL: I wish to ask a question: General discussion shows that it takes about $8 to keep a woman afloat, just to pay the necessities of life, it does not make any difference whether it is $6, $7 or $8 or what the amount is, but it takes a certain amount of money. If we had been holding this session at home today in our own state, the testi- mony would have been given under oath. However, such testimony as we have been able to get today bears the ear marks of truth. Now, let’s say it costs $8 for a young woman to live and let us say that her em- ployer pays her from $2 to $5. I know of two ways that she can make up the deficit, where the deficit is absolutely fixed; she can draw nothing from her home, she is contributing to her home, if anything, and she cannot draw from it. One way, if she is in commercial life, she may augment the scant earnings by dishonesty for a limited period of time and she may augment the earnings as we have discussed. Now, will you show me the third way? You say it is not a question of wage. We agree that this wage may be augmented by dishonesty and may be augmented by vice. Will you show any other way? MR. BARRETT: By charity. SENATOR JUUL: Charity? MR. BARRETT; Yes. There are a j great many charitable organizations through the contry that help women and girls. I know in a great many cities the Florence Crittendon Mis- I sion makes a point of that. You bring the question down to one of * two things. She has to live and she has to get the money somehow. Now, how is she going to get it? SENATOR JUUL: You say that low wage has no particular bearing on the question of vice. 1 am trying to ask you, not to crowd you up in a corner, but to discuss with you a vital question. What would you suggest? Suggest anything to this committee and we will be very glad to get it. We have heard some testimony today that girls here work for $2 a week. You say a girl getting $2 a week, if she goes wrong, cannot blame it on the wages? MR. BARRETT: In a particular case like that it might be, if she went wrong, but those cases are very small. SENATOR JUUL: If I told you that almost invariably those who testified in executive sessious, under oath, testified that they went wrong from that cause, what would you say? MR. BARRETT: I would say that you have better information than we have. SENATOR JUUL: Are there any contributors to your organization who are large employers of female labor? MR. BARRETT: No. Not unless you consider $50 a large contribution. I think that would be about the limit of the contribution we receive. THE CHAIRMAN: Take the $50 contributions collectively, do they come mostly from large employers of labor? MR. BARRETT: Abso- lutely not. THE CHAIRMAN; Who are your contributors in Chicago? MR. BARRETT: I haven’t a list of them. I can get a list in 15 minutes. THE CHAIRMAN: Can you give us half a dozen names offhand? MR. BARRETT: Of course not, not offhand. When they have 78 homes, how could you expect me to give you any names offhand, even here in Washington? 372 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR WOODARD: You do not fear to reveal any of the large contributors? MR. BARRETT; Absolutely not. We have no large contributors. We have none, I should say, who contribute over $50. THE CHAIRMAN: Do you think, and would you tell us, man to man, that you think woman should get a living wage without reo'ard to her ability? MR. BARRETT: Absolutely, and I am perfectly willing to say it. I stand right here and say it and believe in it, absolutely be- lieve in it, but I do not say that the lack of it has been the cause of women and girls going wrong to a large extent that it would seem appar- ent from some of the questions that have been asked. THE CHAIRMAN: Would you say it has an influence? MR. BAR- RETT: I would say it has an influence. SENATOR JUUL: Do you consider that any effort to lift the woman upon a supporting basis would be an effort in the right direction? MR. BARRETT; Absolutely. SENATOR WOODARD: Do you consider that there is more vice in poverty than in riches? MR. BARRETT: No, sir, I do not. Take the villages and the small towns. It is hard to conceive of such a con- dition. The girl working in the department store for $3 or $2 a week starts out with the idea that she is to continue in her position and it is i hard to try to conceive of a girl of that kind trying to augment her in- | come by the sale of her body. THE CHAIRMAN: What proportion of women in the Washing- i ton vice district are held against their will, if any? MR. BARRETT: I I should say at the present time the proportion is very, very small, practically none. Practically any girl, so far as we know, who wants j to leave these houses, can do so and since the passage of the United | States law it prevents the madam of the house from keeping a girl’s ! clothing for debt. That law is in effect in the District of Columbia and i a girl can leave at any time. Before that they could be locked up and | the madam could keep each girl’s clothes. Dr. Elnora C. Folkmar’s Testimony. Doctor Elnora C. Folkmar then took the stand. DOCTOR FOLKMAR; Mr. Chairman, before making a statement, i may I ask a privilege? I believe your time is about over and I wish i to ask that two or three of the people who are present and who have i something to say to you, may have the privilege of making their state- i ment to you in writing. I should like very much to have Mr. Klein, i who can tell you what the Gospel Mission has done, and Dr. Pringle, who is present and has done some good work in Alaine. tell 3-ou in i writing what he has done. Kindlj" let it be understood that these people have come prepared and they will hand their statements to j'ou. In stating my views, which I shall do in a very few words, I wish ! to say that I beg to be excused from the economic problem this afternoon I because that has been well discussed and I agree with you that a minimum | wage is a good thing, but would ask the privilege of suggesting that there i are other things that we must consider. Time has changed since the i days of our grandparents, not simply in the high cost of living but in the amount of leisure which we have and the amusements and the tempta- tions which are placed before our boys and girls. Back in our grandpar- ents’ time we did not have the vaudeville theatre, the suggestive plaj-s, and we did not have the newspapers giving the class of information which we have now, nor the amount of quack advertising and manj^ other things which come to our boys and girls and tend to lower their moral fibre. Something will have to be done in connection with the amelioration of this problem which will give us a better general moral fibre. That comes back just to the point of age. Doctor Woodward brought out the fact that a number of girls fall when they are mere children. It has been my experience in my work in the Women’s clinic to treat a number of little girls under 12 years of age suffering from venereal infection, and the history of those cases of all that have venereal infection was Public Meetings and Testimony 373 admitted as the result of illicit conditions. That, theti, comes outside of the wage problem. Another thought in this same conclusion is what is the responsibility of man in this connection other than that of paying a wage? If we had a strong moral fibre so that our men would not tempt those girls, they could not sell their bodies. I do not say that we are going to make human nature over. Certain conditions have always been with us. but it is a recent matter to have vice commercialized to the extent that it is not the question of the girl making a wage, but the case of a cadet and the procurer and madam, and in addition to that the landlord who rents the house. Those are big problems. If there is anything you wish to ask me, I will be glad to send it to you in writing. THE CHAIRMAN: I want to express on behalf of the Committee the extreme gratification for your appearing before us and for all you have done. Dr. Folkmar has for several days labored to make this meet- ing productive of much benefit; and the members of the Committee are sincerely appreciative. Ladies and gentlemen, we wish again to thank you all for the co-operation you have rendered us and to beg of you to continue this co-operation. Thereupon at 5 :30 p. m., the hearing was adjourned. S i SESSION XII The Committee returns to Chicago from Washington and re- I sumes its public hearings. Manufacturers and employes in the jj clothing industry called as witnesses. Testimony of: Walter J. Rubens, Rubens & Marble, underwear manufac- turers ; 1 Esther Berenson, clothing shop worker; t Hyman Goldberg, millinery manufacturer; { Rebecca Schultz, clothing shop worker; !' Sarah Schwartz, clothing shop worker; Ij, Louis Nathan, Nathan & Grossman Mfg. Co.; 'I Mrs. Siegel, employed by Nathan & Grossman Mfg. Co.; I Libby Kaplan, employed by Nathan & Grossman Mfg. Co.; iji Lizzie Fox, employed by Nathan & Grossman Mfg. Co.; i Helen Rosini, employed by Nathan & Grossman Mfg. Co. I Chicago, Illinois, March 31, 1913, 10 A. M. i The ILLINOIS SENATORIAL VICE COMMITTEE convened [at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago, Illinois, March 31st, at 10:00 A. M. II Present: Chairman O’Hara, Senator Juul, Senator Beall, Senator I Tossey, Senator Woodard. Thereupon the following proceedings were [ had: In Walter J. Rubens’ Testimony. : WALTER J. RUBENS, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: I EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Walter J. II Rubens. Q. Your business, Mr. Rubens? A. Manufacturer of underwear. I Q. With what firm are you connected? A. With the firm of Rubens j & Marble, Incorporated. i. Q. That is, incorporated under the laws of Illinois? A. Yes, sir. i Q. What office do you occupy? A. Vice-president. I Q. As such you are familiar with the wages paid the girls in the employ of your firm? A. I am. I Q. And you are familiar with the working conditions? A. I am. Q. And with the influences that confront the girls and their moral ((conditions? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many girls do you employ, Mr. Rubens? A. We employ iat present one hundred and eighty-six girls. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any girl in your employ a week? A. $5.00. Q. What is the lowest wage paid any girl in your employ during last year? A. $5.00. Q. During the last two years? A. $5.00. We never paid any less Jthan $5.00. Q. To how many girls do you pay $5.00 a week? A. We have (twenty-three that we pay $5.00 a week. I Q. What is the next classification? A. The next is $5.50. We have 1 forty girls. j Q. And the next classification? A. $6.00. 375 376 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How many girls at six dollars? A. Eighteen. Q. Will you read that table as you have it prepared? A. We have eighteen at $6.00. Q. And how many at $5? A. Twenty-three at five, forty at five and a half, eighteen at six, fight at six-fifty, nineteen at seven, ten at seven and a half, fifteen at eight, twelve at eight and a half, four at nine, seven at nine-fifty, two at ten, six at ten-fifty, three at eleven, three at eleven and a half, nine , at twelve, three at thirteen, one at thirteen-fifty, one at fourteen, two at fifteen, two at twenty-five. Q. Will you give us that table for our record? A. Yes. Q. Mr. Rubens, in your judgment, based on your own experience, does the matter of low wages have anything to do with immorality? A. It would have something, but not very much. Q. How much would it have in your judgment? A. Well, that would depend on the girl’s home conditions. Q. Do you believe that an employer has a moral responsibility? A. To a great extent. Q. To the employed? A. To a great extent, yes, that is, speaking of the conditions about his factory and the people that he lets come in. Q. You have heard of the term “White Slavery?” A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you believe there is any such a condition as is suggested by the term “White Slavery?” A. I think there is such a condition from things that have come out at times. But it has not been prevalent in our factory. Q. You have had some personal experience then with “White Slavery” in your factory that came under your observation? A. I have not had any experience with “White Slavery,” but we have had a woman come in and try to take girls out to live with them in these houses. Q. Will you tell us, Mr. Rubens, of that experience, of these ex- periences? A. Well, there is only one experience of that sort that I know of, of where we were compelled to call in a United States District Attorney with regard to the woman. Q. When that happened — what time was it? A. That was about three or four years ago. Q. You say a woman came into your factory? A. Yes, she worked in our employ for some time before we found out what she was doing. Q. How did you find out? A. Why, she was teaching the girls improper things, to dance in certain ways, and other things, and com- plaints were made by various girls about her. Q. Did she endeavor to take any of the girls from your employ? A. Well, I have been told she did, but I don’t know of my own actual knowledge. Q. What were you told? A. I was told that she tried to persuade the girls to go out with her and lead a life that was not proper. Q. Did any of the girls follow her advice that you know of? A. I don’t know of any that did. Q. What was the. name of this woman? A. Her name was LaBuy. Q. What was her first name? A. Dorothy, or some such name as that. Q. Dorothy LaBuy? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you recall' her address at that time? A. No, sir, I do not; it was on Lowe avenue. Q. Was it 2950 Lowe avenue? A. I could not say; I think that is the number, but I do not remember for sure. Q. You called in whom — the District Attorney? A. M’ell, we did not, but some one of the other tenants in the building who objected to her doing these things and called him in. Q. The attorney was whom — what was his name? A. Mr. Roe — Clifford Roe. Public Meetings and Testimony 377 Q. Did he cause the arrest of Mrs. LaBuy? A. I could not say, but she disappeared from the building after that. Q. You know nothing about her present whereabouts? A. No, sir. Q. Have you ever, on any other occasion, been similarly bothered? A. Well, not in that manner; there have been certain girls that went with men that would promise them everything, and who wanted to take them out. Q. Do you know a woman named Fredericks? A. There was such a woman or one by some such name. Q. Is she still in your employ? A. No, sir. Q. Was she discharged? A. She was discharged. Q. For what reason? A. For improper actions. Q. What were those improper actions? A. Why, her method of speech and teaching other girls to dance improperly. Q. Was this woman, according to the reports that reached you, en- deavoring to take any of the girls from your establishment and sell them into “White Slavery”? A. Not as I know of. Q. But she did teach them immoral practices?. A. Yes, sir. Q. How long had she been at this before it was called to your atten- tion? A. Well, I could not say, it was called particularly to my attention once or twice and she was warned, and on the second occasion she was • discharged. Q. How long ago did this happen? A. Why, it is over a year now. Q. Since that time have you had any further trouble with “White Slavery” or immoral women? A. Well, not with immoral women. We .had a case about a month ago where a man took a young girl and she left her home. Her parents were respectable pople, and this man was arrested and this girl is now being held by the police as a witness against him, and he has been bound over to the Grand Jury. Q. This girl that was taken out was in your employ? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long had she been working for you? A. I could not say, I do not remember; I did not look it up on the records. Q. For some considerable period of time, a year or such a matter? A. Possibly that. Q. How old a girl was she? A. A girl, I guess, seventeen years old. Q. How much money was she getting? A. I don’t know just now, I did not look it up. I think she was earning seven dollars, six or seven dollars, I would not sav for sure. j Q. What is her name? A. I do not believe this girl would care to * have her name published. Q. We would like to have it for our records. Isn’t it a police record? t A. I haven’t seen any account of it in the papers. Q. What were the circumstances of this girl’s misfortune? A. The first I knew of it her mother came down on Monday morning and wanted to know if we knew anything of her whereabouts. In fact she had a couple of officers working on the case for a number of nights before, and she inquired of him and also of us. She had been there to work Saturday, and that was the last anyjjody had seen of her, and on the. Friday before a telephone message had come for this girl and by some mistake the message was never delivered and the telephone number was left, and from that the police were able to locate the fellow. Q. She was found with this man? A. Yes, sir. Q. Had he endeavored to place her in a house of prostitution? .A. I ; could not say; I do not know. Q. You don’t know whether he tried to sell her into “White Slavery,” or merely debauched her? A. I could not say, I do not know any more of the facts. Q. Had he been in your employ, that fellow? A- No, sir, 378 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Had he been working around your place? A. T have been told so, hanging out on the street, around the entrance of the building. Q. Hanging around there and trying to work up a friendship or acquaintance with some of these girls as they left their employment? A. I suppose so. Q. Have you had any other experience of that sort? A. A little over a year ago there was a girl taken out, or something happened, and the girl was taken to California and she was located there, but she managed to escape from a locked room in some way and worked her way back to Chicago, and is in our employ now. Q. Still in your employ? A. Yes, she came back and we took her to work. Q. Was she taken to California and locked up as a “white slave,” and did she escape and come back to your employ? A. Well, I could not say as to the “white slave” part, but she was out there. I never questioned the girl. Q. How did you find out that she had been lured to California? A. From what she told the forelady. Q. What is the name of the forelady? A. Our forelady is Carrie Peterson. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Sergeant-at-Arms, will you kindly serve a subpoena on Carrie Peterson. Where does she live? A. She lives in Oak Park. I could not say just where. We have quite a number of employes and I cannot remember all their addresses. Q. We will leave that go until this afternoon, and Mr. Rubens will have Miss Peterson here. A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Rubens, what precautions have you taken against the men who loiter around your place to induce girls away? A. Well, if anybody is found loitering in the halls they are ordered out, and if they don’t go out they are arrested. Q. How many men of that nature have you had arrested? A. Well, so far it has been unnecessary to arrest anyone because they always went when ordered. Q. Is that a general condition, these men lurking around places such as this? A. I believe it is. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Suppose you take the witness. Senator Juul. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. | SENATOR JUUL: Mr. Rubens, do you consider that the girls in | your employ would have been better fortified against temptation if they | had been remunerated up to a point -where they would be absolutely | independent of the influences of which you have spoken? A. No, sir, I don’t I Q. What do you consider the minimum which a young woman who has | got to live honestly and live out of -w^hat you pay her, what^ do you j consider should be the minimum wage? A. A girl can exist on $5.00. Q. Exist on that? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, she can come down on Monday morning and work for you from Monday morning until Saturday evening and pay her carfare and live out of that? A. She could. • Q. And get clothing sufficient, and food? A. Well, yes. Q. On five dollars? A. She could, but it would be prettj^ hard work for her to do it. Q. Well now, what is the reason, is it the nature of the work that these girls perform for you which is so poorly paid, what is the reason it becomes necessary for you to pay the girls less than will sustain life. A. The competition of the Eastern mills compels us to pay such poor wages. We could not compete if we paid higher wages. Q. I have been looking over your statement and listening to your testimony and I find that if it is true as several employers have stated Public Meetings and Testimony 379 here before you, that a girl can live on eight dollars a week, I find that your pay roll is just $241.00 below a living basis. Now, do you mean to tell this Committee that foreign competition, or competition with the outside manufacturers, is such that the additional payment of $241.00 per week would put you out of the running as a manufacturer in Illinois? A. Well, $241.00 would not, but that is $241.00 for one week. Q. Yes. A. Of course, in a year’s time it would hurt us. Q. You do not think that the size of your business would bear that additional burden? A. Well, no, because the profits are very close. Q. What were the profits of your business last year? A. I could !not say because our firm was incorporated last year and we have not 'closed up the first fiscal year yet. Q. What was it the year before? A. I do not know. I was not a 'member of the firm at that time. Q. Here you are furnishing me with a list that contains one hundred j|eighty-six girls? A. Yes, sir. f Q. And the names of the girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. Fifty-three of the total number of the girls are above what we call the bread line, if the bread line is $8.00. People have testified here that a young woman can live on $8.00 a week. There are one hundred and thirty-three left. Fifteen are right on the line and one hundred and ■eighteen below. It would take $241.00 weekly to put those 118 girls up to a point where they could be self-supporting, where temptation so far as 'temptation is due to their inability to earn their own living, where tempta- ) tion might be removed from them. Do you want to go on record before ijthe Committee and state that your business could not afford the payment jfof such wages to those girls? A. We could possibly afford it, but it •would be a hardship on us on account of competition. Q. But it would be a benefit to the tune of $241.00 a week to those girls, wouldn’t it? Could it be done and the business still run and earn a profit? A. It could be done, yes, sir. Q. And your business could earn a good profit on the investment? A. I would not say a good profit. It would earn a profit. I Q. And would pay the salaries of the owners of the business in [their various capacities and would pay five or six or seven per cent on :|the investment? A. It would not pay seven per cent, i Q. Do you think it would pay six? A. It might. Q. Do you consider it good morals to place 118 young women A. I will tell you ! Q. Daughters out of the same kind of families that we are out of, do you consider it is good morals and good business to place those 118 [girls in a position where they are under temptation, do you consider it is 'good policy or good business, or good morals, to place those 118 girls in a position where in order to get things to eat and clothing they are put ! under temptation for the sake of two or three dollars a week, do you i think it is good morals to expose them to that temptation? A. No, sir. ! Q. You do not think so? A. No, sir. , Q. What do you think of a law which would compel you and others jengaged in the same line of business to pay at least an amount that would enable those girls to live without falling to temptation? A. If it was to :be a national law it would be very good, but as a State law I do not think jit would be the proper thing. ; Q. Outside of any national law you do not think that this $241.00 'additional weekly which your girls are receiving below the line — you stated a minute ago that you could pay it. A. We could. I Q. And you still could earn dividends? A. Yes, sir. Q. There would not be any great necessity of your cutting the salary I of the president or vice-president or secretary, would there? A. No, sir. f Q. And you could still live and pay these girls up to $8.00. A. We do. 380 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I may say our girls, after they are there six months, their pay is raised automatically. Q. If that is true, do you get rid of the girls that are above the line — you have in your work there only fifty-three women above the bread line. Do you get rid of them when they get across that? A. No, sir; they stay with us as long as they want. There is a majority of these girls that have been with us for over five or six years who get married. Last year we had twenty-one girls get married that had been with us for six or eight years or over. Q. You testified here that the smallest wage you paid is $5.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. You stated here you have twenty-three that get $5.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you stating that from your own knowledge, or just from what you believe? A. I am stating that from our records. Q. Who looks after that? A. Why, the bookkeeper looks after that. Q. Who pays them? A. The bookkeeper. Q. Who directs that pay? A. Mr. E. A. Marble, our treasurer. Q. Are you acquainted with what he does there in your place? A. Not in all things. I am acquainted generally. Q. You have stated that the lowest a girl gets is $5.00 a week? A. Positively we never employed any girls for less than that. Q. Have you got a girl by the name of Ida Consort? A. We had a girl with us. Q. You had a girl by that name? A. Yes; if a girl don't work full time she probably don’t earn $5.00. ' Q. You mean to forestall the question by stating if this girl got | less A. If she didn’t work her full time perhaps she did get less. Q. That girl didn’t get $5.00. Your answer to that is A. If she didn’t work her full time she probably did not earn her $5.00. Q. Don’t let us confuse what she was earning with what she was getting. We take it for granted that those girls earn more than they are getting. A. If she didn’t work her nine hours a day and full six days, that is nine hours a day except Saturday, where it is one hour shorter, eight hours, she would not get her full $5.00. Q. That is the only case A. That is the only time, but if they work full time, as we have been working for the past six months, she earned $5.00. Q. What do you call full time in your place? A. Nine hours a day. Q. Have you a system of fines for anyone coming late? A. If they are over fifteen minutes late, that is the only time anything is deducted. Q. When you do fine them do j^ou fine them something in excess of the fifteen minutes? A. No, sir; we deduct the time, fifteen minutes of time. Q. Anything less than fifteen minutes, do you dock them for a quarter of an hour? A. If it is only eleven minutes we do not; if they are late over three times a week we deduct it, but if it is less than three times we don’t deduct it. Q. Do you consider that there is a moral, if not legal obligation, for an employer to pay what is necessary properly to clothe or decently clothe and feed an employe, and furnish the employe a place of shelter, do you consider that is an obligation upon a man who takes a woman for his work from Monday morning to Saturday night? A. \ es, sir. Q. How do you explain the discrepancy here? A. Well, there are various classes of work that are not worth any more than they are getting paid for. Q. That is just what I want to get at. You take these girls that are earning $5.00 a week in onr factory; that is, not a class of work that is worth any more. Public Meetings and Testimony 381 Q. Who determines whether it is worth any more or not? A. We can tell that. Q. It takes a human being to do that work? A. It does. Q. And you take her time? A. We do. Q. And that human being has to have food to eat and a place to sleep and carfare to come down? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you don’t pay that? A. I will not say that we do not pay it. We pay what the work is worth. Q. You determine wdiat it is w'orth? A. We certainly do. Q. You told me a minute ago that the earning capacity of these ; girls is such that they can earn a good interest on your investment and good salaries for the men that run the business, and there still would be $241.00 left to pay, or a difference which you do not pay. I want to try and get together with you. I want to try and instill into the men that come there, try and get them to realize that there should be a moral obligation on the part of the employers to see that their employes are properly fed and clothed and sheltered. Outside of this I haven’t any business with it. You don’t feel that way about it, do you? A. I be- lieve that they should have. Q. You do not think that the twenty-three girls who get $5.00 a week can do that with that amount of money, do you? A. Well, they can exist. Q. Could any sister of yours exist on it? A. Well, I could not say, because I have never had one that had to do that. Q. You have forty at $5.50? A. Yes, sir. Q. Out of the entire number of girls, and there are 186 involved, there are 186 of them, 118 of them which, if it was left to you, according to the statement you have made before this Committee, neither would eat sufficiently or be clothed sufficiently, or have a place in which to sleep? A. No, sir; if it was left to me, and if I could possibly do it, I would give them more. Q. It is left to you to hire them and fix the salaries? A. In engag- ing the girls, that is left to the forelady, the forelady fixes the salaries, or it is done by Mr. Marble. Q. After consultation with the other gentlemen? A. He established a minimum scale of $5.00, and the forelady can engage more at her own discretion. Q. I think that we ought to send for Mr. Marble. A. He is not in the city at present. Q. When will he be here? A. I could not say; I know I expect him today. Q. Are there any immediate prospects for any immediate betterment of the condition of those 118 women? A. I could not say. I will give it my attention and see if there is any means of doing it. _Q. Is there any desire on your part to do it? A. I would like to do it if it was in my power. Q. Will you take it up with your partners? A. I will as soon as they are all in the city here. Q. What do you think of a law compeling — you say that the law should be National? A. Yes, sir. Q. Don’t you think it is a good thing for the State of Illinois to take the initiative? A. It probably would, but it would be a hardship on many of the manufacturers until other states compelled the manufacturers to do it. Q. What do you think about the hardship that is now inflicted on the young women that don’t get enough to live on? A. It is a greater hardship on them. Q. _ And it would be a good thing to help remove temptation? A. There is no doubt about it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You say that you have never paid a girl less than $5.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. 382 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee . Q. All of the girls enumerated here are getting $5.00 or more? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you base that on their working nine hours a day A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours a week? A. Fifty-four hours a week. SENATOR JUUL: Does not this $5.00 include one hour of over- time? A. No, sir. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What time do those girls go to work in the morning? A. At 8 o’clock. Q. How long do they have for lunch? A. Half an hour. Q. Where do they go for lunch? A. Most of them bring their lunches with them. Q. And do not leave the building? A. Very -few of them go out; 1 do not suppose over seven or eight go outside. Q. Their lunch hour is between what hours? A. Between 12 and 12:30 o’clock. Q. From 12:30 o’clock they work how long? A. Until 5:30 o’clock. Q. Do any of the girls work longer than 5:30 o’clock? A. No, sir; except when we work overtime, which we have been doing for the last six months, up until Saturday, when we discontinued it. Today is the first day under the new schedule. Q. When you work overtime }"ou work some of these girls into the night? A. No, sir; we begin a quarter of an hour earlier in the morning and work until 6:15 o’clock in the evening. Q. When the girls work overtime how much extra time do you give them? A. Their extra scale per hour. SENATOR JUUL; It is about 10 cents an hour. If they stayed overtime two or three hours that would not be enough to buy lunch out of, would it? In other words, they don’t get enough out of the extra time A. They could not stay over three hours. Q. If they stayed three hours and you paid them the full amount of the scale of wages, they would not get enough, according to your scale, to buy one meal in a nearby restaurant, would they? A. V'^ell, I could not say. Q. You do not run any charitable institution, do you? A. No, sir; I don’t believe any manufacturer does. SENATOR JULTL: No, sir; there are a number of them that don’t. CHAIRAIAN O’HARA: Have you ever worked anj-- of the girls there night hours? A. No, sir. Q. After 6 o’clock? A. No, sir; never. Q. Your figures are based on a girl’s working full time ? A. Yes. sir. ' I If 'SI •UHI O. Supnose the girl only works fifty hours a week, have you any such? A. I don’t know, if she only works six or seven, or only works eight hours a day they do not get as much. Q. How much do you pay them? A. I give them $5.00 a week based on full time. Q. Well, now, let us get together on this. I asked you if you ever paid a girl less than $5.00 a week. I asked that question without anv oualification, and j'ou said, no, you never paid less than $5.00 a week? To my knowledge, no. O. My colleague. Senator Juul, asked you if you ever had a girl by a certain name in your employ? A. Yes, sir. O. And you then said that she may have worked less than full time? A. Yes, sir. Q. If she did she got smaller pay? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever -uaid a girl less than $5.00 a week regardless^ of the amount of time she worked? A. If the}’- only work a part of the time we Public Meetings and Testimony 383 lave not paid them the full amount. If they lay off a day during the week hey do not get their full wages. Q. Unquestionably that is true, but you say you may have had a jirl work eight hours a day? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you any girls working eight hours a day that get less than >5.00 a week? A. I do not think so. SENATOR JUUL: You enumerated twenty-three. Is there a class lelow that twenty-three? A. No. Q. Who drew up this statement as to the girls? A. The book- keeper. Q. You do not know whether that statement is correct A. I am iretty sure it is, it was copied from the figures there when we went over \he books. Q. You believe you are in a position to swear to the accuracy of this itatement? A. I think so. Q. You declare under oath that no girl has ever been paid less than >5.00 a week by your corporation? A. That is, any girl that has worked ler full time has not been paid less than that. Q. By full time what do you mean? A. Fifty-four and fifty-three .lours a week. Q. I am trying to get at what you pay the girls that don’t work fifty- bur hours a week. A. We pay whatever is coming to them. If they lon’t work full time they get the fraction of whatever their wages are. Q. You have never paid any girls less than $5.00 a week for fifty-four lOurs’ work? A. No, sir. Q. Five dollars for fifty-four hours’ work? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is less than 10 cents an hour? A. Yes, sir. Q. If a girl works five hours a day for your company she gets 50 :ents of pay, approximately? A. Yes, sir. Q. You base what you pay her on so much per hour? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then you prefer to have us understand that your scale is based argely on an hour unit rather than a weekly unit? A. It is based on a veekly unit and an hour unit. The weekly unit is based on the hour unit. Q. How often do your girls leave you? A. Well, these girls we find f we can keep a girl for three months she will probably stay with us for a food, long time. • Q. What do you mean by a long time? A. That may be from three 0 five years, or longer than that. Q. What is the greatest period of time that any girl now in your mploy has been in your employ? A. I think fifteen years. Q. How much is she getting now? A. Twenty-five dollars. Q. What is her name? A. Miss Peterson. 1 Q. She is your forelady? A. Yes, sir. , Q. How did she begin, in what position? A. She told me she began n the factory, working on a knitting machine. She said that she was arning $4.50 a week when she started. Q. That is twenty-five years ago? A. Fifteen years ago. Q. And now she is getting $25.00? A. Yes, sir. ! Q. Outside of Miss Peterson, what is the greatest period of time that ny woman now in your employ has been working for you? A. I could lot say; I would have to look over the records. Q. Have you some that have been there for ten years? A. Oh, es; probably some have been there eleven or twelve. Q. Have you any woman that has been there ten years or more vho is getting less than $12.00 a week? A. I don’t think so. Q. What are they getting? A. Well, ten years — well, I could not ay, because I do not know what they started at. Probably those that are arning the most were there first. I SENATOR JUUL: There are 118 girls below w'hat we have called I 384 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the bread line here. It would seem when they get up above the bread line they drop out pretty quick — there are fifty-three above the bread line and fifteen on the line. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Mr. Rubens, you have one woman at $25.00, that is Miss Peterson? A. Yes, sir. Q. The next highest scale you have is $15.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. And only two at that figure? A. Yes, sir. Q. One at $14.00 and one at $13.00. Then from this we are to under- stand that those women, who have been in your employ ten or eleven or thirteen years, that no one of them after that long service is getting more than $15.00 a week? A. I do not think they are. Q. It does not open up a vista particularly bright to them, does it? A. No, sir; it does not. Q. There are what escapes? They may possibly go up to $15.00 at the end of ten or twelve years’ service? A. Yes, sir. Q. One of the escapes from that situation is marriage? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many of them marry? A. We had about twenty girls get married last year. Q. That is one escape? A. Yes, sir. Q. Another escape you have sort of touched on in your earlier testi- mony here? A. Yes, sir. Q. You told of your own experience with men hanging around the doors of the place? A. Yes, sir. Q. And a woman who came in under the cloak of being a worker, that is another escape? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is there any other escape — what other escape? A. Death is the next one, I suppose. Q. Which is the kinder, white slavery or death? A. Death by all means. Q. It is marriage, death or white slavery? A. Yes, sir. Q. As a conservative business man, do you think that is a fair system that leaves only three avenues of escape for these girls? A. Death and marriage — even marriage is not an escape for some. SENATOR JUUL; That makes it look like a pretty dubious case for 118 girls? A. I could not say. Q. Either death or marriage — and the percentage ^s small; the death rate is about thirteen or fourteen to 1,000 in Chicago? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Air. Rubens has been kind enough to give us evidence of a direct nature. He has been frank. SENATOR JUUL: When you consider what 3 "Our girls get and the low wages that is paid, and they have to pay their own way, do you con- sider that the person who goes around among them and tries to tempi them would have an easy time at present? A. In our case there was nol any of them that had an easy time. Q. From where do you expect that deficit which you yourself admit exists between their wages and their cost of living, where do you expect that to be made up? The girls give you all the time thej^ have got? A They do. Q. Where do you expect she is going to make up the difference that you do not pay her when she has her wants like ever^- human being? A Certainly. Q. If an employer does not furnish sufficient money to cover thos« things they have got to be made up in some waJ^ Now, where do yoi suppose these girls wEen they grow desperate, where do 3 ’ou suppose the 3 go to cover the deficit? A. The 3 f may go wrong. Q. Your business does not provide an 3 " remed 3 " to cover that? A At present it does not. SENATOR BEALL: Have 3 'ou heard the play that is being pro duced here by Helen Ware, I think it is? A. No, sir; I have not. Q. You had better go and see it. I am not advertising an 3 ' theater Public Meetings and Testimony 385 but it is a good play. In regard to a minimum wage for these women, now, if there was a Federal law, what do you think a girl can live on honestly and clothe herself and have good board and a good room, and live like a lady, not a rich lady, but decently, but live right and be decent and moral, tell us your judgment? A. I judge about $8.00. Q. That is the general opinion of most of the employers whom we have met. I suppose you take apprentices in, girls of fourteen or fifteen years of age? A. No, sir; we don’t take them in at a less salary. Q. You begin them at $5.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. In some stores they take in apprentices? A. We don’t have any. Q. You start them on $5.00 a week and increase them as they go along? A. Yes, sir. Q. I suppose you have heard about these large stores in question and their girls’ wages? A. Yes, sir. Q. I understand some 15,000 or 20,000 girls in Chicago have had their salaries increased from $5.00 to $8.00, and their employers have done it with a good grace, and all these meetings are helping. Do you want to meet these efforts in Chicago and do what you can in the increase of the wages of these girls? Don’t you think you could persuade your people to increase these $5.00 girls to $8.00 a week? It would not injure your profits materially. 1 am talking in a friendly way; there is no intention to force anybody. Would not that be possible? A. It would be possible to do it, but we would not be able to raise them as fast as we do now after six months. Q. These cheap employes have to live? A. Yes, sir. Q. Girls working for $3.00 or $4.00 or $5.00 a week? _A. It could probably be done some way after they had been there a certain period and we found out whether they would remain, we could possibly do that. Q. During the time that the girl was getting $4.50 or so a week — I had a talk with one and she paid $3.50 for board and carfare and had two shirtwaists, and she had to wash one every night to make a good appearance on the floor or the floor woman would send her home, and she said, “Can you blame me?” — she turned out bad. Now, I said, “If you had been getting $8.00 or $10.00 a week would you have gone to the bad?” and she said, “No.” Now, isn’t it best to help them if we can? A. Certainly. Q. I understand that these people hang around the restaurants and lunch places and try to persuade the girls to go with them and become “white slaves.” Have you had that occur in your place? A. We have had them hanging in the halls. Q. You never heard of these restaurants? A. No, sir; because very few of the girls go outside to eat. The most of them bring their lunches with them. Q. Then you think if there was a Federal law, or a State law, fixing a minimum wage at $8.00 a week, it would be better? A. I think it would. SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you think it would be practical to establish hotels for these girls — have hotels for these girls? A. I think it would be a good idea if it could be done. Q. Couldn’t it be done? A. I have not gone into the matter, but I suppose it could be done; seeing what we have done in that way for men, it could probably be done for women on a little bit better scale. Q. Could you furnish them with a room for $2.50 or $3.00 a week? A. I don’t know about it, it possibly could be done. Q. And make a profit? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR WOODARD: What is the sanitary conditions of your building? A. They are very good. Q. The girls stand all day at their work? A. No, sir; very few of them have to stand to do any work at all. Q. Any machinery there? A. Yes, quite a bit of machinery. Q. Is it safe-guarded according to the laws of the State? A. I be- lieve it is. 386 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do the inspectors come around? A. Yes, once or twice a year, and so far they have made no complaint. SENATOR TOSSEY : Do you belong to the Manufacturers’ Associa- tion? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much do you pay the Manufacturers’ Association a year? A. I don’t know what the dues are, I think it is $40.00 or $50.00 a year. Q. How do you like the officers of that association? A. I don’t know; I never attended any of their meetings. Q. When is their next election? A. I don’t know. I have never taken notice. In fact, none of the members of our firm have taken any active interest in the concern. Q. Have you received any literature from the association since the inquiry of this Committee started? A. Not with regard to this Commit- tee, simply a notice of the fact that there was to be a meeting or some- hing; that is the only literature we have received. Q. You have never been asked to contribute to any fund to fight the work of this Committee? A. No, sir. Q. Mr. Rubens, what do these girls do in the evening, what is their social life, if you know? A. I don’t know. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; That is all. I want to thank you. You have been a fair-minded and frank witness, and we have appreciated it. Esther Berenson’s Testimony. ESTHER BERENSON, having been first duly sworn, testified through an interpreter, as follows: SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? A. Esther Berenson. Q. Where do you live? A. Washburn, No. 3913. Q. What is your nationality — where were you born, what county were you born in? A. In Russia. INTERPRETER; She is a Russian Jewess. Q. You are married? A. Yes, sir . Q. How many children have you? A. Three children. Q. You have a husband? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is he working? A. Yes, he is working; but it is a birthday for the Jewish. . . Q. Who are you working for — who are you working for? INTERPRETER: She does not know. Q. Don’t you know, or does she get work home, or does she work somewhere else? A. No, she is working in the shop. Q. Who owns the shop? A. She does not know. Q. What is their address? A. She works on Jefferson Street; she is working in a factory. Q. Is the firm Rosenwald & Weil? A. She don’t know. Q. Ask her if she knows how much money she brings home Satur- day night for the work she does? A. Three dollars and forty cents a week. Q. Does she get that all at once? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours a day do you work? A. She works from 7:30 till 6 o’clock. Q. Every day? A. Yes, sir. Q. All the week? A. She does not work on Saturday. Q. This $3.40 represents five days’ work? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you work for them on Sunday? A. No. Q. What line of work do you do? A. On coats; she is cleaning coats. Q. How many coats do you clean a day? A. She doesn’t know; they all work together. Public Meetings and Testimony 3S7 Q. But she is there five days a week, from 7:30 in the morninsr until 6 o’clock? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old are you? A. Thirty-six years. Q. What does your husband earn a week? A. Nine dollars a week. Q. There are three children; do any of the children work? A. One child began to work, a very young child. She is written down as sixteen. Q. Who is he working for? A. She doesn’t know. Q. Do you remember now who it is that you are working for? A. No. Q. Are you afraid to tell this Committee who you are working for? A. She says she doesn’t know. Q. Are you afraid of losing your job? A. She doesn’t know the name. Q. Is she afraid of telling us who she is working for for fear of losing her job? A. No, she swears she doesn’t know. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Sergeant, call Mr. Morris Rosenwald of the firm of Rosenwald & Weil. THE SERGEANT: I have already been there twice and they claim they are both out of town. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Have you tried to locate them at all? A. Yes, I went to their houses — 4752 Grand Boulevard for Mr. Rosenwald this morning, but they are both out of town, both of them. I have got girls from the shop here. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Is the cashier at his place of business now? THE SERGEANT: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Send to the establishment of Rosenwald & Weil and summon the cashier and have him bring with him the last week’s pay roll. SENATOR JUUL: Is there a member of the firm of Rosenwald & Weil in this room? THE SERGEANT: No, sir; they are not subpoenaed. SENATOR JUUL: I was told be was here without being sub- I poenaed. If he is, he will please come to the front and be sworn. Is there a member of the firm of Rosenwald & Weil here in the room — ask the witness. I think these witnesses are afraid to testify. THE SERGEANT: Here is a woman that will testify. I Mary Davidowitz’s Testimony. I MARY DAVIDOWITZ, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: Can you talk Russian? A. Yes, sir. Q. Can you talk German? A. No. Q. What is your name? A. Mary Davidowitz. Q. Your address? A. 1309 L^nion is the number. Q. You live south of Twelfth Street? A. Yes, sir. (To the Interpreter.) — Q. Ask what street she lives near. A. Llnion and Maxwell. Q. She lives at Union and Maxwell, and the number is supposed to be 1309. Are you married? A. Yes, she is married, but her husband left her. Q. How long since he left her? A. Three years. Q. What firm are you working for? A. She doesn’t know. Q. Where do you work? A. Jefferson and Twelfth Place. Q. Is that Rosenwald & Weil’s factory? A. She doesn’t know. Q. Are you afraid of telling us? A. She is not. Q. Is she afraid to tell us? A. She is not afraid; she said there is nothing to be afraid of, but she doesn’t know. Q. How much do you make a week? A. Four dollars. 388 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. When do you start to work in the morning on Monday? A. From 7:30 to 6 o’clock. Q. You work how many days in a week? A. She works all the week from Monday until Saturday in the afternoon. Q.-' Do you work on Saturday? A. Yes, sir. Q. You work on Saturday for the same $4.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you ever get paid anything for overtime? A. Twenty-one cents for three hours. Q. When she works overtime she gets 21 cents for three hours? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do they pay you supper money besides? A. No, sir. Q. How long have you worked for them? A. Three months. Q. Did you ever make any more or any less than you are making i now? A. No, she never got any more than that. Q. Did she ever get any less? A. Never got any less. Q. You got $4.00 from the start? A. Yes, sir. Q. What kind of work do you do? A. She is cleaning coats. Q. Do you remember now for whom you are working? A. She I doesn’t know. Q. But she knows the place of business at the corner of what? A. Jefferson and Twelfth Place. THE INTERPRETER: That place is Rosenwald & Weil’s. This woman don’t know the place. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Has this woman any children? A. She has no children. Q. She supports herself on this $4.00 a week? A. She boards. Q. How much does her board cost her? A. She pays $6.00 for room and then she makes her meals herself. Q. Six dollars a month? A. Yes, sir. O. And she gets $16.00 and pays $6.00 for her room. That leaves $10.00. What does she eat — how much does the food cost her? A. Well, she doesn’t know exactly, she says when she has more money she eats better and if she has less she eats less. Q. Let us find out what she generally has for breakfast. A. Half a pound of meat and coffee and bread. Q. What kind of meat is this — what does she pay for that half a pound of meat? A. Eight cents for half a pound. Q. What kind of meat is it? A. Chop. Q. Will she be docked for the time she is here before this Com- mittee now? A. She doesn’t know. SENATOR JUUL: Before we go any further with the summoning here of these people, to whom $1.00 is a fortune, I suggest that the Com- mittee pay each of these witnesses $1.00, and if the State of Illinois will not pay it, we will pay it individually, because it will be a hardship for these people to lose $1.00 in coming here. A dollar to them means a fortune. I do not think they ought to be permitted to go away from this Committee without being paid the $1.00. People that will make a human being work that way will dock them. I think they would dock them for a minute. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Give them $1.00 an hour. SENATOR JUUL: I think the Committee should see that these witnesses be paid $1.00, and, if necessary, we will club together for it. CHAIRMAN: And if any of these women are discharged because of the evidence they give here, the Committee will make it known, the name of the employer who discharged them for that reason. Q. How much do your clothes cost you a month? A. She says she don’t know exactly. Q. How often does she buy a new dress? A. She wears one until she cannot wear it, and then she gets another one. Public Meetings and Testimony 389 O. How much doe' she pay for a dress? A. She paid for suits .$15.00. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Well, 1 am afraid this line of questioning will prove unprofitable because of the element of pride that enters into it. These people have pride the same as everybody. SENATOR JUUL: They go to a second-hand place to buy their clothes. Hyman M. Goldberg’s Testimony. HYMAN M. GOLDBERG, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Hyman M. Gold- berg. Q. With what concern are you connected? A. With myself. Q. What is the name of your business? A. Goldberg’s Millinery. Q. Incorporated? /\. No, sir. Q. How many stores have you? A. Two. Q. Where are they located. A. 732 West Twelfth Street and 717. Q. You hire and discharge your own employes? A. Yes, sir. Q. For both stores? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many girls do you employ? A. Twenty-six. Q. Twenty-six girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the least that you pay any of these girls? A. Nine fifty a week. Q. You have twenty-six girls working for you? A. Yes. Q. Do any of those twenty-six receive less than $9.50 a week? A. The apprentices. Q. How much do they get? A. Two get $4.50 and one gets $5.50. Q. With the exception of those three, all of your girls get $9.50 a week or more? A. Only two get $9.50, the rest is more. Q. They get so much a week, depending on the number of hours they work? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you the piece system in your place? A. No, sir; the ten- hour system. Q. Ten hours a day? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours a week is that? A. Sixty hours. Q. They work full time on Saturday? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know of any time during the last two years when you have paid any girl, not an apprentice, less than $9.50 a week? A. Well, I guess so. Q. Have you during the last two years paid any girl but an appren- tice, less than $4.50 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the lowest you have paid any girl? A. Well, the ap- prentices when they first start in, when the father or mother bring them down there, they come in my place and I always start them in with their carfare and lunch. Q. How many of these apprentices have you got in your employ now? A. Three of those. Q. You say you do take some apprentices and give them carfare and their lunch? A. No, sir; I give them money, $3.00 a week to cover car- fare and lunch. Q. Coming down to dollars and cents, what is the least amount you have paid any one of the apprentices during the last year or so? A. The least is $3.00. Q. During the last two years? A. The last two years I could not e::actly remember; I can remember tbe last year. Q. Have you ever paid any of these girls $1.50 a week? A. No, sir. Q. Never in your life? A. No, sir. 390 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You would not do that? A. No, sir. Q. Did you pay some $6.00 or $7.00? A. Those were girls that worked extra evenings. Q. How many girls have you? A. I have more than twenty-six girls. Q. How many girls have you all told? A. I could not figure out exactly; I have girls that work evenings for me, stenographers that work there. Q. They come down at 7 o’clock? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long do they work? A. Half-past nine, two and a half hours. Q. How many of these girls come down in the evening? A, Well, I could not tell just exactly, but I think there is ten of them. Q. About ten of them? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old are those girls? A. All big girls. Q. What do you call big girls? A. Well, they are all over twenty. Q. Some of them are stenographers during the daytime? A. Yes, two or three of them are stenographers, and some of them are sales- ladies in the downtown stores. Q. They work nights in both of your stores? A. Yes, sir. Q. So many in one store and so many in the other store? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who is their overseer— are you there? A. No, sir. Q. You have one woman, a forewoman who is there? A. Yes, sir. Q. In both places? A. No, sir; in 732. Q. You take care of one place, and this woman you mention takes care of the other place? A. Yes, sir. Q. These girls go out every night? A. No, sir; not every night; three nights a week. Q. What do you pay them for their services? A. Well, the lowest I pay them is $1.00 for the two and a half hours. Some get as high as $1.50. Q. They work two and a half hours? A. Yes, sir. Q. And that makes seven and a half hours a week they work. A dollar a week is the lowest you pay? A. A dollar a night. Some of them only come one night a week and some come three and some come every night. Q. You never have paid any of these girls less than $1.00 for the night’s work? A. No, I am paying as high as $2.00. Q. You would not pay less than $1.00? A. They would not come for less than $1.00. Q. If they would come for 25 cents, how much would you pay them? A. I never had any experience; I could not tell you. Those girls I pay some as high as $2.00. Q. In other words, you are a good business man, and you buy these women as cheap as you can? A. No, sir; if I get good girls I do not care for the money. When a girl comes to me for a job I tell her if she will make good she can name her own price. Q. You tell them that when thej" come to work for you? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is what we call taking them up on the mountains and show- ing them the green valleys. I once worked for $9.00 a week and that is the way they treated me. A. It is different times now. Q. Now, when these girls leave the place, where do they go, do they go directly home under escort? A. Yes, I know them all nearly, and they have parents. Q. You never had any mien around the place there tridng to entice these girls away? A. No, sir; I would not have it. SENATOR JUUL: Are you doing a pretty good business? A. Well, pretty fair; yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 391 Q. Your business is an office business, isn’t it? A. Yes, sir. Q. And an evening business. The fact that you have evening busi- ness would not excuse you from treating the girls that work evenings any different than any other merchant would treat girls working in the day- time, would it? A. Well, I don’t think so. Q. Well, if your business necessitates the working of girls evenings, do you know of any reason why those girls should not be paid on a good living basis the same as girls working in the daytime? A. No, sir. But they have steady jobs and only work nights for extra money. Q. You don’t give them a chance to take steady jobs? A. I do; but they would not do it. Q. Would you hire those girls all the week and work them the legal number of nine hours a day and pay them a full week’s wages? A. I would if they would come. Q. Have you tried them to see? A. Many times. Q. How much have you offered them? A. I offered them if they would work six evenings I would pay them $9.00 a week. Q. How many hours would they work in three evenings? A. Three hours a night, eighteen hours a week, but that would be only in the season. Q. When is your season? A. This year it began the 15th of March, but it usually begins in April to the 1st of July and from the 1st of Septem- ber to the 1st of December. Of course, I could not keep them steady during the dull season; I have not got any work at all. Q. You drop them when you are through with them? A. I do except some I keep steady the whole year. Q. Do you know all the girls you employ in the evening, all of the girls that have employment in the daytime? A. Yes, pretty nearly all. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How do you know them? A. I know them personally. Q. You know them personally? A. I know them personally, most of them. They are neighbors of mine, pretty near all of them live in the same neighborhood. Q. In order to live in your line of business, it is necessary for the girls to work at two jobs? A. Only a few. Some of the girls work all the year around. Q. I didn’t hear all your testimony. The work they do for you at night, the pay they receive from you. would it enable those girls to live out of what they get from you? A. I don’t think so; no, sir. Q. They have got to take a chance on finding other jobs? A. They come to me when they have other jobs in other places, they come to me. Q. If they didn’t have another job? A. I would take them steady. Q. Have you any that are working now for $9.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Steady? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many? A. There are three girls. Q. At $9.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many have you that get less than $9.00? A. None with the exception of that three. Q. And those girls work for you three nights a week? A. No, sir; those three only work in the day, three apprentice girls. Q. You make hats? A. Yes, sir. Q. And sell them at retail? A. Yes, sir. Q. You pay none of your girls less than $9.00 a week? A. No, sir. Q. Have you any clerks? A. Yes, sir. Q. Girl clerks? A. Yes, sir. Q. You pay none of those clerks less than $9.00? A. Two of them $22.50 and one $18.00 a week. Q. You are able to compete with some of the State Street stores in 392 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee prices? A. I don’t think so; if I should do it, I would make more money than I do, a good deal. SENATOR BEALL: You say you pay your girls from $9.00 to $22.00 a week as salesladies selling goods? A. In the store. Q. We have found stores in this part of town that pay a great deal less than that. Now, I am told you have the name of selling the cheapest millinery in the city, and these shop girls come to your place to buy, is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Q. These girls that work daytimes come down nights to buy hats? A. Yes, sir. Q. If you can pay $9.00 to $20.00 a week, why cannot these high- priced stores down here, why cannot they afford it, too? A. Because I am satisfied if I make $5,000 in my two stores; I feel perfectly happy. Q. That is exactly what we have been trying to find out for weeks. A. I am as happy as can be, and so is my family. SENATOR TOSSEY: What were your profits last year, do you care to tell? A. No, sir; I could not tell you. What I have left in the bank is for myself. I have made in the last three years, besides my living, $15,000 to $20,000. SENATOR BEALL: You can manufacture hats and sell them to these shop girls cheaper than these stores in this part of town who pay them $5.00 a week, while you pay $9.00 to twenty? A. Yes, and I pay one lady $35.00, and one young lady $27.50, and one $25.00. Q. Have you got cash girls there? A. No, sir. Q. No cash girls? A. No, sir; those two apprentices are the only ones. Q. Do you belong to the Manufacturers’ Association? A. No, sir. Q. Why not? A. Well, not because I don’t like them, but I have not got the facilities. I do not see any necessity for it. Rebecca Schultz’s Testimony. REBECCA SCHULTZ, being first duly sworn, by Senator Juul, was examined through an interpreter, and testified as follows: Q. Do you understand English? A. No. Q. What language do you speak; what is your language, what is your nationality? A. Jewish. Q. What is your name? A. Rebecca Schultz. Q. Where do you live? A. Morgan street. Q. At what number? A. 1230 Morgan street. Q How old are you? A. Seventeen years. Q. Are you sure you are not fifteen? A. No, I am not fifteen. I am seventeen. Q. What year were you born in? I don’t know, but I know I am seventeen years old. SENATOR JUUL: You are seventeen but you look like fifteen. Q. How long have you been in this country? A. Nine months. Q. What are you doing for a living? A. I baste coats. Q. In what place of business; for whom are you working? A. I don’t know the name; I am not working long there so I don’t know the name of my employer. Q. You don’t know the name? A. No. Q. If you knew it would you be afraid of telling it? A. No, I would not be afraid. Q. But you don’t know who you are working for? A. No. Q. Where is the place where a'ou are working? A. In Jefferson street near 12th place. Q. On Jefferson street near 12th place? A. \ es. Q. How much do you make a week. Becca? A. Four dollars. Public Meetings and Testimony 393 Q. Four dollars a week? A. Yes. Q. That is, if you work all week? A. Yes, if I work all week. ■ Q. Do you work out of the shop too? A. Yes. Q. Do you work on Saturdays? A. Yes, but I don’t work on Sunday. Q. How many hours do you work a day; when do you go to work in the morning? A. About seven. Q. And when do you quit in the evening? A. Six. Q. You go to work at what time in the morning? A. At seven- thirty. Q. And you quit when? A. At six. Q. How much time for lunch, for dinner do you have? A. Three- quarters of an hour. Q. Is that Rosenwald & 'Weil? A. Yes. Q. Now, you know where you work? A. Yes. Q. Have you seen any of the bosses since last Saturday? A. Yes. Q. What did he say to you? A. He didn’t say anything. Q. How many are there in your family? A. I am all alone here; I have no family here. Q. How did you come here? A. My brother brought me here. Q. Where did you come from? A. Russia. Q. What part of Russia? A. Vilna. Q. You are not talking Russian now? A. No, I speak Yiddish. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Who told you that you were seventeen? A. My ma told me. Q. Your mother told you? A. Yes. Q. When? A. When I was in Russia yet. Q. Is your mother living yet? A. Yes, she is living. Q. How many years ago did your mother tell you your age? A. Before I left. SENATOR JUUL: She gets your dollars a week and she works for the same firm, Mr. Chairman. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Where do you live? A. 1230 Morgan street. Q. With your brother? A. Yes. Q. Is your brother married? A. No, me and my brother both stop with strangers. Q. What do you have, one room there? A. No. Q. Well, you have to have a room apiece? A. Sure, we have both separate rooms. Q. What do you have to pay for your room? A. Three and a half. Q. A month? A. A month. Q. Do you have that room alone? A. I pay three and a half a week for board and room. SENATOR JUUL: Three or three and a half? A. I pay three and a half a week for room and board. Q. That leaves you fifty cents a week for shoes, clothing and other necessaries? A. Yes, sir, that is all. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: When did you buy your last dress? A. I didn’t buy a dress here; when' my brother brought me to this country nine months ago he bought everything for me, ever since then I haven’t bought anything; I haven’t money enough to buy any clothes. Q. How long have you been working there? A. Six weeks. Q. Now, during those six weeks you have paid three and a half for board? A. Yes.' Q. Out of the four dollars a week that you get you pay out three 394 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee dollars and a half for board and room; how much of those four dollars do you have left? A. I have the three dollars. Q. You have been working six weeks and you have saved the entire three dollars? A. Yes; I have it. Q. What are you going to do with that; what are you saving it for? A. I don’t know; I think I will buy a dress with it, but I don’t know. Q. Are you going to wait until you have enough? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where is your washing done? A. I am doing it all by myself. Q. You do the washing by yourself? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you had any amusement of any sort. A. I go sometimes to a theatre. Q. Who takes you? A. My brother sometimes takes me. Q. Do you also do your brother’s washing? A. No, the Mrs. washes for him. Q. Will they dock you for the time that you are absent today? A. Surely they will do it. Q. How did you happen to get this job? A. My brother got it for me. Q. What does your brother do? A. He is a tailor. Q. What does he make? A. I don’t know. Q. Who asked you your age when you went to get this position there? A. What? Q. When you went to get your position what member of the firm, i or what official of the firm, asked your age? A. Why, the boss, the i foreman. Q. Did he give you a position immediately? A. Yes. Q. He didn’t have you wait a while? A. He told me to wait. SENATOR JUUL: Is Mr. Coan there? MR. COAN; Yes. SENATOR JUUL: This is one of the witnesses that you will have to hand a dollar to. MR. COAN: They will all get it before they get through. SENATOR BEALL; Better give it to her before you forget it. Sarah Schwartz’s Testimony. SARAH SCHWARTZ, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: Q. You speak English? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Sarah Schwartz. Q. How old are you? A. Seventeen. Q. Where do you work? A. Nathan & Company. Q. What is the address? A. I don’t know as I can tell you; do you know the address, Lizzie? Q. Do you know what street it is on? A. On 13th street. Q. Near what place? A. Twelfth and Jefferson. Q. What kind of work do you do there? A. Make dresses and dress- ing sacks. Q. What is your job there, do you operate a machine? A. Yes. Q. How do you get paid, by the piece? A. Yes. Q. How much did you make last week? A. Ten dollars. Q. You made ten dollars altogether last week? A. Yes. Q. How much did you make the week before? A Nine dollars. Q. What is the least that }"ou have made the last year in any one week’s work? A. We had a new foreman there, before he came we used to get good prices, then he came and cut the prices down on our work there; I used to make eight and nine dollars a week, but all of a sudden I had two and a half and three, and three and a half dollars, and I could not make Public Meetings and Testimony 395 a living out of that, and I says to him, “I am going to quit,” and he says, “quit if you want to, you are welcome to quit.” SENATOR JUUL; Your foreman cut you from eight and nine dollars a week until you could only make two and a half? A. Yes, I made two and a half and three, and three and a half, and so I seen that I could not make a living on it, and then I went away from there, and I went back to a place on Market street where I had worked once before and they gave me seven dollars a week. I worked there three months and then that foreman there they fired, and they sent over and asked me to come back, so I went back to the old place, and now we get good wages. Q. Where did you get this two dollars and a half a week, where you are working now? A. Yes. Q. How long ago was that? A. About six months ago, something like that. Q. You got that for several weeks? A. I got it a couple of weeks, and I thought maybe I was not used to the work, so lately I see that I could not help that, so I quit. Q. How long have you been on this kind of work? A. Oh, I worked there about four or five months, and then I left for two or two and a half months, and then I came back there; it will be three weeks, now the ■; fourth week. ^ Q. How many years have you been working now? A. About three years I think; since fourteen years I went to work, i CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What time do you go to work in the morn- ing? A. Seven-thirty. I Q. And what time do you have for lunch? A. Half an hour. I Q. Ffrom twelve to twelve-thirty? A. Yes. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How much are some of the other girls, some 5 of the new girls making? A. Oh, there is a friend of mine to work last week. She worked about seven days and she had about five dollars; she worked all week and she made around three and a half. SENATOR JUUL: The whole week? A. "V'es. Q. How many girls do you think there are there working for three and a half? A. I don’t know; we don’t look much at each other’s pay. I, Q. You are not supposed to? A. Yes, but we don’t take any interest I I I; SENATOR GORMAN: How long before that girl that is earning three and a half now will be able to earn as much as you are? A. I can’t tell you. Q. How long did it take you to get where you 'could earn as much as you are earning now? A. It took me a couple of months until I got used to the work. I ) Q. During the time you were only earning two and a half, did the amount of work that you were doing or the class of work that you were doing remain the same as you are doing now? A. Yes, but they changed the prices a little, not very much; the same work, but I was not used to it; it was a different kind of work and there was a foreman before I left, and I says to him, “Have I got any money coming?” every Saturday; we don’t keep any books, and we never knew anything about it; we don’t know how much is coming to us; he used to write it on his own book, and one Saturday I thought I ought to have five dollars and something, and I come for my pay and I seen that I was short of money; I says, “I am short of money,” and he says, “can you prove it to me; of course you can’t remember what you made all week,” and I says, “no, I can’t, but I am short.” Q. How much was short in the envelope that week? A. About a dollar and sixty-nine cents. SENATOR JUUL: How much was in the envelope for the whole week? A. Something about five dollars. Q. And you thought you were a dollar and sixty-nine cents short? A. Yes, so I told him that I was short, and I says, “I will quit.” And he says, “You can quit if you want to,” and after that my boss told some 396 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee friends of mine he says I have got some money coming, so I thought 1 would go down and see, so I went down there and the boss gave me back a dollar and sixty-nine cents, something like that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Who was your boss? A. Nathan. Q. Is it the Nathan at 1222 South JefferSon street. A. Yes. SENATOR TOSSEY: How do you keep track of your piece work? A. I got a book and he marks the price down every week. Q. What did they pay? A. Sometimes eighty cents a dozen and some more than that. SENATOR JUUL: Eighty cents for a dozen waists? A. All accord- ing to the waists. Q. Have you any idea for what these waists are usually sold? A. No. Q. You don’t know what you would have to pay for a waist of that kind if you went down to buy one? A. No, I can’t tell. Q. Are you living with your parents. A. Yes. SENATOR TOSSEY: Did you have to pay for any waists that you spoiled? A. When the old foreman was there. Q. Who was he? A. His first name was Frank. SENATOR JUUL: Were you born in Chicago? A. No, sir. Q. Where were you born? A. In Russia. Q. What town? A. You would not know the name — Kabrink. SENATOR WOODARD: Have you ever spoiled any goods under this foreman? A. I, no. Q. Do you know of anybody that has. A. I know one girl that spoiled a waist and she had to pay for it. Q. What kind of waist did she spoil? A. I don’t know. SENATOR JUUL: How much did he charge for it? A. I don’t know. Q. They never charged j^ou for anything you spoiled? A. No, sir, I didn’t spoil anything. SENATOR TOSSEY: You say he charged you? A. No, he never charged me anything; I never spoiled anything there. Q. Did this old foreman ever swear at the girls? A. Yes, he used to call them funny names. Q. What do you mean by funny names? A. I don’t know as I can call it in English. He used to call us, we are all Jewish, he used to call us “Lousy Jews.’’ Every girl had a name back there. Q. A nickname? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What name did he give you. A. I don’t think he gave me any; he used to tell me, but it is just a funny name; I don’t think it is nice for me to pronounce it. Q. Do you mean vile names? A. Yes. Q. Names that you would not call decent? A. Yes, that is what I mean. Q. Who pays you, the foreman. A. What do you mean? Q. Does the foreman pay you; who do you get j^our pay from? A. The foreman brings it up to us every Saturday. Q. I want to get this clear; I judge from your testimony that this is the practice there, that the girl if she finds that she has been wronged, as in your case where you were a dollar and sixty-nine cents short in your envelope of that amount, and as in the case of the girl who was fined for spoiling a piece of work; in both of those cases you both quit or threatened to quit? A. Yes, sir. Q. Up to that point the employer admitted that the employer was always right? A. Yes. Q. But when you quit or threatened to quit then the^- came through with your demands? A. Yes. Q. That is the system; that is what happens there? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 397 ' SENATOR JUUL: Do you think they will discharge you for coming 'down and testifying? A. I am on piece work. Q. Do you think they will discharge you for coming down here and testifying. A. No. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You are losing time while you are here from 'piece work? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all. Louis Nathan’s Testimony. LOUIS NATHAN, a witness called before the Commission, and being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Your name? A. Louis Nathan. Q. And your address? A. Business address? Q. Yes. A. 1222 South Jefferson street. Q. What is the name of your firm? A. Nathan & Grossman Manu- facturing Company. Q. Are you a member of the firm? A. I am. Q. Are you foreman in the institution? A. I am not. Q. Is your foreman here? A. He is not. Q. Have you a system by which you sweat out, which is the English term, work to girls; do you employ men who send the work out at a less figure than is done by your employes? A. No, sir. Q. Your firm pays whatever they earn without any middle men getting any profit out of it? A. Yes. Q. How many employes have you? A. About twenty-four or twenty-five. Q. Girls? A. Girls, yes, sir. Q. What is the best salary you pay to any girl, the greatest amount? A. Last week there was something like fifteen dollars and some cents, that is that was the highest pay. Q. That is the best work? A. Yes. Q. Do you consider piece-work is a good way of working women? A. I think it is. I think the most efficient ought to make the most money. Ch Yes, that is right. But do you think that the weak, least eff.cient ought to make enough to sleep in a bed and to buy clothing to cover her? A. I do. Q. And sufficient food to eat? A. I do, indeed. Q. What is the least paid employe in your concern receiving? A. Well, for tbe first two weeks they earn from three to four dollars a week until they get experience. Q. How long does it take them to get experience? A. That is up to the individual. Q. What is the average time before they commence to be self- sustaining? A. Some of them never do. Q. Some of them never do? A. No, sir. Q. Those that never do keep on at three or four dollars a week? A. No, we would rather discharge-them. Q. What do you do? A. They usually leave in a short while. Q. How many girls have you now earning three or four dollars a week? A. I haven’t got the records with me, but I don’t think any more than two. Q. And they are learners? A. Yes,, they are learners; possibly they came in a week ago or so. Q. How many girls have you earning less than five dollars a week? A. About that many. Q. Three or four dollars? A. No, about two or three. Q. All together? A. Yes. 398 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I Q. How many are earning less than eight dollars a week.' A. Seven li or eight. Q. Seven or eight? A. Yes. 1 y. How many above eight dollars. A. The balance. Q. About sixteen? A. Yes. j Q. Do you consider that a girl earning less than eight dollars a week li in the city of Chicago is equipped so that she can resist temptation if it ll comes to her? A. That is up to the individual. | Q. Would you consider the fact that she is not earning enough to pay 'f the necessary expenses of life, would make her an easier victim? A. I do, in some cases. Q. You think so? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you think it is good morals or good policy for the State of Illinois to have less than the minimum amount of wage that it takes to ' keep a girl? A. No. Q. But you pay about eight women less than it takes to keep them; thirty-three per cent of all your women earn less than it takes to keep them? A. It all depends on the individual. Some girls could not live on eight dollars and some could not live on twelve. Q. What do you think a young woman can live on? A. Six 'dollars. Q. You think they could? A. I think they could. Q. If you were to die would you think that that would be a sufficient ' amount for either your sister or your wife to live on in case she had to go ; out and earn a living? A. No, but I think if they had to do it they could. SENATOR JUUL: Could you make a list for the Committee showing ; the absolute necessaries that a girl would have to have and which you could get out of eight dollars a week; could you make a figure for this Committee showing that a girl could exist for less than eight dollars a week? A. Not off-hand. Q. You don’t think you could? A. No. Q. Do you think that you could start a girl out in life and have her live on less than eight dollars a week. A. I think so. Q. You think you could. A. Yes. Q. Are you basing your wages on that idea? A. No, you can see it, for the girls make fifteen, sixteen and seventeen dollars, that I don’t base my wages on it. I would much rather pay a girl eighteen to twenty-two dollars than the other, because a girl would naturally turn out better work, but I would not base my wage scale on that. Q. So there is 33 per cent of your employes that are below the bread- line? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is it necessary for the success of your business that they should be kept below the bread-line? A. In piece work alone if I should advance them I would have to advance all along the line, because there so many inefficient; to give them more money would be an injustice to the others. Q. When you have a young girl come there on Monday morning, you take all of her time until Saturday night, take all that is in her, all she can give you, don’t you consider that in return for that that you owe her enough to eat? A. I do. Q. Enough to live on and sufficient raiment to come to 3 'our place of business? A. Yes, sir. Q. You consider that you owe that? A. Yes, sir. Q. You consider then the girl who does less for you ought to have that much out of your business; if she does not get that out of jmur business, ought you to employ her? A. No, I should think I should not employ her. Q. You will agree to the proposition if you could not paj- even the least worthy or the least efficient of your girls enough so that she might eat and clothe herself and sleep somewhere that j'ou should not employ her? A. I do. Public Meetings and Testimony 399 Q. And taking the other alternative you should pay her enough so that she could do it. A. No. Q. You don’t think that is an alternative? A. No, not to meet the competition. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; How much did you make this last year, Mr. Nathan? A. I prefer not to disclose that. Q. I ask yhu, Mr. Nathan, what was the net profit of your business jl during the last fiscal year? A. Must I give that? Q. Yes. A. About $2,000. Q. About $2,000? A. Yes. Q. What is your investment? A. I have an investment in that concern of about $14,000. Q. About how much was paid out during the last fiscal year in salaries to executive officers of your company? A. We just organized about a month ago as a corporation. Q. We were talking about the last fiscal year. You made $2,000 net profit. You were president then, were you? A. We just organized a month ago. It is a corporation now. Q. But this last fiscal year you say you made $2,000? A. Yes. Q. The year you made $2,000, was it a partnership? A. No. Q. You were the sole owner? A. Yes. Q. How much was your salary that year? A. Thirty dollars a week. Q. Was there any money spent in salaries to other executive officers of your company? A. No. Q. Next to your $30.00 a week what was your next highest salary paid to anyone connected with your business? A. The bookkeeper $10.00, the shipping clerk $9.50, the designer $22.00, one helper $10.00, and we have a helper for $9.00. Q. What was the total amount of business done during the last fiscal year? A. Fifty thousand dollars. Q. Fifty thousand dollars gross? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Now, Mr. Nathan, you say that $50,000 business yielded $2,000 worth of profit; how far did you increase the size of your business last year? A. We did not increase it at all. Q. You did not buy any new machines? A. No. Q. In other words, your busines was of the same size at the end of last year that it was at the end of the preceding year? A. Approximately; I put in one or two machines. Q. You didn’t put in much improvement actually out of the earnings? A. No. Q. Yet that business yielded only a profit of a couple of thousand dollars? A. Yes. Q. You don’t think it is possible for you to compete with other men in your line of business and pay the 33 per cent of your employes a wage which would enable the girls to look at the men and women in your office and say that the money that they got from you was sufficient to keep them? A. No, I don’t think I could. Q. Then it is not possible to conduct your kind of business and have the people that manufacture your merchandise make a living independently of what they might have on the outside? A. This is skilled help. Q. You don’t call it skilled help until they can produce a certain number of any design? A. No, no, they just produce one item. Q. They can produce that item but they cannot produce it fast enough? A. Some can’t produce it at all on the start, that is the idea. Q. How long a period do you consider that they are unable to produce the merchandise at all? A. An average of about three weeks. Q. If then, for three weeks, they learn to do it when they have been with you three weeks, do you then elevate them up to a point where they are self-supporting? A. They usually, if they stay, they usually make enough 400 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee to come up to $7.00. I might quote an instance where a girl came over from abroad and never saw a power machine in her life and she made $7.21 the first week, I think. Q. She was unusually speedy? A. She was. Q. Isn’t it a fact that the majority of your girls get from $4.00 to $6.00 a week? A. Oh, no. Q. That is not the fact? A. No, sir. SENATOR WOODARD: How long does a girl have to work with you before she can become skilled? A. With that degree of skill she ought to make a living at $8.00 by working three or four weeks. Q. In three or four weeks? A. Yes, she ought to make that. Q. Do these girls get along very well to start with? A. Some of them. Q. What becomes of goods that are spoiled in the making, are they charged up to these girls? A. Sometimes, and sometimes not. Q. What becomes of the goods? A. It is given to them or sold if they wanted it sold for what it would bring and the difiference they paid; the difference between that and what it cost. Q. The difference between what it would bring and what it would cost? A. Yes. Q. Do you sell it for them. A. If they want it sold. Q. Or they could take it home? A. Or they could take it home. SENATOR JUUL: Suppose the State of Illinois Avere to establish a minimum wage law at which you would be compelled to pay say at least $8.00 or $9.00 a week to a girl that you pay less than that in the case of piece work, you would simply start her in from that and up? A. I should say that we would not employ a girl that could not make $8.00 a week. Q. You would not employ them? A. I don’t think so. Q. You would have to recruit your force from somewhere, wouldn’t you? A. Yes. Q. Then how would you get your new girls? A. That is a thing that time would have to solve for itself; I don’t say that this is a fact, understand, but that is my idea. Q. You don’t think your business is able to pay a new Avorker the amount of money that is sufficient to feed and clothe and lodge her? A. No, not $8.00. Q. You don’t think that is in the business? A. No, I don’t think so. Q. Do you think it Avould be in the business if all men engaged in the same line of business that you are engaged in Avould be in the same fix you would be put in? A. I think so. Q. That is, you think it would be possible? A. Yes. Q. Then you think it would be a pleasant thing for you if they were all put on the same basis and you Avere to pay the girl the minimum liA-ing wage as long as they are treated all alike? A. If they are treated all alike, yes. Mrs. Siegel’s Testimony. MRS. SIEGEL, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, and testified as folloAvs: EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? .•\. Mrs. Siegel. Q. Where do you live? A. 552 West 13th street. Q. How many children have you? A. I haA’e got fiA'e. Q. Where are you working, Mrs. Siegel? A. For ^Ir. Nathan. Q. The Mr. Nathan that has just testified? A. \ es. Q. What are you doing for Mr. Nathan? A. I operate a machine. Public Meetings and Testimony 401 Q. You operate a machine? A. Yes, I used to operate by piece work, but last week I was fixing up for the girls what didn’t make right. Q. What they didn’t make right? A. Yes, last week. Q. When you work for Mr. Nathan by the week, does he pay you by the week? A. I could not tell you, because I don’t get my pay yet. Q. When he pays you by the week how much does he pay you? A. I could not tell you, because I didn’t get my pay. Everybody got paid Saturday, but I get paid Monday. Q. You didn’t get your pay? A. No. Q. How much do you think you will get? A. Over a dollar, a dollar I think I will get. Q. How many have you got to support, Mrs. Siegel, on that? A. I have got one girl; she makes $6.50 a week. Q. Is there anybody else earning anything? A. No, I have got a girl going to high school, she is not of an age to work. Q. Isn’t it a fact that you don’t make over $5.00 a week? A. I don’t work Saturday. Q. Then you don’t make $5.00; I am trying to see how much money you carry home. A. Sometimes I make as much as $5.50 and sometimes I make less. Q. When you make less, how much do you make? A. Less? Q. Yes. A. I make sometimes $4.00, $4.50, $4.25, $5.00, or $5.50. I could not tell you Some weeks I make more. Q. And your daughter makes how much? A. Six and a half. Q. Six and a half? A. No. $6.00; $6.00 a week. Q. She works in the same place? A. No, some other place. Q. When she makes less, how much does she make? A. She makes that every week, every time. Q. She works six days in the week? A. Yes. Q. Everything that you make and $6.00 a week that she makes all comes in at the same time? A. Yes. Q. How many are in the family to live on it? A. I have got a mother, and I have five children. Q. You have a mother and five children? A. Yes, and myself. Q. There are seven people in the family? A. Yes. Q. Seven all told to live on this $11.50? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL; I think that is all. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That one statement alone is enough to justify the work of this Committee; seven people living on $11.50 a week, the total product of two female wageearners’ time and industry. Libby Kaplan’s Testimony LIBBY KAPLAN, called as a witness before the Committee, and being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testified as follows: (Interpreter translating.) EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Do you talk English? A. No. Q. What is your nationality? A. Yiddish. Q. What country do you come from? A. Russia. Q. Where do you live? A. In Maxwell street. Q. Now, I will ask you how old are you? A. Seventeen. Q. Sure you are seventeen? A. Sure. Q. How long have you been in this country? A. Six months in this country. Q. Where are you working? A. Nathan & Company. 402 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What are you doing over there? A. I work at a machine. Q. How much do you get a week for it? A. I work piece work; at first I made $4.00, $5.00 and $6.00 and $7.00. Q. Four, five, six and seven dollars? A. Yes. Q. How much did you make last week? A. Seven and a quarter? Q. And the week before that? A. Seven dollars and ninety-one cents. Q. How many are there in your family. Miss Kaplan? A. I am all alone here with my father. Q. Is your father working? A. Sure. Q. What does he do? A. He is a peddler. ■ Q. Does he work all the time, every day? A. Sometimes he works and sometimes he does not work. Q. You haven’t any idea as to what he earns? A. No, I have no idea. SENATOR JUUL: Well; this confirms what Mr. Nathan stated; she is below, all the way from $1.00 to $2.00 and $3.00 a week. I think that will be all. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Let us find something out about this girl’s home life, her amusements, and so forth. How does she get her amusement. Q. Do you ever go to a nickel show? A. Yes, I go sometimes to a nickel show. Q. How often? A. About two times a week, or once a week. Q. With whom do you go? A. With another girl. Q. Outside of that how do you spend your time in the evening? A. Sometimes I go out on the street; I don’t do anything in particular. Q. You go on the street; how long would be on the street, walking up and down, I presume, and exercising? A. Yes. Q. How long do you usuallj' stay out? A. Until nine o’clock or ten o’clock. Q. Just walking up and down the street? A. Yes. Q. You go, I presume, on the street where the lights are brighter; in the crowd? A. I walk down Halsted street. Q. Your money that you make, do you turn it over to your father or do you keep it? A. I keep it myself. Q. How many rooms have you with your father? A. I stop in tlie back room and my father lives in the front room of the same house. Q. Do you have any of your girl friends call on you at this room; do you ever invite your girl friends into those rooms that constitute your home? A. No. Q. You don’t have any little parties in there, no social life at all? A. No. Q. And you don’t go to the home of any of your girl friends? A. No, not very often; sometimes I do. Q. How often would that happen? A. About two or three or four times a week. SENATOR JLVTL: You say you have absolutel}" nobody come to your home at all? A. No. SENATOR WOODARD: Did you spoil any goods in learning? A. No, I didn’t. SENATOR WOODARD: That is all. Lizzie Fox’s Testimony. lizzie fox, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? A. Miss Lizzie Fox. Q. Where do you live? A. 555 M’est 12th place. Q. Where were you born? A. In the old country. Q. What old country? A. Russia. Public Meetings and Testimony 403 Q. How long have you been in America? A. Two years. Q. What are you working at? A. On a machine. Q. You are also working at Mr. Nathan’s? A. Yes. Q. On piece work? A. Yes. Q. What is your weekly earning; what did you earn last week? A. Last week $8.78. Q. You are one of the fast girls over there, aren’t you? A. Yes. Q. You are one of the fast operators? A. Some make $10.00. Q. You are one of the real fast girls? A. Yes. Q. You can do more .work than most of them? A. Yes. Q. What do you think the girls, who make least, make over there? A. The least is $5.00 and $4.00. Q. Nobody told you what you ought to say when you came here today, did they? A. No, sir. Q. Well, you are one of the high priced girls over there, you make about $8.00, you said? A. Eight dollars. SERGEANT SCOUTEN: She works on two machines. THE WITNESS: Yes, some weeks I make $8.00 and some $7.00, and some $5.00, but if I have good work I make $8.00. I got $4.00 a week when I was working by the week. SENATOR JUUL: You made $4.00 a week when you worked by the week? A. Yes. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How long have you been working? A. Two years. Q. You don’t work on Sundays? A. No. Q. What do you do on Sundays? A. I stay at home or go out. Q. You work on Saturdays, do you? A. Yes. Q. Until what hour on Saturday? A. About twelve o’clock. Q. Until twelve o’clock at noon? A. Yes, but sometimes to four o’clock. .Q. Sometimes you work until four o’clock? A. Yes. Q. What do you do when you get through? A. Go right home. Q. What time do you go to bed? A. About nine or ten o’clock. Q. You are tired when you go to bed? A. Yes, sure. Q. Do you ever have a headache because you work hard? A. Yes, sure. Q. Do you feel sick sometimes because you work hard. A. Yes, I feel sick now. Q. Do you think you would feel sick so often if you were not on the I piece system? Does it make you nervous if you don’t keep the speed up, if you feel that you are not going to make as much as you made last week? A. Sure. Q. It makes you feel nervous all the time? A. Yes, some weeks I am sick and then I have to pay $4.00 a week. Q. You have got your other expenses also? A. Yes. Q. And when you feel that you are not going to come up to that $4.00 you get nervous? A. Yes. Q. You are sick many times because of it? A. Yes. j Q. You go home on Saturdays, go home at nine or ten o’clock at night I and then on Sunday how late do you sleep on Sunday? A. Nine or ten o’clock on Sunday. Q. You sleep until nine or ten o’clock on Sunday because you haven’t any work to do on that day? A. Yes. 404 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You don’t get up early on Sundays because you have no work to do that day? A. No, sir. Q. Then you get up for breakfast? A. Yes. Q. What do you do in the afternoon? A. Stay at home or go out. Q. When you stay at home do you have other girls come in to see you? A. Yes, some times. Q. Does it sometimes happen that you stay in bed all day Sundays because you are tired out? A. Sometimes. Q. Sometimes that happens? A. Yes. Q. Then when you are feeling well you either stay at home and the other girls come in and you have your little time of pleasure or social life? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where do you go when you leave the house; you say you go out sometimes; go to some other girl’s place? A. I have got an aunt here. Q. You have an aunt here and you go to see her sometimes? A. Yes. Q. You come in and get to bed about what time on Sunday nights? A. About ten o’clock, sometimes a little later than that. I have got an uncle here too. Q. You get to bed about ten o’clock Sunday nights? A. Yes. Q. What time do you get up Monday morning? A. At si.\-thirty. Q. What time do you start to work? A. At seven-thirty. Q. How far is it from where you live to where you work? A. Just across the street. Q. You have your breakfast before you start to work? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you work until what time: when do you have lunch? .\ half hour. Q. You take a half hour for lunch? A. Yes. Q. Do you generally take your lunch with you? A. No, I go home. Q. And you work until what time: when do you have lunch? A. A half hour. Q. Have you ever been so sick you had to call a doctor? A. Yes, I was terrible sick Saturday. Q. Last Saturday? A. Yes. Q. Did you go to a doctor? A. Yes, I had an operation' on my hand. Q. What was the operation for? A. I caught cold in my hand. Q. So you went to a doctor? A. Yes. Q. What sort of an ailment was that? A. Oh, the room was too hot. Q. The room was too hot where you worked? A. I don’t know, but I think so. Q. What did you have to pay this doctor? A. Two dollars. Q. You had to pay him $2.00 for attending to you? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all. Helen Rosini’s Testimony. HELEN ROSINI, called as a witness before the Committee, and being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Helen Rosini. Q. Where do you live? A. 12th place. Q. At what number? A. 360. Q. By whom are you employed; for whom are you working? A. Mr. Nathan. Q. The same gentleman that was here? A. Y'es. Q. Are you working at piece work? A. No, by the week. Q. How many days in the week do you work? A. All week days. Q. You work all week? A. Yes. Q. Do you work on Saturdays? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 405 Q. How much do you get? A. Five dollars. Q. How many are there in your family? A. I am single. Q. Have you anybody else to take care of? A. No, I just have ji myself to take care of. i Q. How long have you worked for Mr. Nathan? A. Since eight f months. Q. How much did you get when you started? A. Five dollars. Q. No increase at all? A. No, just the same as when I started. Q. Did you tell the investigator you got only $4.00 a week? A. No, 1 didn’t tell him that. Q. Did somebody tell you to say you got $5.00? A. No, sure not. Whereupon the further hearing by the Committee was adjourned to 2 :30 P. M. of this date. SESSION XIII A forelady tells how one of her girls was seduced. A millinery worker has no complaints. A cashier and a superintendent for a clothing manufacturing firm answer questions but disclaim all knowledge of the whereabouts of their employers. Testimony of: Carrie Peterson, forelady for Rubens & Marble; Anna Kaplan, milliner, employed by Hyman Goldberg; George Cable, cashier, and Victor Riesenfeld, superintendent, Rosenwald & Weil, clothing manufacturers. Chicago, March 31, 1913, 2:30 P. M. The Committee met pursuant to adjournment, all members being present. The following proceedings were had : Carrie Peterson’s Testimony. CARRIE PETERSON, a witness called before the Committee, and being first duly sworn b 3 '^ Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Carrie Peterson. Q. And your occupation? A. Why, forelady. Q. At what establishment? A. Rubens & Marble. Q. Do you pay off the girls there? A. I pay the girls, yes. Q. What is the least amount paid any girl in that establishment? A. Well, they are all $5.00 at least; of course, that is out of my department; the office has charge of that. Q. I know, but you handle the money, you give the money to the girls? A. I give it to them after it is made up. Q. So you are familiar with the amount paid them? A. Yes. Q. How long have you been paying the money to the girls, or handing it out to them? A. Two years. Q. During that two years do you remember of any occasion when you paid any girl less than $5.00 a week for a week’s work? A. No, sir. Q. And you think your memory would be pretty accurate on that point? A. Yes. Q. How many girls are working there? A. Well, there is about a hundred and ninety girls. Q. Of course you take a sort of an interest, a sisterly interest in the welfare of those girls, don’t you? A. Yes. Q. You know something about their home life, whether they manage to get along on the amount of money they have been paid? A. Yes, but it is hard to keep track of that number of girls. Q. Most of them live at home with their parents? A. Yes. Q. Are you familiar with the term “White Slavery”? A. Yes. ' Q. You know what is meant by that term? A. Yes. Q. Have you had any experience with agents of that industry; the industry of white slavery? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Have any agents of that industry been hanging around your place I of business, trying to induce away your girls? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Tell us about some girl that went to California. A. Well, all that 1 can say is that she went. Q. Let us see, how old was she? A. Past sixteen. Q. She was past sixteen? A. Yes. 407 408 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Give the Committee her initials. A. E. L. Q. E. L. begun work for your firm about when? A. Well, I was not there when she started; that was not in my department; it was almost a year and a half. Q. You knew her only about two years ago? A. Yes. Q. How old was she at that time? A. She was just under sixteen then. Q. She was just under sixteen at that time? A. Yes. Q, And before that time she had been working at your place about a year and a half? A. Yes. Q. She started when she was about fourteen? A. She was past fourteen, I guess. Q. What was she doing at the time you knew her? A. Folding shirts. Q. Folding shirts? A. Yes. Q. What do you mean by that, folding over the shirts and pinning them together or something of that nature? A. Yes. Q. How many hours a day did she work? A. Why, until she was sixteen she worked eight, and then nine hours regular time. Q. Was she a pretty nice girl? A. Yes, so far as I know. Q. What happened, did she disappear? A. Just run away. Q. She ran away? A. Yes. Q. That is, one morning she did not report to work? A. Yes. Q. That was the first notification you had that something unusual had happened? A. Yes. Q. Prior to the morning that she failed to come she had been punctual? A. Yes. Q. How many days elapsed before you knew that she had run away? A. Well, it was something — well, on Saturday or Monday, the second day. Q. The second day you discovered she had run away? A. Yes. Q. How did you come to make that discovery? A. Her mother came down. Q. What did her mother say to you? A. Why, her mother told me that she had gone; her mother knew it the same night. Q. Well, what did her mother say, that she had gone away, alone, or that some other girl or some other party with her? A. She said she went with a party. Q. Did she describe that party? A. No, sir. Q. What period of time elapsed before this case was next called to your attention? A. It was about six months. Q. And in what manner was it called to your attention? A. The girl came back. Q. How did she come back, with her mother, or come back alone? A. She came back alone. Q. She came to you? A. Yes. Q. And asked you to put her to work again? A. Yes. Q. Was there any change in her appearance? A. She w'as more quiet. Q. What did she say to you? A. She said she had to work her way back again. Q. Where did she say she went? A. To California. Q. With whom? A. With a man. Q. Did she say where she had met this man? A. No, sir. Q. Did she give you the man’s name? A. Not at the time, no. Q. Did she later give you the man’s name? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you know the man? A. No, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 409 Q. Did he have any business? A. He worked in a box factory, or ioinething like that. Q. He was working in a box factory? A. Yes. Q. Was he much older than this girl? A. I don’t know. I Q. Was the man ever arrested? A. I don’t know. I Q. She went to California with this man; when she got to California ivhat did she say happened? A. She said she worked every day while ihe was there. ; Q. Doing what? A. In some box place; she didn’t say where. Q. She worked in a box factory? A. Yes. I Q. Did this man work, too? A. Yes. ! Q. Did she marry the man? A. No. Q. Did the man treat her kindly? A. I could not say as to that. Q. How long were they in California, did she say? A. Well, about F ix months. Q. She finally left the man? A. Yes. Q. Why? A. Why, she wanted to get home again. Q. She became homesick? A. Yes. Q. When she told him she was going to leave did he object to it? jA. No, he helped her back. I Q. Mr. Rubens this morning stated that the girl had been held a prisoner in California, been locked up, and that she was forced to escape ■ through employment of means of force. A. Well, I guess she told some that; that is not what she told me. Q. She didn’t tell you she had been held a prisoner there? A. No, sir, Q. She went to California with this man? A. Yes. Q. He paid her fare? A. Yes. Q. Did she tell you he paid her fare? A. I know that she didn’t have any money of her own. ] Q. Has she ever had this man arrested? A. No, sir. Q. How long ago was that? A. That is last October. Q. Does she still love him? A. I don’t know. I Q. Did she say she ever loved him? A. No. I" 0- What reason did she give for going? A. She said he promised li'to make conditions better for her and marry her. Q. She met this man and he promised to make conditions better for liher? A. Yes. ijj Q. Now, she didn’t say she loved him? A. No. ;|j Q. But she said that he promised to make conditions better for her I and that was the inducement? A. Yes. i Q. Where is this man now? A. In California, I guess. ’ Q. What part of California? A. Well, Oakland, I guess she said. 1 Q. What is his address at Oakland? A. I don’t know. O. Does this girl correspond with him now? A. No. Q. She does not care for him? A. No. Q. She is through with him? A, Yes. Q. She realizes that her condition now is better than any condition jthat he might bring about for her? A. Yes. Q. What is this man’s name? A. I guess he has different names. I Q. What was his name here? A. Cannot. I 0- How do you spell it? A. C-a-n-n-o-t. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: This is a clear violation of the Federal law ilagainst white slavery. The girl feels that this man has wronged her? A. lYes. O. And he wronged her through promises not to love her but to I ’setter her condition, and she submitted to him not because she loved him 410 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee but because she thought that he could better her condition? A. Of course, I don’t know anything about that; only what she says. Q. That is what she told you? A. Yes. Q. Now, I want to ask you a question: do you think that many girls go wrong because they are paid less money than they can live upon? They don’t go wrong when they are working, but they try to struggle along and keep body and soul together on the money that is paid them, and finally they say, “My goodness, what is the use, anyway.’’ Then some man comes along, and he is pretty kind, and she sort of likes him, and he promises her, as this fellow promised this girl, many things, and she finally submits. Do you think many girls go wrong on account of that? A. No, I don’t. Q. You think this girl is an exception? A. I think she is one of the exceptions; yes, sir. Q. But you think there are some other girls like this who do go wrong because of that? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Committee believes emphatically that the working girls of America are as good as any girls on earth, and we want to know whether any girls do go wrong, and you have given us a specific instance. Anna Kaplan’s Testimony. ANNA KAPLAN, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: What is your name? A. Anna Kaplan. Q. Where do you live? A. 1019 Hermitage Avenue. Q. By whom are you employed? A. Hyman Goldberg. Q. Were you here during the testimony of Mr. Goldberg this morn- ing? A. Yes. Q. You are employed as a milliner? A. Yes. Q. Are you an apprentice? A. No, I am a trimmer. Q. Did you start learning with him? A. No, sir. Q. You had learned the trade when you got there? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your average wage per week? A. Fourteen dollars. Q. What do you know about the working conditions of other girls out there? A. Well, I don’t know anything about others. Q. You don’t know what they earn? A. No, sir. Q. How long have you been earning that amount that j'ou are earning now? A. Just this season; every season I get a raise. Q. You get a season rate? A. Yes. Q. This is the gentleman that we agreed treated his emploj-es pretty well? A. Yes. ' Q. You said your average wage was $14.00 a week? A. Yes. SENATOR BEALL; How much were you raised? A. A dollar and a half this season. Q. Every season do you mean you get a raise? A. Well, it’s all according. Q. How long have you been there? A. Four years. Q. And they raise you every year $1.50 you mean? A. Sometimes $1.00 and sometimes $1.50. SENATOR JUUL: In these four years you have gone from $6.00 to $14.00? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR WOODARD; Will you go ahead at the regular rate or drop off at the end of the season? A. No, we get that the full season that starts the 1st of March, until July. Q. What about after it is over? A. M"e will stay at home or go into the wholesale house. Q. You are there just during the season? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 411 |i Q. You are what is known as a trimmer? A. I am a third trimmer; ',;of course, there is two more that get more, they get $15.00 and $17.00. r SENATOR JUUL; What did Mr. Goldberg tell you this morning I, when he found out that you had been subpoenaed? A. He has not said 'anything. Q. He hasn’t said anything? A. No, sir. , Q. He didn’t suggest what you should say here? A. No, sir. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Are there any other shops, any other mil- linery shops around the place where you work? A. Yes, sir. j Q. What do the girls in those shops get? A. I don’t know anything labout that. ( Q. What is the usual wage for a trimmer? A. Well, I think trim- [mers get as high as $35.00. Q. Did you ever try to get any other position with any other firm? fA. No, sir; I always worked for Mr. Goldberg. ; SENATOR JUUL: What is the wage of a trimmer when the season 1 4s over? A. Do you mean in the wholesale house? Q. No, when the season is over, when you take other employment? A. Yes, Gage Brothers at piece work, they average as high as $20.00 a week. I Q. Twenty dollars a week? A. Yes, $15.00 and $20.00. t CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Where? A. At Gage Brothers, out south. * SENATOR JUUL: They are manufacturing wholesalers? A. Yes, Isir. I George Cable’s and Victor Riesenfeld’s Testimony. I GEORGE CABLE and VICTOR RIESENFELD, witnesses called ’.before the Committee, and being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, testi- i fied as follows: t CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? f MR. CABLE: George Cable. ■ Q. And your name? MR. RIESENFELD: Victor Riesenfeld. Q. What is your occupation? MR. CABLE: Cashier. 1 Q. With what concern? A. Rosenwald & Weil, d Q. And your occupation? d MR. RIESENFELD: Superintendent of manufacturers, Rosenwald Weil. Ij Q. What are those books? !; MR. CABLE: Those are the pay roll books. Q. Do those books contain the name of every girl employed by 1 Rosenwald & Weil and the amount of wages paid? I MR. CABLE: Yes. Q. What was the least amount of money paid any woman in your employ during last week? A. Well, that is something I don’t know, I' because I don’t make up the pay rolls. Q. You are familiar with the figures in these books? A. No, sir. Q. Are you? MR. RIESENFELD: Yes. I' Q. What is the lowest amount paid any girl in your employ last I week? j MR. RIESENFELD: We haven’t made last week’s pay roll up yet. Q. Week before last? MR. RIESENFELD: Two dollars and sixty cents. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How many girls got $2.60? MR RIESENFELD: I want to interpose something there; I want to ■112 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee say that that girl didn’t work a full week; you wanted to know how much she got. SENATOR JUUL: What part of a week did she work? MR. RIESENFELD: I don’t know; I would have to investigate to tell you what part of the week she worked. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Let me ask you a question MR. RIESENFELD: Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How much money did Esther Behrensen make last week? A. Esther Behrensen? Q. Yes. A. Did the girl testify where she worked; was that one of the girls that testified here this morning? CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Some of them didn’t know where they were working, or were afraid to tell. MR. RIESENFELD: Esther Behrensen made $3.45 last week. SENATOR JUUL: Did she work a full week? MR. RIESENFELD: No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How many hours did she work? A. Fortj-- seven hours. Q. Forty-seven hours? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL: And she got how much? MR. RIESENFELD: Three dollars and forty-eight cents. SENATOR JUUL: That is just the rate of 10 cents an Iiour. MR. RIESENFELD: Yes, she gets $4.00 a week, to be exact. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How many hours do they have to work to work full time? MR. RIESENFELD: Fifty-four hours. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How about Mary Dasdowicz? MR. RIESENFELD: She worked half a week. Q. How much did she get for that half week? A. Two dollars and seventeen cents. Q. How many hours did she work? A. Twenty-nine and one- quarter hours. Q. And she got for that twenty-nine and one-quarter hours how much? A. Two dollars and seventeen cents; in other words, she is paid at the same rate; those girls get $4.00 a week. Q. How much is the lowest amount of money that you pay any girl who works a full week? A. Three dollars and a half. Q. For fifty-four hours’ work? A. No, sir. Q. For how much? A. For eight hours a day’s work, that is fifty- two hours, it is forty-four hours to be exact. Five days of eight hours at $1.00 a day. Q. You people seem to be pretty good business men over there; if a girl comes in five minutes late you keep track of that and dock her, don’t you? A. We don’t dock them half a day, though. Q. If she would be half an hour late every morning? A. If she were half an hour late every morning I don’t think she would be there; she would be let out; she would be discharged. Q. Did you see Mr. Rosenwald this morning? A. Mr. Rosenwald is not in Chicago. Q. Where is he? A. The last I heard of him he was out in High- land Park. I expect he will be back tomorrow. Q. When did you last hear of him? .A. Yesterday. Q. When? A. In the afternoon. Q. Where did you meet him, at home? A. I didn’t meet him. I called at his home and was told that he was out of the city. Q. Did he have any message to leave with you? A. No. Q. Did he tell you that he would not be down today? A. I didn’t talk with him. Public Meetings and Testimony 413 Q. I understood you to say you talked with him? A. 1 haven t seen him or talked to him; I called up his house and I was told he w^as in Highland Park. Q. Who told you? A. The maid. Q. When did you see Mr. Rosenwald last? MR. CABLE: Friday or Saturday. Yes, sir, I think so— just a minute — I don’t remember now when I really seen him last. Q. But you remember the name of the firm you w^ere w'orking for? A. Yes. Q. Some of these girls that testified here this morning didn’t remem- ber that. When did you see Mr. Rosenwald yesterday? MR. RIESENFELD: Did I say I saw him yesterday? Q. When did you see Mr. Weil last? A. On Saturday. ' Q. Where? A. At the store. Q. Where is he today? A. I don’t know’. . Q. Has he been around his place of business today? A. No, sir. V Q. Have you seen him today A. No, sir. Q. Have you seen him today? MR. CABLE: No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Are Mr. Rosenwald and Mr. Weil generally out of the city at the same time? MR. RIESENFELD: I can’t tell. Q. What do you say your position is with this firm? A. Superin- tendent of manufacturing. Q. Are 5’ou a married man? A. I am. Q. You have no interest in this firm other than your salary? A. None other than my salary. Q. How old is this firm? A. I really couldn’t tell you; it is over twenty-five years old. Q. It makes some money, of course? A. That I could not tell you, either; I am not familiar with their finances. Q. What make is Mr. Rosenwald’s automobile? A. I couldn’t tell you that, either. Q. How many has he? A. He has one. Q. How about Mr. Weil’s? A. Mr. Weil bas one also. Q. A pretty nice machine? A. I don’t know whether to call it nice or not. Q. As those gentlemen are not here, we would like to get some idea as to the profit made by them. A. I am not familiar with their profits. Q. Where do they live, in what part of the town? A. South, the southern part of town. Q. They, have pretty nice homes? A. Yes, sir. Q. They look prosperous? A. I suppose they are prosperous, I j don’t know anything about their personal matters. Q. You would judge Mr. Rosenwald probably has an income of $3.40 a week? A. I should suspect so. Q. Has he any children? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. Has he any daughters? A. I don’t know. Q. He hasn’t any daughters working out there at $3.40 a week? A. ; He hasn’t any daughters at all that I know of. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Well, I confess. Senator Juul, I haven’t , very much sympathy with this firm. I have asked them enough questions. Will you take the witness? SENATOR JUUL: I wouldn’t ask them anything, Mr. Chairman; ' what is the use, their story is told and these gentlemen confirm it. Their ( books are on the table; what is the use of digging into a mess like that? SENATOR _ WOODARD: Would those girls that are here today be docked for missing their time today? 414 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee MR. RIESENFELD; No. SENATOR JUUL: Do you think there will be any danger of their losing their positions for coming here and testifying? MR. RIESENFELD; It is not likely. SENATOR JUUL: It is only due to the girls to say that they testi- fied reluctantly; none of them seemed to know very much, and some even didn’t know who they were working for. MR. RIESENFELD: We didn’t have anything to do w4th their testimony; we didn’t know they were testifying; we didn’t tell them to testify or. not to testify; we didn’t know anything about their testifying. SENATOR TOSSEY: Who fixes the wages of these girls? MR. RIESENFELD: The foreman. Q. Are you consulted about the matter? A. No, sir. Q. How are they fixed? A. There is a price common to the entire i clothing business for each operation in the garment: each garment is sub- j divided into various parts. Q. Do you have them, or no, these girls that work for. $3.40 a week, i do you think that they can possibly live on those wages of $4.00 even? i A. I know that a girl could live on $4.00 a week; could live on those i wages. Q. Explain to me how she could do it. A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, take the girl’s board for instance. A. No, I won’t take it that way; in the course of my career I have been in the settlements for quite a long period of time, and I know a great many girls earning $3.50 : a week and are saving money in the Maxwell Street Bank todajL Q. Do they pay for their board? A. Pay their board at home, yes. | Q. Tell me how a girl can live and make money off of $4.00 a week. i A. I don’t know anything about the details of it, but I know they do. SENATOR JUUL: Let us get down to details. You ventured the statement before this Committee that a girl who gets $3.50 or $3.40 a week i can live on it? A. I say she can live on it, 3 'es. Q. You say you have been a settlement worker and j’OU know it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, let’s start in with what 3 ^ou know. A. All right, sir. Q. This girl is supposed to get twent 3 '-one meals a week; what can she get them at? A. The girls that I refer to live at home and pa 3 ' a 1 certain amount for board arid lodging. Q. Well, if they haven’t an 3 ' home, what then? A. Then the 3 ' can’t 1 live on it. Q. Then you mean that they can live for $3.50 or $3.40 a week if i somebody else chins in and pays the difference? A. If the 3 " live at home 1 they can live on that. Q. If they don’t pay the full amount of what they get, of course, they I can live on it. You don’t assume that they can live on $3.40 a week ( unless they have help? A. Those that live at home can. Q. Will 3 'ou furnish this Committee with a statement of how 3 'ou ' figure that out? A. I can furnish a statement of girls, young girls who I can live on $3.50 and are saving money in the Maxwell Street Social Settle- ment todav', are saving money. Q. You don’t mean to say that they live on $3.50 a week; 3 'ou mean to say that thev live off of their parents? A. Possibb" the 3 " live off of their parents, I don’t know as to that. Q. Well, you know what we are after. _ We are tr 3 'ing to find out what they live on. A. That I am not familiar with. Q. Then you are not familiar w4th the fact that they live for $3.50 a week and save money? A. I know there are girls that get $3.50 a week ■ and save money. Q. How much would you say they are saving? A. Twenty-five Of fifty cents a week. Q. Out of their wages? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 415 i Q. And live by their wages? A. Yes. Q. And clothe themselves? A. Yes. ^ Q. They don’t pay their board, do they? A. They pay a certain amount for board. J Q. They don’t buy their own clothes? A. I know as a matter of fact that there are some girls earning this amount of money, and I can Ijjroduce them, and they are saving money out of it. !| SENATOR BEALL: If the girls stay at home and don’t have to buy their own clothes, of course, they can save money. i' CHAIRMAN O’HARA: All you know is that girls that are getting !$3.50 a week have some money in the bank? A. Yes, sir; I know that, i; SENATOR BEALL: You know that there is not a human being on earth that can live on, to use the old-fashion phrase, “hog and hominy” unless they get it out of somebody else, that is all there is to it. They can’t live on $3.50 a week. Now, don’t you think it would be a nice thing for your firm, you make good profits, you make money down there? A. I don’t know anything about it. Q. You can guess at it; you all get good salaries; now, don’t you think it would be a nice thing for your firm if you would give your girls living wages: take it right to heart and think about it before you answer :it. Don’t you think it would be a good thing to recommend to your firm that those girls getting not over $3.40, or thereabouts, ought to get from $6.00 to $8.00 a week? A. These girls will receive this salary after they 'work a short time; this salary is a starting wage. I Q. We have a bill pending here in the General Assembly for a ■minimum wage; what do you think that a girl can live on nicely, dress respectably, go to shows once in a while and live right, like you would ilike your people to live, as you could? A. I am not qualified to answer; fl don’t know, I don’t know. ; Q. Well, do you think $8.00 would be too much or too little? A. I ithink $8.00 would be quite a high wage to start girls in at. i Q. I don’t mean that. To live on? A. Yes, sir; I think $8.00 would be high. Q. Don’t you think it would be a good plan to talk to your superiors iabout that matter; other concerns in Chicago have volunteered to do that; don’t you think it would be a good thing all around to raise your girls to $7.00 or $8.00 a week; they are working at subordinate work; would you be willing to say that you would be willing to discuss it with jthem? A. I would be very willing to discuss it. i Q. We are here to try to help. A. We are very willing to profit |by the advice of the Committee. I Q. Would you be willing to attend a meeting here given by the ilmerchants and head men in business to form some organization to pro- jmote the welfare of those girls? A. I would be very glad to. ! Q. Would you be willing to ask your people to attend a meeting of ■that kind? A. Yes, sir. Q. You think that would be a good thing? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: What is the reason for your firm paying the employes through Brink’s Express? A. Simply to save money, to save the money being handled in the cashier’s office. Q. How do you make that out? A. Brink’s Express do business; they have a great many houses in Chicago, and they make a certain price per envelope for making up this money, and we send over a c^eck and voucher with the pay roll to the various shops, and they make up the money and deliver it and are responsible for it. [ Q. Make it up into individual checks? A. Into individual envelopes, ji Q. Then the money goes out of the house to Brink’s Express? A. [Yes, sir; Brink’s Express, it finances all of it. !l Q. What is the object of that? A. Simply this, to lessen the danger /of any irregularities in the cashier’s office in the house, Brink’s being .entirely responsible for the money; they also assume responsibility of I 416 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee payment of money to help; they take the responsibility of taking the money over from downtown places and distributing it to the various places where people must be paid. Q. Where do they pay the money to the employes? A. In the shops. Q. They pay the money to the employes in the shops? A. A man i comes out from Brink’s and pays the help; nobody gets the money but the help. U-. What would be the object; I am trying to find out why you have a cashier and you have a business manager. A. We have a cashier, but we don’t want the cashier to handle the cash. We have no facilities for sending money five or six miles, or four miles, or three miles, to our | store with a wagon guarded properly so the money would not be stolen, i and Brink’s have, and they take that responsibility. Q. All of your employes in your local shop or store? A. We have no employes downtown. Q. Wherever your factory is; how many have you got there? A. At the factory? Q. Yes. A. In one factory we have, I should say, we have 350 or 400 employes. Q. How many of them are girls? A. About, I don’t know the exact amount, I should say 130. Q. A hundred and thirty girls? A. A hundred and thirty or a hun- dred and forty girls. Q. And you pay all these people through Brink’s Express also? A. Yes. Q. For no other reason than that you don’t want to handle the cash? A. It simply protects us against any loss in transportation back and forth. Q. You have no other reason for it? A. Absolutely none; could not be any that 1 know of. Q. Do the girls lose the cost of the distribution of the money? A. No, they have nothing to do with it. Q. The house pays it? A. The house pays it. Q. Who is it that decides the amount of money that these girls are to have; is that within your province? A. No, sir; the amounts of money are decided between the foreman and the girl when she applies for a position. Q. Who controls the foreman as to what he is to pay? A. The market controls the foreman what he has to pay. I don’t know that you get my meaning, if you get my meaning or not. Q. No, I don’t. A. There are in this community in Chicago a great many shops; a great many shops of this kind making clothing. Q. Yes. A. And the price for certain operations in these various shops are about the same throughout the trade, so a girl, when she | wants to get work as an operator, she starts work on piece work. | Q. Yes. A. And she knows just about what she can get. Q. That is the work you have described to us as piece work? A. This is piece work. Q. So when you say that an employe is getting five dollars a week, i do you understand that means that she is getting that providing she can make up the number of pieces sufficient to justify paying the five dollars? A. I take the full week, the full week, the girls we have been talking I about getting three dollars and a half the first week, the following week i are earning four and a half or five dollars this week. Q. But in order to earn even three dollars and a half, or three dollars I and forty cents a week, she would have to do a certain amount of work? A. Yes, sir, she would have to do a certain amount of work. Q. And she would necessarily fall below that wage if she was not speedy enough to turn out a sufficient number? A. She could easil}' fall below that. Public Meetings and Testimony 417 Q. She could? A. A girl who could not do that would be of no value at all; we could not use her at all. Q. Even this wage that you have described to this Committee is not a fixed wage? A. No, it is a minimum wage in other words. Q. It is not a minimum wage even unless the girls succeed in making enough garments? A. If the girl don’t succeed we don’t want to keep her. Q. If, for instance, the girl is able, if she is up to the standard where you will employ her. if she is up to where she will make three dollars and a half a week as a minimum, you employ her; if she is not she loses; is that the idea? A. No. that is not exactly the idea. Q. What is the idea? A. A girl to start with, a girl to start in with a new job, we have had girls make eight or ten dollars on their work and then they will willingly stop eight or nine dollar work and start in on another position in which they can advance themselves further on; there are certain portions on a garment that will eventually pay a girl more than others will; there is a greater possibility for a greater amount of money. A girl will deliberately stop that portion and start in on something which will promise her more money for the future. She will say, “I want to start in making pockets,” for instance. SENATOR BEALL: Do I understand you to say that the market governs this piece work? A. Yes. Q. What do you mean by the market? A. The clothing industry as a whole. Q. Then you mean to say that you have an association with an agreed price of what you would pay for piece work? A. No, sir, but that price is pretty nearly the same from place to place. Q. You say there are several of your lines of business in Chicago? A. Lots of it. Q. If you were paying twenty-five cents for making a garment, do .they all pay that same price? A. No, sir; as a matter of fact there is a great scarcity of girl labor in Chicago at the present time. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: At three dollars and forty cents a week? MR. RIESENFELD: I didn’t say that. SENATOR BEALL: Does the Manufacturers’ Association fix the price? MR. RIESENFELD: They have nothing to do with the price; the price varies from house to house. SENATOR TOSSEY: Did you say a while ago you had agreed on the price? A. No, sir, I said the foreman and the girl agreed on the price. Q. But you have no agreed price among you manufacturers? A. No, I would not infer that for a minute. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What do you mean by market? MR. RIESENFELD: By market I mean just this, that there is a certain amount of money in each operation in a garment, that amount of money is not fixed, it depends on a great many things; it depends on the market conditions, on the number of garments that are being made in the market, on the number of people that are being employed; upon the amount of work that a girl can do a week. That is what it depends on and that is what I mean by the market. Q. How do you feel the market, by intuition? A. No. Q. Or do you ascertain what the market is by a conference, by talk- ing with people in the same line of business? A. By the girls. A girl won’t go to work for you if she can get more money from the next man; that is common sense. Q. Have the men in your line of business an association? A. Yes. Q. What do you discuss at those meetings? A. General clothing policies. Q. The matter of wages you consider not to be a business policy to be discussed? A. No, sir; it is not a business policy to*be discussed. 418 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Did you talk with a representative of this Committee last week? A. No, sir. Q. Do you know to whom one of our investigators talked last week at your establishment? A. The only person one of your investi- gators could have talked to was our foreman of the shop. Q. What is his name? A. Hyman. I know an investigator was out in one of our shops. Q. Who told you that? A. Mr. Hyman. Q. Mr. Hyman also told Mr. Rosenwald and Mr. Weil, or you told them? A. I told them. Q. Mr. Hyman was the man who told our investigators that this firm never paid less than six dollars a week? A. I don’t know what he told them; I was not present and I don’t know what he told them. Q. Would you think that the absence of Mr. Rosenwald and Mr. W’eil is accounted for by the fact that our investigators were told by your firm that no girl over there got less than six dollars a week? A. No, sir, ab- solutely not; they didn’t know that; they don’t know anything about it. SENATOR JUUL: What do you make, men’s suits? A. No, sir, we don’t. Q. What do you make? A. Clothing specialties. Q. What do you call clothing specialties? A. Vests and smoking jackets. Q. When you start to make vests how many operators are put on a vest from the start to the finish? A. I could not tell you that. Q. You don’t know that? A. No. Q. Well, approximately? A. No, I couldn’t even approximate it. Q. Could you tell us what the average vest represents in wages? A. No, sir. Q. You couldn’t tell that? A. No, sir. Q. Who could tell us that? A. You would have to call in on vests the outside contractor; we place our vests through outside contractors; we don’t make them ourselves. Q. Then this matter of wages does not affect the vest business at all? A. No. Q. Well, tell us something that it does affect. A. The pants business. Q. You do manufacture pants yourself? A. Yes, sir, some of that. Q. Will you give to this Committee the name of one of . your sub- contractors who manufactures vests for you? A. Nels Nelson. Q. Where is he? A. At Wellington and Sheffield. Q. Well, I will suggest that we get Nels Nelson of Wellington and Sheffield in and see what they get for them for sweating the work out MR. RIESENFELD: He gets a certain amount of money. If he can get it made for nothing, it is up to him. SENATOR WOODARD: Do I understand that you give it to him and he subcontracts it out? MR. RIESENFELD: No, he has got a shop' of his own. SENATOR JUUL: He sublets it out? A. He runs it the same as any other shop. Q. Well, is it all piece work? A. Yes, sir, it is all piece work. Q. You can’t give us any information on the manufacturing end of this at all? A. On the details of figures, I can’t. SENATOR JUUL: Well, I don’t see that there is any use of ask- ing any information from you. When can we get the proprietors of 5 our place of business? A. I think you can get them tomorrow. SENATOR JUUL: I now move that we go into executive session. I think that we have enough here to last us for a day or two. SENATOR TOSSEY: I second the motion. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: It is moved and seconded that the Cora- Public Meetings and Testimony 419 mittee go into executive session. Those in favor say aye. The motion prevails. Whereupon the Committee excluded all outsiders from the room and went into executive session. SESSION XIV Committee meets in executive session to confer with twenty- one State street merchants, who agree to consider ways and means for improving the conditions of their female employes. Chicago, Illinois, April 7, 1913, 10:00 o’clock A. M. BE IT REMEMBERED that on this seventh day of April, 1913 A. D., the Illinois Senatorial Vice Committee met in executive session at the Hotel La Salle, Chicago. Lieutenant-Governor O’Hara (Chairman) presided, and all the members of the Committee — namely: Senator Beall, Senator Juul, Senator Tossey and Senator Woodard — were present. The object of the meeting, from which the public was excluded, was to confer with merchants — several of whom had already testified before the Committee — regarding the most feasible means that could be adopted to improve the financial condition of girls employed in stores and factories. Among the merchants reported to be present were : Mr. James Simpson, Marshall Field & Co.; Mr. Edwin F. Mandel, Mandel Brothers; Mr. John T. Pirie, Jr., Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co.; Mr. Thomas A. Stevens, Charles A. Stevens & Bros. ; Mr. E. H. Leh- mann, The Fair; Mr. Louis F. Simon, Maurice Rothschild; Mr. E. Burnham, D. S. Bosley, Jenkins & Co. ; Mr. Tolbert T. Bleeks, Valen- tine Designing and Dressmaking School; Mr. A. L. Kesner, Evan Lloyd & Co.; Mr. D. A. Griesman, Palmer’s Cloak Store; Mr. Harry Kupper, The Model; Mr. A1 H. Rich, A. Bishop & Co.; Mr. Julius J. Schnadig, Friend’s; Mr. J. R. Anthony, Emporium-World; Mr. David Komiss, Stanley William & Co. ; Mr. C. C. Griswold, F. W. Wool- worth Company; Mr. Salvator Melando, B. F. Rubel & Co. ; Mr. W. V. Vierbuchen, Palmer House; Mr. D. F. Miller, Cutler Shoe Company; Mr. Lemuel Bezark, Leslie Millinery Company. At the conclusion of the executive session and when the doors had been thrown open for the admission of the public, the following state- ments were made : CHAIRMAN O’HARA; The Committee and merchants on State street, who have extended the Committee the courtesy of attending with- out the service of subpoenaes, have talked over the matter of wages paid to girls and women on State street. The discussion has been entirely informal and frank. No definite results can be named other than the calling of a meeting of State street merchants in the near future to dis- cuss means of bettering the conditions of the girls and women employed in the stores. The merchants believe the girls and women on State street are the best paid of any class of woman workers in Illinois — that they are the best taken care of and the best looked after — and they have told the Committee what they have done toward bettering the condi- tions of their girl employes. The Committee has not committed itself and is holding its action in abeyance. SENATOR BEALL: I made a proposition to the gentlemen that instead of giving money to colleges and churches they get together and build a hotel for their girl employes, where the girls may get good homes — 421 422 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee good meals and a good place to sleep, with proper surroundings — for $2.75 or $3.00 a week. This hotel should be managed by matrons that would give the girls motherly care. This idea met with the approval of most — I might say all — of the merchants, and they are going to take it up. They also are going to take up the wage question, and if they get together and suggest some wage as a minimum and set an example for the state, their influence would be great. They are of the opinion a minimum wage law should make provision for apprentices, with a sliding scale for this class of employes. Is that about right, gentlemen? (Con- cluded Senator Beall, directly addressing the merchants who had been in conference with the Committee.) SENATOR JUUL; The merchants of State street have conceded to the Committee that its labors have made the merchants do a lot of thinking and they have promised that as far as it is in their power they will be glad to remedy the conditions of working girls and women. At 1:30 P. M. the Committee adjourned to meet again at 10:00 o’clock A. M., April 11, 1913, in the Hotel La Salle, Chicago. ' SESSION XV A girl recounts her bitter experiences as a stranger in Chicago and tells how she became an easy victim of an immoral youth and entered the underworld. Mrs. Brittain gives information gathered by her as dance hall investigator. A dance hall owner promises to correct reported evils. Testimony of: M S ; Mrs. Gertrude Howe Brittain, superintendent of Juvenile Pro- tective Association; August Yondorf, proprietor of Yondorf’s Hall. Chicago, Illinois, April 11, 1913, 10 o’clock A. M. La Salle Hotel. The Illinois Senate Vice Committee met pursuant to notice, and the following proceedings were had : M— S— — ’s Testimony. M — S , called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. M S . Q. How old are you? A. Seventeen. Q. Where were you born? A. Detroit. Michigan. Q. When did you come to Chicago? A. In August. Q. How long did yon live in Detroit? A. Until I was six years old. Then I moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Q. With your parents, of course? A. Yes. O. How long did you live in Cleveland? A. Three or four years. Q. Until you were nine or ten; then where did you go? A. To Buffalo, New York. Q. How long did you remain in Buffalo? A. About four years. Q. And all this time you were living with your parents? A. Yes. Q. Are your father and mother both living? A. Yes. Q. Have you any brothers and sisters? A. Yes, I have one sister and three brothers. Q. When you left Buffalo, where did you go? A. Ogdensburg, New York; that is where my people live; I went down there to live with my aunt and uncle. Q. You were about fifteen when you left your father and mother and went to live with your aunt? A. Yes. Q. How long did you live with your aunt? A. Just a little over a year. Q. Then you came to Chicago? A. I went back home for a couple of months. Q. After being home with your father and mother a couple of months you came to Chicago? A. Yes. . C*. How did you happen to come to Chicago? A. My father and mother separated, and my father wanted me to come to Chicago and keep house for him this winter. He told me to meet him at Toledo. I met him at Toledo and then he got me a room and told me to stay there a couple of days and then told me to start for Chicago. He is a sailor. His boat was leaving and it would get here, and he told me to start so as to meet his boat here, to get here in time to meet him here. I started before he told me to. 423 424 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You came alone? A. Yes. Q. Did any girl travel with you? A. There was some school teacher from Peoria, Illinois. Q. Where did you first go when you reached Chicago? A. I went to Leonard’s grocery store. My father told me to go there, and he would call my brother. Q. You did as instructed? A. Yes. Q. Your brother was called? A. Yes. Q. Where did your brother take you? A. He said he didn’t know very much about Chicago, so he took me — we W'ent down Clark Street and then we turned into Dearborn and he got me a room over on Dear- born Street. Q. You finally got a room, or some place to live? A. Yes. Q. Where did your brother live? A. Number nine hundred and something on Dearborn, I don’t know what the number is. Q. How long were you at that place? A. Well, I couldn’t say exactly; a little over a month. Q. And during that time you were being supported by your brother? A. By my father. He reached here the next daj'. Q. Then you lived with your father? A. No, I was living by myself on Dearborn Street; of course my father stays on the boat, but he w'as down there. Q. Now, where did you take your meals, in different restaurants around? A. Yes. Q. Did you meet at any of these restaurants, anj- women, did you make any acquaintances? A. Yes, I met a girl. Q. What was her name? A. A M . Q. How old a girl? A. Why, I guess she is about seventeen or eighteen. Q. Where did j'ou meet her? A. In the restaurant; it is 414 Clark Street; I don’t know the name. Q. You were pretty friendly with A M ? A. Yes. Q. You became chums? A. Yes. Q. Now, did A M say anytliing to you about her social life? A. Wliy, she didn’t at first. Q. Was slie well dressed? A. Yes. Q. Seemed to have a little money? A. Yes. Q. Did she tell you how she got her money? A. No. Q. Did she ever introduce you to any men? A. Yes. Q. To whom? A. To a fellow by the name of Wallace. Q. Where did you meet Mr. Wallace, in this restaurant? A. No, I met him up in a cafe. Q. Where? A. L^p at Otto Inn. Q. Where is that located? A. On Clark Street. O. Where? A. Not on Clark Street, at Chicago Avenue and Rush. Q. You met this girl in the restaurant and she had told you that she wanted you to meet a good friend of hers? A. Why, no, sir, we met a couple of fellows; they asked us to go there and have a drink. Q. Where did you meet these fellows? A. I met them, why, on Clark Street, just leaving the restaurant. Q. You met them at the restaurant? A. Yes, and she stopped and spoke to them. Q. A M knew these fellows? A. Yes. Q. You had been dining with A M and had left the restaurant with her? A. Yes. Q. And as you left the restaurant a couple of fellows came up that she knew and she introduced you to these men, and they invited you over to this Otto Inn to get a drink? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 425 Q. Did you go? A. Yes. Q. What did you drink, what kind of a drink did you order? A. Why, I had a lemonade. Q. What did the rest of them have? A. Why, one of the fellow’s had a lemonade and the others had beer. Q. How many lemonades did you drink there? A. Just one. Q. Up to this time had you ever tasted any drink stronger than lemonade? A. No, sir. Q. You never had been a drinking girl? A. No, sir, never. Q. How long did you remain at the Otto Inn? A. Why, we only stayed there about an hour, and then this fellow Wallace was over at one of the other tables. Q. Yes. A. And she motioned to him and called him over, and she walked back and he walked back, that didn’t take very long, and sent a note over to her that we should take those fellow’s out and shake them, so we went out. Q. You went out with these fellows? A. Yes, and we left them on the corner there near the room, and we went in the house and when we came put again Wallace and a fellow named McCurdy were outside waiting for us. Q. Where did Wallace and this fellow McCurdy take you? A. Over to the Otto Inn. Q. Did you have some more drinks there at this time? A. Yes, sir. Q. Still lemonade? A. No, sir. Q. What did you order then? A. Beer. Q. First time you had taken beer? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long did you remain there? A. Until about tw’elve o’clock, or one o’clock. Q. You had been there three or four hours then? A. Yes. Q. Drank pretty freely? A. No, sir, I only had two glasses of beer. Q. The four of you left together? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where did you go? A. To the Cozy Lunch Room on State Street. Q. And what did you do at the Cozy Lunch Room? A. We got something to eat. Q. How long w’ere you there? A. Just about fifteen minutes. A M and McCurdy went out, and Wallace and I stayed there for a while. Q. Where did you and Wallace go? A. We went home. Q. He left you at the door of your home? A. Yes, sir. Q. When did you next see Wallace? A. About two nights after. Q. What happened this night? A. Why, we went over to the Otto Inn again. Q. Had some drinks there again? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you drink there this night? A. I had some beer. Q. Did you have anything stronger? A. No, sir. Q. Did he want you to drink anything stronger? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did he want you to drink? A. Whiskey. Q. Did he make any suggestions to you? A. Yes. Q. What did he suggest? A. That we go up to a hotel. Q. What hotel? A. The Superior Hotel. Q. Is that far from the Otto Inn? A. No, sir, it is just about three blocks. Q. Did you go? A. No, sir, I didn’t. Q. You were angry when he made these suggestions? A. Yes, sir. Q. You showed your resentment? A. Yes, sir. 426 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What did he say? A. Why, he didn’t say very much of any- thing; he didn’t say very much. Q. Now, at this time you had been a good girl? A. Yes, sir. Q. You continued to see Wallace? A. Yes, sir. Q. After that night? A. Yes, sir. Q. You saw him every day? A. No, sir, not every day, about every other day. Q. Where would you see him? A. He would come down to the house after me. Q. And take you wlrere? A. To the Otto Inn. SENATOR TOSSEY: How old were you at that time, did you say? A. Seventeen. Q. This was just recently? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: He asked you always to go to the Otto Inn? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, this continued for several weeks, did it? A. Tw^o weeks. Q. This courtship? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then what happened? Tell it in your own way. A. One night we went to the Otto Inn as usual. He ordered whiskey and I wouldn’t drink it. He wanted me to go to the hotel with him, but I wouldn’t say “yes.” I didn’t go with him willingly. Q. How did you go? A. I drank two glasses of beer, and I didn’t remember anything more until I woke up in the morning. Q. After taking those two drinks you felt unconscious? A. Yes, I felt dizzy and sick; I don’t know how I felt. Q. Did the beer on this particular night not taste as it had on previous occasions? A. Why, I don’t know, I didn’t take particular notice while I was drinking it. Q. Did you feel any differently after taking it? A. Yes, sir, I did. Q. Do you want this Committee to believe that in your judgment that beer given you on the night mentioned was drugged, that it was doped? A. Well, I don’t know. Q. You are convinced in your own mind that there were “knock- out drops” in that beer that night? A. Yes. SENATOR BEALL: You think so, you say? A. Yes. Q. You felt peculiar? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Now, after taking this beer and feeling peculiar and irresponsible, what happened? A. I don’t remember. Q. What was the next that you remember? A. I woke up in the morning and I was up in the Superior Hotel. Q. Alone? A. Yes. Q. Was Wallace with you at the hotel? A. Why, I don’t remember, he came back afterwards. He came back about an hour after I w'as up. Q. What did he say? A. He wanted to know how I felt. I told him I felt all right. Q. Now, you have no recollection of anything that happened from the time that you took those two glasses of beer until the next morning when you woke up alone in a room in the Superior Hotel? A. No, sir, none at all. Q. When you woke up you didn’t know you were in the Superior Hotel? A. No, sir, I didn’t. Q. And the first intimation you had of your whereabouts was when Wallace returned? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ask him what happened the night before? A. Yes, sir, and he said I was sick. Q. And that he had taken you there? A. Yes. Q. How long did you remain there? A. Why, I got up right away and went out. Public Meetings and Testimony 427 Q. With Wallace? A. Yes, sir. Q. So far as you know nothing happened at the hotel that night? A. No, sir. Q. And when you left the hotel the next morning after being there you believed you were still a good girl? A. No, sir. Q. You weren’t? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY; You were not up when he called there, you were still in bed? A'. No, I was up; I had been up just about an hour. Q. Were you dressed when he came? A. Why, partly. SENATOR WOODARD: How did he treat you? A. He said I had been awful sick and he had taken me up there and he told me to get on my things and we would go down and get something to eat; and when he went down, he says, “I guess I better leave you here.” CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We don’t want to go into the details of this, but I want to get this in mind. Were you seduced during the night when you were unconscious or irresponsible or were you seduced in the morning when he returned? A. During the night. Q. You have no recollection of it? A. No, sir, I haven’t. Q. After that you continued to see Wallace? A. Yes, I saw him about twice after that. Q. Did you go out with him, go back to the Superior hotel? A. Yes, sir; twice after that. Q. How did you gel into the hotel? The front door or the back door? A. The back door. Q. Did you register? A. He did. Q. Did he have any difficulty in getting a room? A. No, sir. Q. Who owned the hotel? A. George Burger. Q. He gave you a room on what floor of the hotel? A. On the second floor of the hotel. It was up over a saloon. SENATOR WOODARD: Did you drink that night, the second night? A. Yes, sir, I drank. Q. Did you drink whiskey that night? A. No, I drank beer. Q. How much? A. About three glasses that night. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Now, did the proprietor, or clerk, of this hotel know that you were not married to Wallace? A. I don’t know, I couldn’t say as to that. Q. Did the clerk ever come into your room? A. Yes, this was after; that was the owner, they didn’t have any clerk up there. Q. Oh, the owner; the owner was the clerk? A. Yes, sir. Q. The owner came into your room one morning? A. Yes, sir. He got on the bed; I was not out of bed yet. Q. You had a fight with him? A. Yes. Q. Now, your relations with Wallace continued for several months? A. No, sir, I didn’t see him after that until New Year’s Day. Then I met him on Clark Street. We went to some cafe first on Clark Street. I don’t know what the name of it is. Q Q Q Q Q sir. Q Street What did you do there, get some drinks? A. Yes, sir. From the cafe you went where? A. To the Superior hotel. How long were you there? A. All afternoon until seven o’clock. What happened at seven o’clock? A. Wallace got up and went. Did your father ever visit you at the Superior hotel? A. No, He never did? A. No, sir, he was down to my room at Rush Q. Was Wallace in your room at that time? A. Yes. Q. Had he been coming to visit you there? A. No, that was the first time. He wanted to come over to my room, but I told him he’d better go home. He wanted to come over to my room one night, but 428 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I told him he had better go home; I told him I had some work to do that night and I told him I couldn’t wait on him anyway, but he says, “I might as well stay a while,” so I let him in; I did not expect my father. Q. And your father came while Wallace was in the room? A. Yes, • sir. Q_. What did Wallace say? A. Why, he wanted to jump through the window in the back and I told him not to. He told me to lock the door and turn down the light, which I did. Q. This was when your father was rapping at the door, was it? A. Yes, sir; he called the man that run the place, he told me, he said, “I know you are in there, if you don’t open that door, why we will open it for you.” Q. Well, then you opened the door? A. Then I opened the door and Wallace grabbed his hat. He didn’t have time to get his overcoat. He got out in front and called me to bring his overcoat. Q. Did your father and Wallace have a fight? A. They were going to fight, but the man of the house stopped it. Q. At the time your father arrived was Wallace fully dressed? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why didn’t you open the door and let your father in? A. Be- cause Wallace, he wanted to jump out of the window, and I says, “no,” and he says, “Well, pull down the light and lock the door.” Q. Did you see Wallace after that? A. Yes, I had only known him about a week or ten days then. Q. Oh, this was before you were seduced? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then had your father taken you away from there and broken up the affair with Wallace you might have escaped what subsequently happened? A. Why no, I left my father then. Q. He scolded you? A. Yes, sir. Q. When your father came in did he accuse you of having been a bad girl? A. Well, he said it looked that way; lie said it looked sus- picious. Q. At that time you were innocent? A. Yes, sir. Q. Being innocent and being accused by your father, you took it to heart and left him? A. He didn’t exactly accuse me, but he said it looked suspicious. Q. What did you say to your father? A. Why, he was talking to the man of the house, and I just put on my coat and hat and walked out. Q. Where did you go? A. I went out and walked about two blocks towards Clark Street, and I met Wallace. He took me up to the Superior hotel. He took me up there through the back door and told me to stay all night and he would see me in the morning. He asked me if I had any money and I said “yes,” and he says, “Well, I will see you in the morning then,” so I stayed up there all night, and in the morning about nine o’clock I went down. I was just going down the back door and I met him just coming up. Q. This was prior to beer incident? A. Yes, sir. Q. But at that time you hadn’t given in to Wallace? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: Now, last October, about the latter part of last October, you met another man, did 3'ou? A. Yes. Q. In a chop suey place? A. Yes. Q. What is the name of that man? A. It wasn’t in October, I don’t think. He was Ed. Halpin. Q. Did you ever meet an artist? A. Yes, sir. I drank with him and he took me to a nickel show. Q. Einally took in a performance at the Cort theatre with him? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever pose for him? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 429 Q. Entirely in the nude? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much did you get for that? A. Twenty-five dollars. Q. Twenty-five dollars for one pose? A. Yes. Q. How many times did you pose for him? A. Twice. Q. And you got each time twenty-five dollars? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he ever take you into a hotel after that? A. Yes, sir. 0- What hotel? A. Morrison. Q. What name did he register under? A. I don’t know what name; I think it was Corner. I am not positive. Q. Did you have any baggage with you? A. No, sir. ■ Q. Did this man live at the Morrison hotel at that time or have a room there? A. I don’t know. Q. How long did you remain there? A. All night. Q. About what was the date? A. This was in November some time, I don’t remember exactly. Q. Do you know if this artist sells pictures of nude women? A. Yes. 0. Did you see any of those pictures that he sold? A. Yes, sir. Q. And he took your picture for that purpose? A. Why, I don’t know whether he took it for that purpose or not. I suppose he did. O. Now, what other hotel have you gone to with men? A. Why, the Superior, the Morrison, and the Bresland. Q. The what? A. The Bresland, that is where I stopped. Q. You had a room there? A. Yes. Q. You took men to that room? A. No, they used to go up and register and then come to my room, 0- You made a sworn statement to this Committee, didn’t you? A. Yes, sir. O. In that statement you mentioned the hotel known as the LaPlant? A. The LaPlant. that is where this Ed. Halpin was; that is where I lived with Ed. Halpin. Q. Who is Ed. Halpin? A. He is a nephew of Captain Halpin, chief of detectives; he has some place in the police department. 0- You met him about when? A. I don’t remember exactly, about the eighth of January. Q. He took you to the LaPlant hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you want to stay there with him or did )'Ou have a fight there with him? A. I had a fight with him up in my room; I wanted to go and he would not let me so. He hit me and threw me on the bed, and he told me that I didn’t know who I had to deal with. Q. When you went to the Hotel LaPlant, did you have any baggage there? A. No, sir. Q. How did you enter this hotel? A. Through the front door. O. You remained there how long? A. I stayed there until two o’clock the next day. Q. Two o’clock the next afternoon? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then what happened? A. Why, I had an engagement down town. I told him I had to go. He told me to telephone and put it off, and I told him that I couldn’t do it. He treated me so mean the nisrlit before that I would not go anywhere with him again, nowhere. He talked to me a while and asked me to go and have a few drinks, and on the way down I did. Then we went to a moving picture show. I didn’t go and meet this friend of mine; I telephoned to him and told him that I would see him at nine o’clock that night. Q. Were you arrested that day? A. Yes, arrested that night. Q. Were you alone at the time? A. I was with Eddie Halpin. Q. He was arrested too? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where were you taken? A. To the Des Plaines Street station. We were charged with being drunk. 430 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Were you tried? A. Yes, sir, before Judge Mahoney. Q. Were you fined? A. Yes, two hundred dollars and costs. Q. Did you pay it? A. No, sir, I didn’t. I went out to the Bride- well for four weeks. Q. Did your father know you were out there? A. No, sir. Q. What happened to Halpin? A. Why, he got fined two hundred dollars, but his fine was suspended. Q. How do you know it was suspended? A. Because the matron out in the Bridewell told me it was in the paper that his fine was sus- pended. Q. Where were you at the time you were arrested? A. Why, we were on Madison Street, just across the street from Olson’s cafe on the west side. He had an arm around my waist and he was staggering all over. They were going to let me go, and he stepped up and says, “No, sir, if I go she goes too.’’ There were two detectives, and the other stepped up and he says, “We might as well take them both.” Q. What name did you give the police officers at that time? A. Palmer. Q. That is the name under which you were arrested and sent to the Bridewell? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is that your correct name? A. No, sir. Q. Where is your father now? A. Why, he has been rooming with me up on La Salle. Q. Y ou are living with him now? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are you doing now? A. I am not working. I am keeping house for my father. Q. Are you a good girl now? A. Yes. Q. You don’t see any of these fellows any more? A. No, sir. Q. All this happened within the last year? A. Yes, sir. Q. And up to a year ago you were a good girl? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL; My girl, this first man you were with, did he ever promise to marry you or talk to you along those lines? A. He did, he told me New Year’s Day. Q. That was before you fell? A. No, sir, afterwards. Q. Do you think some of these so-called hotels are altogether hotels, do you think that any man can go there and take a woman there and get a room? A. Why, I do, yes. Q. You have seen others besides yourself do it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Any man can pick up a girl and take her up to one of these houses and secure a room, is that what you mean? A. Yes. Q. You know this to be a fact? A. Yes, sir. Q. These hotels you have mentioned, are they all you know or do you know of more? A. I know of more. Mrs. Gertrude Howe Brittain’s Testimony. MRS. GERTRL’DE HOWE BRITTAIN, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Gertrude Howe Brittain. Q. You are interested in social work? A. Yes, sir, I have been, for the past seventeen years, a resident of Hull House and superintendent of the Juvenile Protective Association. Q. In such capacity, Mrs. Brittain, you have made a study of the dance hall? A. Yes, sir, we have. Q. And other kindred institutions? A. Yes, sir, we have; hotels and cafes, and things of that sort. Q. What do you care to say of the dance hall as an influence either for good or evil in a girl’s life? A. I think it is a very great factor in Public Meetings and Testimony 431 the whole question of the delinquency of girls, for the reason that liquor is connected with the dance hall, and there is the ease with which the juvenile may get liquor. I think that the dance hall itself is all right. I believe in dance halls, but in our investigations, in all of the dance halls of Chicago, we find that a large number, or about half, sell liquor to minors without question; when I say minors I mean a girl under sixteen years old, so as to be on the very safe side. Our investigators have to estimate the age so that we try to get a girl under sixteen, so as to be sure she is under eighteen when we make that statement and say that a minor boy or girl has received liquor. Q. You have such cases, where minors have been sold liquor? A. A great many. Q. Have you the names and places? A. Yes, sir, I have made a list. There are over two hundred dance halls where they have allowed immoral dances and where liquor was sold to minors. The list is ready so that you can have it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We should like to have the list in evidence, Mrs. Brittain. MRS. BRITTAIN: I would like to explain that we got this list up in a hurry last night. SENATOR BEALL: Does this give us a list of all the dance halls? MRS. BRITTAIN: No, not all of the dance halls; but all of the dance halls, where we haven’t marked a cross, follow the law. SENATOR BEALL: Those you have under supervision? MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, those are under supervision. I would like to say that the Civil Service Commission has a list. The Chicago Civil Service Commission has a list of dance halls, by police districts, which would make it more complete if the Committee could get it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Has this list or a similar list been given to the Police Department? MRS. BRITTAIN: No, I gave to the Mayor a list of the dance halls showing where liquor was sold to minors; that was over a year ago. I am bound to say that after that time he issued instructions to the police, and we found a very great improvement for a period of five or six months; now there is a great lapse again. SENATOR BEALL: I went to a dance hall across the river — the Vermont. MRS. BRITTAIN: That is very bad, very bad. SENATOR BEALL: Johnson runs it; he has nothing but soft drinks, he says. MRS. BRITTAIN: I sent one of our investigators over there a very short time ago and had them carry away a bottle of the so-called soft drinks — near-beer — and had it analyzed, and it contained over two per cent of alcohol. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Can you furnish this Committee that evi- dence? MRS. BRITTAIN: I can give you the statement of the city chemist and the statement of our two officers who carried away the beer. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How long ago was that, Mrs. Brittain? MRS. BRITTAIN: I think about three months ago. I have the date and I have the evidence. I can give you a sworn statement in both of those instances. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You have heard something said about the Dearborn Dancing Academy, and the managers providing friends for those who need them — do you know anything about that system? MRS. BRITTAIN: That is a thing that it would be well for this Committee to go into. Our officers tell us that they were told by the waiters and people who seemed to be in charge that they would get them, a girl if they wanted one. That could easily be followed down, I think, and investigated. That w'as meant as a suggestion for the Committee. 432 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How about Dreamland? MRS. BRITTAIN: Well, Dreamland, we find, has been very decent in most respects: I think that the management is trying very hard to keep it decent. There are very many bad things connected with it, such as the ease with which the patron can go in and out, or go into a room in a hotel, and the ease with which they can get acquainted. Up to this year they had a man and woman introducing people, that made it easy for people to get acquainted; they have entirely given up that custom now. We have talked to the management of Dreamland Hall many times and I think that they are trying to keep it clean and decent; that is the way I feel about Dreamland. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: They are trying to? MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, but there may be lots of things happen there. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Admitting the management there is making a sincere, conscientious effort to keep it clean, yet it falls down in a few respects; what further reforms would you recommend to increase its moral safety? MRS. BRITTAIN: I would like to have them make it difficult for people to come in and go out. I would charge a small, general admis- sion to the boys and girls going there, and be very careful about a repeated admission fee. 1 would give no return checks. I think that would help many dance halls to be decent where liquor is not sold. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What effect would that have? MRS. BRITTAIN: Well, you know that the people who go to Dream- land Hall are not people, are not boys and girls, w’ith much money. Ten cents seems very little, but they don’t like to pay that for coming in the second time; they don’t like to repeat that ten cents every hour or two to go out and get a drink. It is five cents a dance. There is no admis- sion fee. You come in and pay five cents for dancing and you can walk out; then you lose nothing by going back and forth. The management of Dreamland Hall have tried, I know, to clean up the neighborhood there, because I have talked with the managers, and there were some rooming liouses around there that we felt were very objectionable. They have got rid of those rooming houses. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The rooming houses in that neighborhood? MRS. BRITTAIN: The rooming houses in that neighborhood; yes, sir, some of the worst. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: But there are still others? MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, there are still a great many there. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Even in this place, which you say is one of the best dance halls in Chicago; you do consider Dreamland one of the best? MRS. BRITTAIN: One of the best, yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Even there the man may easily strike up an acquaintance with a girl? MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, sir; very easily. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You think that the management could im- prove conditions by charging an admission fee? ]MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, I believe they could. It is the Police De- partment that is to blame, too. The men working in these places can’t clean up these rooming houses; they can, however, clean up the dance hall and make it as pure as it could be, but there is no use of cleaning up the dance halls if the police are not watching the people who_ run the rooming Louses and are not arresting the proprietors. You see, it is only half of the question, to clean up the dance hall. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How' can the police clean up these hotels? MRS. BRITTAIN: If the proprietors were arrested every few days, and they were fined and the fine not remitted, which is so often done, I think they would find it too expensive to run a rooming house of that kind. Public Meetings and Testimony 433 CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You say that the boys and girls who fre- quent these dance halls have not a great deal of money? MRS. BRITTAIN: Not all of them. Of course, there are some men who are there for the purpose of getting girls and afterwards mak- ing it so that they will go into prostitution. They are poor working girls, possibly working on a small salary. Q. You would say some of the girls from department stores? A. Yes. Q. The}" go there for a social hour or two? A. Yes, from all walks of life: high school girls and girls from factories, servant girls and the department store girls — all girls go there. Q. Generally the girls go there who have no other social life? A. Yes, and from neighborhoods where there is no other social life. Q. The dance hall is the only social life open to them? A. The only way that they can get social life — yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Then the question of the dance hall is not entirely foreign to the subject of low wages? MRS. BRITTAIN: Not at all; I think the whole thing comes very closely together. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Is it your judgment that an increase in the wages paid our working girls would in itself tend to remove some of the menaces of the dance hall? MRS. BRITTAIN: I think it would help. I believe if we pay more we get a better thing, just as we get a better piece of silk for a certain price. Take, for instance: Dreamland is a dance hall; it is a very cheap place and yet it is a benefit to the neighborhood, and for the conditions I consider it a very good dance hall. I don’t believe if the girls in that neighborhood got two dollars a week more that that dance hall would be a bit better. If the city administration or police would enforce the laws governing these houses, the rooming houses, and would strictly enforce the law in relation to minors entering these places, I think that that would make a clean dance hall. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Let us get at it in another way, Mrs. Brit- tain. If a girl is making five dollars a week, as some of them have testi- fied to before this Committee; she lives in very poor quarters, as some have told us they lived with their families in one room; and the only social life open to her is to get out on Halsted street or some other street where the lights are bright; now, this girl isn’t making enough money to give her what you and I would consider a healthy home atmosphere or home environments and she goes on the street to seek the only social life that is open to her; she is walking up and down the street with another girl, or two girls, of the same sort, in the same unhappy con- dition financially, and she goes to a dance hall; she may be fortunate in going to a good dance hall, where thej" are protected, or she may be unfortunate in going to one of those that you have marked very plainly as being a rendezvous for white slavers; is it your judgment that if every working girl, who is now being underpaid, were paid a living wage, that the percentage of girls who go to these unquestionably immoral dances would be decreased, and to that extent this girl’s chances of escaping harm would be increased? MRS. BRITTAIN: I would have to qualify that. I do believe that a girl falls more quickly, that her responsibility is lessened, if she is underfed and badly housed; there is no question about that. I don’t think that the fact that she lives in a bad house makes her go to bad dance halls. I again come back to my original subject: if the police of this city would clean up these dance halls, which they can under the law, these girls would not get into difficulty so easy. It is a matter of food and shelter, and everything that reduces the resistance of a girl and boy. I don’t think we can forget the young boy that is seduced in these dance halls any more than we can forget the young girls — and there are hun- dreds of them seduced. 434 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Is it your judgment that in closing up the dance halls you are dealing with the effect and not the cause? MRS- BRITTAIN: Yes, you are. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Let us ascertain the causes. MRS. BRITTAIN: The cause on the girl’s part is, we will say, lack of proper opportunities which the city must give; they should give small parks'; should give the small parks for playground; should open the school- houses for dances; should furnish a chaperon for dance halls. It is easier and cheaper to do that than it is to take care of our girls who are ruined and seduced. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Is it your judgment that low wages is an- other cause? MRS. BRITAIN: Yes, low wages has a bearing on this thing, on the lessened resistance of the girl; there is no doubt about that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The causes in your opinion then are re- stricted opportunities for social activity, lack of proper chaperonage, low wages; and the Senator wished to suggest as the fourth cause lack of proper education on the part of mothers. MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, sex education, sex hygiene, positively should be taught. Now, this girl this morning, I was very much impressed by her story. You, could get hundreds and hundreds of them in the rec- ords of the Juvenile Court. I have heard that story over and over again: “I can’t remember, I can’t remember until I found myself in the morning.” It doesn’t mean that liquor is drugged at all. It does mean that the girl is in such a condition that the liquor has had an effect on her. I have heard it over and over again: “I don’t know what is the matter with me — I feel very ill.” That is the last she remembers, and the next thing she finds herself in a hotel; she does not remember anything that happened to her. I know wLat has happened to her, and the doctor knows what has happened to her. She does hot even know what that means to her. It is the ease with -which the minor can get liquor. No-wq in this case as in many cases, we can’t prosecute the man who sold the liquor, because the girl don’t -want it done; the mother don’t wa'nt it done, the entire family doesn’t -want it done. It is an out- rage that it can’t be done, but it is the matter of the lesser pi two evils in this case. I hear that story over and over and over again: “I can’t remember what happened after that.” I believe it, because I kno-\v these girls. _ • _ SENATOR WOODARD: As a remedy along this line that you have been speaking of, what would you think, that the la-\v should require the police in cities of a certain size, make it their duty to visit so far as they might, all incoming trains and see after women who are alone, and girls, that they do not visit these dance halls and wane rooms? MRS. BRITTAIN: I think that would be very good. SENATOR WOODARD: Even in houses of prostitution, to see that no girl is kept there against her will, and generally to afford more protection to -women? MRS. BRITTAIN: I believe in women policemen; I believe it is necessary. Of course, in depots we have pretty good supervision there. You see, the Catholic Women’s League and the W. C. T. U., they try to control it. They go there, and they are doing good work in meeting girls as they come in, and save hundreds of girls, but I do believe in policewomen, although I do not think that the policewoman can take the place of a policeman. I believe that she should -u-ork -^vith him. I do not think that a policeman can go into a dance hall and can do perfect work there, but if there is a -woman working with him, together they could do things. Lots of things happen in women’s dressing rooms, in the toilet rooms; you don’t know what is .going on in there. _ A woman can get onto that while a man can not. I do not mean a uniformed woman in a dance hall; I mean a woman to work with the police officer. SENATOR WOODARD? To watch? MRS. BRITTAIN; Yes. to be a chaperon and a friend. Public Meetings and Testimony 435 SENATOR WOODARD: Do you think that would be a good thing? MRS. BRITTAIN: It would be a great thing, I think, if we could have thirty women to work with men in dance halls, cafes, and a selected group of men to work with them under .careful supervision and direc- tion. Without any more expense to the city we could control this thing; I am perfectly sure of it. SENATOR WOODARD: Do you think that thirty women would be sufficient? A. Thirty women would be sufficient at the present time. Q. Those thirty women could save how many girls? A. That would be hard to say. Q. A hundred? A. A hundred a piece? Q. Oh, no, all told. A. Yes, many more. I should say that thirty girls apiece would be a very reasonable estimate of what they could do. I do not mean that they could do the work. They could find the indi- vidual and then refer it to this organization, or that woman or this man or that man; I don’t say that this is all a woman’s job; it is a man’s job just as much as it is a woman’s job. ^ CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you know of dance halls with the same .toilet for men and women? A. Yes. Q. Have you a list showing that class? A. I didn’t put that down there, but I can get the names of the halls. I would have to look that up. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: In the list you have furnished this Commit- tee you refer to some of the dances as “crude,” some as “questionable,” and some as “vile.” MRS. BRITTAIN: Well, the word vile is the strongest word we pos- sess in our vocabulary. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What does it mean? MRS. BRITTAIN: It means that the position of the participants are suggestive: the motions suggest only one thing. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How do you regard the tango, the turkey trot, and other modern dances? MRS. BRITTAIN: Most of them, I think, have been evolved from the red-light district. Q. Are not these dances permitted in some homes of the wealthy and respectable? A. Yes, and there should not be two standards. There should not be two standards for people, whether in the homes or in the dance halls. Q. How would you eliminate these dances from the home? A. By education. Q. Do many private societies hold public balls at these dance halls? A. Yes, a great many. Q. Are these societies bona-fide, or do they exist only for profit? A. I should say that two-thirds exist only for the purpose of selling liquor and making a profit for a few individuals. Those are the very worst ones. Q. Have you ever suggested to the city administration that a re- striction should be placed upon the societies giving these dances? A. Yes, I have. Q. Has the city administration taken action on the suggestion? A. No, I have gone to the Mayor and talked with him about it. Yesterday Mrs. Bowen and I had a meeting with the United Societies about this very thing, and we came to this very understanding, and that was the first time that we were able to get together on it, and that is that we would go to the city administration and would ask that they have a commission to pass on the issuing of bar permits, except where a society is in good standing. We arrived at that understanding yesterday forenoon, and it is the only time that we have been able to get together on it. Yesterday afternoon Mayor Harrison was on the train that we were on, and he told us that he had either given an order, or was to give an order, that no society was to be given the privilege of conducting a dance unless it was 436 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee in good standing and was a real bona-fide society. He has given an order before, but it is not being lived -up to. He gave that order some time ago, and for a time things were more carefully regulated. This is what has happened. The law provides for inquiries to find out whether or not the society is in good standing. If I call for a bar permit — if I go in and pay six dollars for a bar permit — I go on and hold my dance on a Satur- day, or possiblj' Sunday, and I am not responsible; you are going to find out on Monday or Tuesday that I am not responsible, but I have done the damage. The dance has been held and the damage has been done. That has been done over and over again through this special bar permit system. Q. What changes would you recommend? A. The Mayor could say that no license would be issued unless an application was made a week before, and he had an opportunity for investigation, and in that way we could find out if it were a society in good standing. I believe that that would help tremendously. CHAIRMAN O’HARA (referring to card on Germania Hall); This hall has but one toilet. MRS. BRITTAIN: You have a law to cover that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Why isn’t that law enforced? MRS. BRITTAIN: I think the Building Department have not people enough to go around and follow this up. The law specifically says that they must be twenty feet apart, and they must open from different places, so that there is no possibility of a wall being between the men’s and women’s toilet. Q. That is already governed by law? A. Yes, by city' ordinance. Q. But is it being enforced? A. No. Q. Did you call this particular case to the attention of the police? A. No, that is too new. I am making up m\' list. SENATOR TOSSEY: Is it your opinion that no intoxicating liquors should be sold at these dance halls? MRS. BRITTAIN: I believe it would be a great deal better if it was not; in fact I feel that if we could separate the sale of liquor from the dance hall we could clean up the dance hall. I would like to read this one into the record. This is Yondorf’s hall. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You may read it. MRS. BRITTAIN: (Reading as follows:) YONDORF’S HALL. 756 North .A.venue. Opening from saloon? Yes. Beer garden attached? No. Safety? Good. Cleanliness? Very dirty'. Ventilation? Bad. No windows open. ■A^ir? Blue with smoke. Lighting? Good. Location of bar and toilet rooms in relation to dancing floor .All on same floor; Ladies’ toilet in dressing room open from floor. Minors present not accompanied by parent or guardian.' \ es. Age of girls? Two-fifths were 16 to 18. Age of boys? Alostly young people; a few married couples; 17 to 25, rather older than girls. Liquor served? Yes. Where? Bar opening from hall, tables around. Liquor Served to minors? A'es. Also if it was offered free given and urged girls. A oung boys and older drank at bar. Ages? All ages over 15. Conduct of employes? Good: club members with badges intro- duced and treated. Several were Intoxicated. Public Meetings and Testimony 437 Conduct of dancers? Dancing fairly good; spooning openly; constant drinking and much intoxication. Dance hall habitues or rounders present? Two regular street women and probably three or four others. Mr. A. was solicited twice. Children under 16 employed after 7 P. M.? No. Dance given by Kidalgo Court No. 210 — 15th annual. Police officers present? Four. Number of star? 4116, 4081 and 70 sergeant. Service rendered? Very poor. Admission? 50 cents. Wardrobe 50 cents. Lincoln Park Special. Inspected by E. Belden, J. Anderson. Date November 27, 1912. Remarks: The three regular police were seen drinking at the bar and became intoxicated before two o’clock. All smoked, chewed, and used vile language at Mr. A. They barely escaped getting up a serious fight. One was heard to remark that “he had only a little over an hour’s time to kill’’ and that “this was a better place than the street.” None of them made any attempt to render service. No notice was taken of more or less intoxicated men who came up into the hall and bar from the saloon and street after one o’clock (without paying admission) and no effort made to put out drunken !i men or regulate dancing. Conduct at tables on floor and gallery bad all evening. One fellow sat for some time on a girl’s lap with his arms about her : neck; another couple with interlaced arms talked with the first couple, li Much familiarity all over the hall. When we left, at three o’clock, i|; three fellows lay over on seats or tables drunk and asleep. Most j!' of the men were more or less intoxicated. Half drunk glasses of ji- . beer stood on all the tables and waiters kept bringing it in, before ) and after the dances. I was offered drinks twice by members of I the commitee. One fellow', himself quite “happy,” insisted with such { remarks as “Oh, sweetheart, come on,” in a fairly good fellowship ! manner. A glass of water for a girl who was ill was obtained with ! great difficulty and the man who brought it laughed at this young i' girl’s and my drinking it and refusing beer. A girl of about seventeen was almost overcome from the bad S air and smell of liquor. She said she had only drunk soda water. I:: , Her brother, younger than herself, refused to leave the dance floor 1 : to take her home until begged to do so. A young boy — who said he 3 knew neither her name nor her address nor anything about her — }■ seeing her faint, put his arms around her and urged her to go horne, * offering to take her. Another tried to get her to drink. It was with difficulty that a girl friend of the same age and inexperience, the / brother and one of the boys got her on the car, she was so feverish and faint. Dance was still on at 5:20 w'hen Mr. A. passed hall. August Yondorf’s Testimony. AUGUST YONDORF, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. August Yondorf. Q. What is your business? A. Nothing particular just now. I conduct a dance hall; I conduct it up in the hall, the lodge hall. Q. In a lodge hall? A. That is my place of business. Q. What is the name of your hall? A. Yondorf’s hall. Q. You have dances there? A. Yes. Q. You have bar privileges? A. Yes. Q. You have heard the testimony given before this Committee concerning your hall? A. Well, partly, I can’t hear very well. 438 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do young girls come to your dance hall? A. They come there with their parents. Q. They never come alone? A. No, sir, I don’t allow them in there; I have a special door-keeper who is there, and he will let no one come up in, especially a young girl, unless they come with their family. Of course, if they come with their families that may take place, but I aim to keep them out. Q. You have a door-keeper? A. Yes, sir, all the year around, that is there at every occasion, and they furnish me with a detective. Q. How often do you have dances in your hall? A. I have dances Saturday, on Sunday, and sometimes one during the week, sometimes a meeting. Q. Now, at one of these Saturday dances, how many couples are there? A. Sometimes between two and three hundred people. Q. They are not always the same people? A. No, sir. Q. That is, the boys and girls who are there tonight on this Satur- day night are not the same boys and girls who are there the following Saturday night? A. The question of boys and girls don’t come into it, at all. I call them man and wife. I don’t want to have no rough- house. I keep it clean. I think I have the cleanest business, the cleanest hall on the North Side; the cleanest conducted hall. Here is the names of the societies, whom 1 rented the hall to, and giving the date when I rented the hall. Q. Tell us something about your system of renting your hall? A. They come to me, to the store; it is not my store. They have been in the habit of coming there at North Avenue and Larrabee Street to Yondorf Brothers formerly, now it is the Yondorf Company. I have retired from business and my brother runs the store. They come there and rent the hall and pay a deposit. I happen to know who they are, I make inquiries. Q. You have a list there of all the socities to which you rent? A. There is a list of the names of those I have rented the hall to for the last two or three years. I have had a club come to me along_ last week and wanted to rent the hall, and I wouldn’t let them have it. I don’t let any athletic club, or anything like that, have my hall. Q. Do you prefer charitable clubs? A. Yes, that is the time I give them the hall. Q. If I wished to get your hall, it would help to tell you that I was running the La Salle Hotel Benefit Association? A. I would have to know it. I wouldn’t give it to you unless you had a charter. Q. Would you give it to me if I had the money wdth me? A. No. Q. But if I had a good club and didn’t have any money? A. If you had a club, an athletic club, I would not give it to you at all, I don’t give it to athletic clubs; you will notice that they are all legitimate societies. Q. Who is Mrs. Long? A. She is a pianist and lives on Larrabee Street. Q. Does she give dances? A. No, sir, she has her scholars there and gives the parents a concert; she has had my hall three or four times. Q. The La Salle Social Benefit Club? A. Yes, sir, that is a strictly clean lot of young men, with their parents, who are a bona-fide society. I have let them have it. Q. How many members are there in this societ}"", the La Salle Social Benefit Society? A. About a hundred. Q. Who is the president of it? A. Mr. Francis. Q. What is his first name? A. I could not tell you just now. t He is in the real estate business. I think that is the only one you find in there under that heading, the La Salle Social Benefit Club. Those are ! all mutual benefit societies. The names are all there, so you can tell '• what they are. They are mostly all German societies or Hungarian i societies. I know that they behave very well when they get in there, i Public Meetings and Testimony 439 Q. All right, you let the hall to different societies? A. Yes, sir. Q. They hold dances there? A. Yes, sir. Q. But you protect your hall from undesirables? A. Yes, sir. 1 tell them to go out and stay out, that is, if I know who they are; and my man at the door, he knows everyone, every man in the place around there, he doesjiot allow them in; even if they have bought tickets, they get their money back. I am very strict. I don’t think there is a hall in this city kept as strict as mine. If anyone goes_ there without prejudice and goes there a number of times they will find it just what I say. Q. In your contracts, do you reserve the privilege of refusing ad- 'mission to persons whom you regard as undesirable? A. Yes, sir. Turn it over on the other side, please (referring to copy of contract in Chair- man’s hand). Rule Number 11 says that parties renting the hall are under obligations to observe the strictest order and allow no persons of doubtful character, otherwise the special officer will be obliged to close the hall. I take the precaution that a business man should take. Q. Your hall is at 576 North Avenue, that’s true, isn’t it? A. Yes. Q. The report just read by Mrs. Brittain says that three policemen ‘were drinking at the bar and became intoxicated before two o’clock; do you serve drinks at your bar to policemen? A. I didn’t. Q. Who does? A. They are not supposed to have any drinks. Q. Have you ever seen any policeman at your bar drunk? A. No, sir, I haven’t; they wouldn’t be apt to make a mistake and get drunk in my presence when I am around: they are careful about doing that. I didn’t invite those policemen in; they belong on the beat and they come into my hall. Q. Have you any political pull? A. I don’t believe I have. Q. Who is your friend at the City Hall? A. I couldn’t tell you. Q. Who is your friend in the police department? A. I know lots of policemen, but I haven’t got any friend that I should call my friend. Q. Can you call up the Chief of Police and say, “This is August Yondorf, I want such and such a policeman fired?’’ A. I am sorry I haven’t got that influence. Q. Are those policemen afraid of you? A. They know I don’t allow anybody in the bar-room. They are not afraid of me; I never made an attempt to have any pull; nor have I got any pull; but they come up there I am not there myself, but my door-keeper is there, and if the police would go up there I couldn’t prevent it. I can’t prevent that, that is beyond my control. Q. Do you know of any public hugging of young women in your hall? A. Not that I know of. If it was either of my men would see it, and they would not allow it. Either one of my men, or the committee would see it. Q. What committee? A. The committee of the dance. Q. You say that never has happend in your hall to your knowledge? A. I could not tell. It may have happened. Q. Were you ever in your hall during a dance there? A. Oh, yes, once in a while I go there, but I live too far away; I leave it to my man. Q. What is the name of your doorman? A. Kearney, the man that is there most of the time, he works for Fingelwood; he is the man that is there more than any other; he is the best man that I have got, and he knows nearly everybody that comes there. Q. He is your manager there? A. He is the manager and he has the whole thing in charge. SENATOR BEALL; Yours is not a regular dance hall? A. No. Q. Not a public dance hall? A. It is a public hall. Q. I mean you haven’t a regular dance hall where you yourself charge so much a dance or so much to come in? A. Oh, no. Q. You lease it out? A. Yes. We don’t take anybody unless they are an organized club, an organized society. I had a club dance two 440 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee years ago, and those people this year came again for the hall and 1 | wouldn’t let them have it. That has occurred several times. When they are dancing in my hall they are there to have a little fun. The societies are conducted by Hungarians, by Germans, by Italians, bj^ Armenians, and by Masons. Last week I had a Masonic affair, a banquet, and after i the banquet they danced. They all felt good and happy, and I know i who they are. They have met there for ten years; I have two lodges ' that rneet in the hall, and then they are dancing there from time to time, and singing societies have their meetings there, and the 3 ^ have dances there. Q. This hall bears your name, doesn’t it? A. Yes, sir. Q. It is a matter of pride with jmu to keep it good and clean? A. I try to. Q. You are interested in knowing that we have had some reports | from your hall, that this Committee has had some verj- bad reports from your hall? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you are interested in correcting those evils? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, how are you going to do it after this? A. I shall probably look after it a little closer and be more particular than I have been in renting it out. Q. You don’t think you w'ill lose your bar license? A. Oh, no, I don’t know of anything that ever occurred that would make me lose it. | I would not like to lose it because of the income, some of the sources of income from an affair of that kind. Q. Will you please explain how jour toilet is situated for men and women? A. They are entirely separated. I have got a toilet for ladies on one side of the building and for men on the other side. I have a special room apart for the ladies on the one side of the building and a toilet for men on the other side. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Yondorf, are j'ou having a dance at your place tonight? A. No. Q. Tomorrow night? A. No; on Saturday night. Q. What societj' is going to be there Saturday night? A. I will tell you in a minute. The Chicago Bakers’ Singing Societj-. Q. Who is the head of that societj-? A. The man that rented is W. Shemberg. Q. What business is he in? A. He must be a baker, I guess; it is the Chicago Bakers’ Singing Society. Q. Have j-ou rented the hall to this societj- before? A. Yes, sir; they rent the hall nearly everj- j-ear. Q. What do j-ou charge for the use of j-our hall? A. I charge $75 for Saturdaj- and $60 for Sunday. Q. During political campaigns, did they ever have meetings in j-our hall? A. Oh, j-es, I rented it to Progressives and Democrats, and I rented to them all. Q. What do you charge them? A. Fifteen or twentj- dollars. If it happens to be some society, possiblj- fifteen dollars, or some particular friend of mine; some stranger I would get twentj-; I don’t have anj- fixed price for political parties. Q. Did you ever give your hall to any political party free of charge? A. I don’t think I did; I don’t remember, but I don’t think I did. I might and I might not. SENATOR BEALL: Did they alwaj-s paj- you? A. Thej- always paid me. I get the monej- beforehand, in advance. I would not know who to get the cash from afterward. Q. Did you get cash in advance from those societies? A. I got a deposit of $25 for Saturday and $10 for Sunday and thej- paj- the balance on the evening of the affair. Q. Do these societies generally make money? A. Thej- aim to do it. Q. Do they generally do it? A. As a rule they make monej-. I have had them make a hundred and fifty to two hundred, or as high as $400. Public Meetings and Testimony 441 They don’t make as much at the present time unless they are a very wealthy society. I don’t make inquiry, that is not my affair, but members have told me how much they cleared. Q. You get in advance about twenty dollars on the sixty-dollar en- gagement? A. Yes, sir. Q. As a matter of fact, you trust these people more or less? A. No, I don’t trust anybody in a case of that kind. This is a cash transaction. There is the trouble. When the time comes you want to get your money. Q. You don’t get the rest of your money unless the society takes Ijit in? A. No, sir. Q. When you rent your hall, who has the bar privileges? A. Well, the society itself. They appoint a committee to take care of the bar and hire a bar-keeper to attend to the wants of the patrons. Q. Does the society make most of its money out of the bar privileges? A. No, they make a good deal out of their wardrobe; they make forty or nfty dollars. Q. Out of the wardrobe? A. Yes; and they make it out of the pro- grammes,. The bar don’t pay so much any more, because the bar-keepers get too much money. Q. How do they get it? A. In the way of a salary. Q. How late can you sell drinks now in Chicago? A. At one o’clock you have to close. Q. Are drinks sold in your hall after one o’clock? A. Well, they have had such a big crowd there they might have sold a little after one o’clock; I am giving you the truth about a few of our meetings; they might have run a few minutes over, or they might have had a half barrel of beer left that they didn’t want to throw away; why, then they would ask the privilege to run a little bit longer. There is no use of saying they shut down at one o’clock, because such things have occurred when they would stay half an hour longer, but we don’t allow it. Our time is twelve o’clock, when we have to get the crowd out, and that gives until one o’clock for them to get through. Q. When the beer is not all sold, do we understand they are per- mitted to sell it after one o’clock? A. They may give them fifteen min- utes longer, and then they count their cash, turn the lights down in the hall, and they have got to go into the bar-room and settle on the money matters between them, and one of them takes the money home. That 1 don’t know; 1 am not there; but I know that is the way they do. Q. Have you ever had any complaints from the Police Department? A. I never did. MRS. BRITTAIN; There is another thing I wish to report, and that is that after the saloon is closed people come up and they are admitted. They should be kept out. They are seen to go in without charge. THE WITNESS: There is lots of things that take place once in a while. I will have to be a little more strict and give orders to stop those things. SENATOR BEALL: You will promise this lady that you will look after it a little closer, and 3 'ou will also promise her that if anything does occur again that you will make it right and call the police up? A. Yes, 1 want to make it right. Q. Well, Mr. Yondorf, just one more question: Why do you think girls go wrong? A. Bad company, and lack of proper education on the part of their parents. They don’t watch them close enough, that is why girls go wrong; bad surroundings, poor environments. If you would take care of your daughters, they would not go wrong. Some parents are so ignorant that they don’t know what the surroundings are; they see their daughter standing on the corner talking with some young fellow, or some of them possibly off the curbstone in the middle of the street, talking with boys; those are the girls that go wrong eventually, and it is the parents’ fault. SENATOR BEALL: What do you think the chances a lone girl has in 442 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee cominpr to Chicago, a girl that has got no parents and no home — what do you think her chances are? A. It depends on the character of the girl. If the girl is brought up right at home, she can come to Chicago and be perfectly safe. She would be perfectly safe, but if she has not been brought up right she would not be safe. Q. Suppose that girl is hungry? A. If a girl is hungry in Chicago she can go into any place of business and get something to eat. Q. Are you interested in some stores outside of the loop? A. I was for thirty-six years. I had cash girls working for me for six or seven, years, and I never paid them less than $10.00, and as high as $12.00 or $13.00 a week. It is the girls downtown, in these big stores in the loop, that get the poorest pay. Q. Your store was the Yondorf Store? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where is it located? A. At the corner of North Avenue and Larrabee Street. Q. You were the head of that store? A. I was for a long time, up to five years ago. My brother, Charles, is the head of it now. Q. How many girls did you employ out there? A. Two cashiers. Q. Just two women? A. Just two women, two girls; one started w4th me when she left school, and she stayed with me seven 3 -ears and then she got married. We paid them $7.00, $8.00 and $9.00; and when she quit she was getting $13.00 a week;_ she got married. All the girls that I had got married; they all got married. SENATOR TOSSEY: Is there a saloon running in connection with 3 'our hall? A. No, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Now, don’t forget the promise that 3-011 made those ladies over there. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all, Mr. Yondorf. W^hereupon the further hearing was adjourned to 2:30 P. M. of this same day, April 11, 1913. SESSION XVI The character of a downtown hotel is assailed by the testimony of a former employe. Owner of a cafe in the segregated district declares his patrons are respectable people. Officers of the Junior Juvenile Protective Association submit some reports on dance halls. Coroner of Cook Coimty gives suicide statistics. Testi- mony of: George Tollman, ex-janitor LaSalle House; Robert C. Novak, proprietor Maxim’s Cafe; Mrs. Louise Bowen, president Junior Juvenile Protective Association; Mrs. Gertrude Howe Brittain, superintendent Juvenile Protec- tive Association; Mr. Peter Hoffman, coroner of Cook County. Chicago, April 11, 1913, 2:00 P. M. The Committee met pursuant to adjournment, at the La Salle Hotel, all members being present, and the following proceedings were had : jeorge Tollman’s Testimony. GEORGE TOLLMAN, called as a witness before the Committee, t)eing first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as Follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. George Toll- rnan. Q. What is your business, Mr. Tollman? A. I have been working as a janitor and houseman in a hotel. ^ Q. Are you working at any hotel now? A. I have recently quit, j Q. What place? A. The LaSalle House. Q. Where is that located? A. 171 LaSalle Street. Q. How long were you employed there? A. A little over a month. Q. What sort of people frequent that hotel? A. The first two floors are used entirely for men that bring women up there. Q. Their wives? A. No, they register as man and wife, but the [proprietor generally does the registering himself. Sometimes they register themselves. Q. The first two floors are employed for that purpose; now, what are the other floors employed for? A. Men stop there; they room there; that is reserved for men. Q. The men who room up on these floors above, are they permitted to take women up there? A. No, they are the ones that room there steady. ; Q. The ones that room there steady are not permitted to take women there? A. No, sir. Q. Would it be possible for a man to enter the front door and a woman to enter the back door and meet inside without being seen? A. 'Yes, sir. Q. The back part opens on an alley? A. Yes, sir; it is back of the theatre. j Q. It is back of what theatre? A. The back entrance of the theatre [goes through this court. It is the first theatre down from Randolph on LaSalle Street. I don’t know what theatre it is. 443 444 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What is the name of the proprietor of the LaSalle House? A. Bales. Q. You have talked with him? A. Yes, sir. Q. Has he ever in any way intimated to you that he knew that some of the men and women coming to his place, the transients, were not man and wife? A. Why, it was a recognized fact they weren’t. Q. Did he ever intimate that to you in any conversation? A. Why, the only way he mentioned it was saying that reformers wanted to ring in and ruin everything. Q. How many couples a night went into this hotel? A. I should say from twenty-five to one hundred a night. Q. What are these couples charged? A. In this hotel, as it is run on a better grade than most places of that nature, they charge from $2.00 to $5.00 for a room. Q. Paying from $2.00 to $5.00 would entitle one to remain how long? A. Two dollars only a short time, but you can go in for all night for $5.00. Q. That is, to stay a short time they pay $2.00? A. Yes. Q. If a couple went in and got a room and paid $2.00 they would not be permitted to stay all night? A. No. Q. Did they ever throw anybody out because they overstayed the time? A. They generally knock on the door and tell them, “Time is up.” Q. Did you ever go and knock on any door and tell them, “Time is up?” A. They have girls there for that purpose. Q. How old are those girls? A. One of them is a married lady — well, both of them have been married. Q. What is the name of those girls? A. One of them is C G ; she has been employed there four years. Q. You have seen her go there and knock on the doors and tell them, “Time is up?” A. Yes, sir. Q. Do they serve meals there? A. They send out for their meals; send over to the Bismarck. Q. Do they serve drinks there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where do they get drinks? A. They send out for them; they keep part there, I believe, too. Q. What do they charge for a bottle of beer? A. I don’t know, I never had anything to do with that. Q. You never had anything to do with that? A. No, they try to keep all such things away from the employes as much as possible. Q. How long has that hotel been running in this manner? A. For sixteen years. Q. During the time you were employed there was the hotel ever closed up? A. No, but there was a party came around there and told them they were liable to have to shut up before long. Q. Wlio told them that? A. I don’t know. It seemed that they got some warning that thej-^ would probably have to discontinue for a time, anyhow. I only caught this from parts of conversations that I overlieard. They were nervous for a day or two, but it seems the 3 ' got some assurance then that they could go on again as usual. Q. You have seen some girls come there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever seen girls come there with different fellows? A. Yes, sir; but I have seen more men bring in different girls. Q. You had more often seen a man bring in different girls than you had seen a girl come in with different fellows? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever talk with any of these girls? A. No, never talked around; the place is very quiet, and the^- are very particular in that way; he is very particular about the help there, especially me. I don’t know, I suppose he thought I wanted to learn too much there, anyhow. I know once; there is a pantry right at the head of the steps, and I was in the pantry, and I just started to go out to go upstairs, and there was a girl Public Meetings and Testimony 445 that come out of one of the rooms and came out downstairs, and he got in front of me and said, “Get back, wait a minute;” he didn’t want me to see the girl. Q. Now, on that point; it was possible for the girl to come in there without being seen by anybody? A. Yes, sir; a girl can come in and go on to the room, and a man can come up later. Q. She does not have to pass by the clerk? A. No, the man can come up and register for her, or else the girl can go to a room and collect the money, and then the boss can register them himself. ( Q. Do you know whether any of the girls bringing men up there got [la percentage of the room rent? A. No, they didn’t get nothing. ! Q. Do you know if this hotel employs girls to go out and bring men lup to that hotel? A. No, I don’t believe so. Q. It is a place easy of access and provides protection for the girl? |A. I think the hotel is run mostly for that class of wealthy men that [wants to go out and pick up girls; that is, young girls. I Q. Are the rooms nicely furnished? A. Nicely furnished, all silk curtains, art pictures in the rooms; the beds are fine beds; they are what :is to be found in a $4.00 or $5.00 or $6.00 a day hotel. Q. That is, the hotel caters especially to men with money? A. Yes, sir. Q. It has up to 100 patrons a night? A. I would say from twenty- five up; of course, there is nights when business is dull, nights when business is not so good. Q. What were your duties at the hotel? A. 1 was houseman and kept the hall clean and swept two of the rooms every morning and kept up the heat. They are very particular about keeping everything clean; every- thing is kept in the very best of shape so far as cleanliness is concerned. Q. You have seen some of the girls that go into that place? A. Oh, yes; I have seen them. I would be working in the halls. Q. How young were some of these girls, in your judgment? A. Well, they were girls from fifteen years old, as young as fifteen. Q. As young as fifteen? A. Yes, sir; as young as fifteen. Q. Of your own knowledge, can you state whether compulsion was ever used by the men escorting these girls? A. I saw one girl; no, she I was not protesting; but I was standing out on the sidewalk and a man went ahead of the girl; he walked about ten or fifteen feet ahead of her; the girl seemed to stop, you know, and kind of hesitate and then go on, and then when she stopped he stopped and went back to her. She seemed I to me like she was just dragging herself along. She didn’t want to go, "but there was something compelling her to go on. ^ Q. Was this during the day or night? A. This was some time during the day; they go in there during the day or night. Several times during my work I would hear girls cry in the rooms. Q. Did you ever hear any girl cry out for help? A. No, I never heard them cry out for help, although I have heard them cry. All of the windows have inside shutters that are closed and kept locked. Of course, if a girl was to put up a fight or anything, she would not have such a good chance of being seen from the street. Q. Would it be possible for a girl to be lured into one of those places and to be ruined against her will? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know if that ever happened? A. Not in that particular place; I couldn’t swear. Q. In that particular type of hotel? A. Yes, I believe it has happened. Q. Do you know of any specific instance? A. Yes, in hotels of this character, of which there are lots of them downtown, most of them have fire escapes on the outside that lift down like a stairway to the ground. Q. Yes? A. It can be let down or held up with a weight It would be an easy matter for a girl to be caught in a cafe and got drunk 446 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee and drugged and put into a taxicab, and it would be an easy matter to drive up the alley to this fire escape that can be let down, and carried up the fire escape into a room through a window. Q. Has that ever happened? A. I have noticed the fire escape down three times, I believe. Q. At this hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have noticed the fire escape down? A. Yes, sir; when there was snow on the ground; there were tracks; you could see tracks that went up to the fire escape. Q. What other hotels have you worked at? A. The hotels I worked at before were not in Chicago; I have been out on the Coast, at Frisco, Seattle and Portland. Q. How long have you been at Chicago? A. About two months, I guess. Q. Why did you leave your position at this hotel? A. I didn’t like to work in that kind of a place, although I had worked in a great many of those places, although I tried to get some place better if I could. Q. Are you a married man? A. No. Q. How old are you? A. Twenty-nine. Q. Why are you appearing before this Committee today? A. I am interested. You see, I never had a home, and besides, I have been in the labor movement. I have studied these things pretty thoroughlj'. Q. You never had a home of your own? A. No. Q. You have knocked around the world? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you think that girls ever go wrong because they are not paid enough money to live upon? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know of any case of that sort? A. Yes, sir. I can tell you of a case that happened when I was fourteen years old. I was work- ing on a lunch wagon in Kansas City. There used to be a girl that worked in a laundry, and they paid her $5.00 a week; she used to come up there to buy lunches. She could buy a lunch there cheap. The work was very hard for her, it seemed; we got intimately acquainted with each .other. So she told me that she was not feeling well, and. she begun to get sick. So finally she didn’t show up to get her lunch. The next day I went to see what was the matter with her. I went at 6 o’clock at night and 2 o’clock in the morning. The next day I went to her room to see her and found her sick in bed. So I went then and called up a charitable organization or two and told them about it. They promised to send somebody, but for some reason they didn’t send anyone. I was only getting $5.00 a week myself. I got a doctor, paid the room rent and bought every day w'hat wms necessary, but she got worse. The result was I gave up my room, as I had to stay there most of the time. I slept in a chair while she was sick. Afterwards, after she got up, she was not able to go to w^ork, whjr, then I didn’t think that I should stay in her room any longer. I didn’t want to nay room rent any more, so I went down to sleep in box cars down on the river. Q. Yes? A. Then I don’t know, I guess I must have got a cold and fever, but somehow I got sick and wmnt to a hospital, and I guess I was there about a month. I tried to tell them about the girl, but they seemed to think I didn’t know what I was talking about: after that, after I got out of the hospital I got to work there and started to hunt for the girl, and I couldn’t find her. One day, finally, I met her on the street. As soon as I met her, of course, I knew she was down below; I could see that on her face. Q. Down below'? You mean the pit? A. Yes. As soon as she saw me she began to cry. I asked her where she lived. She said she had just got aw'ay from the place w'here she w as at a short time, and told me where she was rooming. The next day 1 saw' her and she told me how she came to be dow’n there. O. What did she tell you? A. She said after she had got out of doors, I mean after she got so that she could get around a little: why, she went out to look for work again, and there was not anj' supply of Public Meetings and Testimony 44 ? :ood or anything for her, and she didn’t have any money, and she simply got hungrier and hungrier all the time walking the streets. She said one lay she was so hungry she supposed she was staggering along the streets, ind an officer told her she was drunk, she was to go on, or he would run lier in. She went on a piece further when some man came up to her and says, “You are drunk; better let me take you to a room; you will get pinched here.” She told him she wasn’t drunk; she was hungry. He says, “If that is the way, come on and I’ll see that you get something to eat.” She didn’t know where he was taking her to; she didn’t care very much where he was taking her. They went to a house. Of course, as soon as she got into the house she seen where she was. She was taken to a room, her clothes were taken away from her, and they gave her a glass of milk. After that they told her that she would either have to submit to the house or else she would not get anything more to eat. Q. And she submitted? A. Yes, sir. I wanted to find out who it was, I intended to find out the house and who the man was. I came to find out next morning, but I didn’t do that; the next morning when I called on her she had committed suicide. Q. You believed her story; you think she told you the truth? A. Yes, I am sure. Q. Have you known of any other girls that committed suicide be- •cause there was no other way of escape from dishonor or disgrace? A. I don’t think they have a chance to commit suicide until afterwards, as a rule. Q. Do they commit suicide afterwards? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the most you ever made in your life; what is the best Job you ever had? A. The best wages I ever made was, of course, out West, out in the mining camps, attending an electric light. Q. What did you make? A. Three and a quarter a day; that didn’t last very long. Q. What did you get over at this hotel in Chicago? A. Six dollars ,a week at first, and then when I was going to quit he raised it to $33.00 a month. Q. Including room and board? A. Yes, sir. Q. You could not well support a wife and family on that, could you? A. No, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: What were the majority of these girls that were brought into this house, were they young or old? A. Ranging from the age of fifteen to thirty. Q. What was the majority of them, young or old? A. The majority was young, fifteen to sixteen or seventeen. Most of them were young girls. Q. Do you know the names of the men who brought those girls there? A. No. Q. You say you supposed they were rich men? A. The working- men could not very well pay $5.00 for a room or $4.00 for a meal. Q. Have you ever been employed before at a hotel of this class in Chicago? A. No. Q. Did you ever hear any talk about other hotels of this class in Chicago? A. No, I haven’t, but there are plenty of them here. I would like to tell you something about an employment agency. Q. What do you know about employment agencies? A. You know there was testimony given here that domestics, girls employed as domestics, many times go wrong. Employment agents charge from $3.00 to $10.00 for a job. Now, you take girls coming from foreign countries, they call them “Greenies.” These people call up for servants, and they generally want a “Greeny,” because all they know is to work. She can’t speak the English language. So the “Greeny” is sent out. That is why they apply for them. 448 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Who applies for them, hotels of this type? A. Hotels and private families. There is a lot of them that wants her. They want some girl to work all over; there is lots of dirty work, and they generally get a “Greeny” for that, because she will work cheaper and longer. Now, these “Greenies,” if they have not got very much money, they have got to pay $3.00 for a job, a job that only pays $10.00 or $15.00 a month, or sometimes less. Q. Yes? A. Well, she can’t quit that job very well. If she quits that job, why, then she has got to pay $3.00 more for another one; that would be $6.00, besides it costs something, if she has baggage, to move her baggage back and forth. Well, there is lots of them, there is no getting around it, there is lots of wealthy young inen around wealthy homes that seem to think that it is their right and privilege to ruin these girls to a large extent. Q. How do you know? A. 1 worked around some of them myself. Q. Worked around some of these homes? A. Yes, sir; when I was a boy. I had seen them come around and insult the girls, put hands on them, and so forth; then 1 had the girls tell me their experiences and how they were used. Q. By the sons of the families? A. Yes. Q. How would you stop that sort of thing? A. Cut out the employ- ment agency. Q. How would that stop the young man from those practices? A. Well, if the girl wouldn’t have to pay for the job. she could quit. She could be more independent, and she could get a job, otherwise she can’t get it now; she knows that if she quits she has not any money to pay for another job. Q. The girl has to pay $3.00 for every job she gets? A job that does not pay very much, and the young fellow comes around and insults her, and she figures that she has to pay $3.00 for another job, and she has not got the $3.00 to pay, so she doesn’t resent the insult, and sometimes she submits — is that what you want this Committee to understand? A. Y es. Q. Have you ever had any experience with emplo 3 ’ment agencies? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do they get jobs for some people who would not otherwise get them? A. No, I do not think so. Q. You think that they are a harm without anj^ merit at all? A. Yes, sir; without any merit. The only merit is that the city sometimes raises the licenses on them; they do that to get a heavier license, to help pay the expenses of the city. SENATOR BEALL: Let me tell you, a young woman wrote in to the Committee and said that she went to an emplojment agency, and the employment agency sent her with sixteen other girls to New Orleans; they got down there and found out they were sent into the district down there; this girl escaped by throwing a kerosene lantern, or something of that sort, and at the time of writing this letter she was in Cleveland, O., and was all right, and gave references, and so forth; do you know of any girls who are treated that way, who went to employment agencies and were sent out to some other town, to the red light district, or to a house of questionable nature? THE WITNESS: There was one girl that told me that she went to an employment agent and applied for work, and that there was a young man, he was not so young, about thirty years old, claiming he knew a married young man who wanted a hired girl, and it was a very easy job. She said she went with him, hired by him to work in his family. Then they went out to a nice house out in the residence district. When she was taken in there she was ruined, and then later she was taken out of there and taken to the red light district. Robert C. Novak’s Testimony. ROBERT C. NOVAK, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified a^ follows: Public Meetings and Testimony 449 EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Robert C. Novak. Q. What is your business? A. I have got a cafe down on Twenty- first and Wabash. Q. What do you call it? A. Maxim’s Cafe. Q. Are you the owner? A. Only the manager. Q. How late do you sell intoxicants there, Mr. Novak? A. One A. M. We serve nothing but soft drinks after 1 o’clock; that is, such as ginger ale and soda water; that is all. There is people coming in at all hours in the night; in fact, we serve meals at all hours of the night, see? People come in and eat and drink; we never bar anybody from coming in, or tell them to go out. Q. Did you ever serve drinks there after 1 o’clock? A. We didn’t, no intoxicating liquors; we do soft drinks. Q. You declare to these gentlemen under oath that you never have sold intoxicating drinks there after 1 o’clock in the morning? A. That is right. Q. How long have you been in business there? A. Just one year now. Q. What kind of people patronize your place, Mr. Novak? A. Why, what you call slummers, people traveling all over town taking in the sights. Q. The society people go down there, too? A. Oh, yes. Q. People of wealth and position? A. Yes, sir. Q. Go down there with their wives? A. Yes. Q. And daughters? A. I don’t know about their daughters; I don’t know whether their wives, I couldn’t swear to that. Q. Do you know a man by the name of Lazarus? A. Yes. Q. Izzy Lazarus? A. Yes, sir. Q. What does he do? A. He is connected with the place, but he is not in town; he is a silent partner. Q. How much of the place does he own, 50 per cent or more? A. Oh, no; he don’t own any more than I do. It is fifty and fifty, you know. Q. Have you any hotel in connection with “Maxim’s?” A. No, sir. Q. Do you have any professional prostitutes hang around? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Any girls that are commercially immoral? A. No, sir; not to my knowledge. Q. There are no so-called “solicitors” in your place? A. No, sir. Q. You merely have a restaurant like any other restaurant? A. That is all. Q. You cater to slumming parties and to some of the men and women who are there frequently or who live in the district in which your restaurant is located? A. No, we cater to the public; we have people go there that never was there before; different people come every night pretty near; in fact, I don’t believe I would know ten people that come in the place. Q. Now, Mr. Novak, as a matter of fact, aren’t 50 per cent of the regular patrons of your place woman patrons, I mean professionals? A. No, sir. Q. Are 25 per cent of them professionals? A. No, I would not say they are, because they are not. Q. We are not here to persecute you or to prosecute you; we want to get down to facts. A. I understand. Q. You say you have only been open a year? A. Yes. Before that the place was closed for some time. Q. You came in after it was reopened? A. Yes. Q. Since that time the place has been respectable? A. Oh, yes, yes. 450 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. No woman would see anything there to cause her to blush? A. No, I don’t think you would. Q. She could look over the table next to her and see some woman soliciting a man? A. No; to tell the truth, we had about three women come in to take a drink once in a while, and that is all. Q. Come in with escorts? A. Come in with men, yes. Q. You don’t permit any women to go into that place unescorted? A. No, sir; we have instructed our doorman to that effect, to keep women who come without an escort out; we won’t let a woman in without an escort. Q. Our investigator tells me that the day he subpoenaed you there were half a dozen women at tables unescorted; how did they get in? A. There was no half a dozen woinen come in and sat around these tables alone, I am sure. I am not sitting here and trying to tell a lie or any- thing. Q. If a fight started in your place and you wanted protection, what do you do? A. We have got a doorman there, and he would go out and get a policeman. There is a policeman around the corner all the time; it is just a little ways from the corner. Q. Suppose a policeman does you a service, as stopping a fight or a disturbance, so that your place can go along as a decent place, do you consider him entitled to a gratuity? A. Why, we never gave nothing to no policeman. Q. I mean as a gratuity; for instance, in the way of a tip to a porter who brushes you off, or hands_ you your hat, or to the waiter who serves you; do you remember the policeman in that way? A. I never give any- thing to anybody. Q. You never gave any gratuity to any policeman? A. No, sir. Q. How long have you been in business down there? A. Just a year. Q. What did you do before that? A. I was tending bar before that. Q. Did you ever hear of such things as police protection? A. Oh, yes; I have heard of them things. Q. Do you believe that they ever existed? A. I could not sa}-; I could not swear to that. EXAMINATION BY" SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: You are a young kid of a fellow and I am an old one. Can you tell me the meaning of the word slumming? A. Why, pretty near. Q. What is the meaning of the word slumming? A. V’hy, where a party gets together to take in the different cafes. Q. Low places, isn’t it; vulgar, bad places? A. Why, no, not necessarily. Q. They wouldn’t come to the LaSalle Hotel to slum, would they? A. People can go and slum at the North American and the State’s, or the Congress, and places like that. Q. Do they ever come to your place to slum; now, young man, be careful: would they come to your place to slum if there wasn’t an3Thing to see there? A. They would hear some entertaining. Q. That’s not my question. Answer my question: don’t 3'ou have women come to your place and w^ait for men to come in; no, be careful; I have been in your place. I was out pretty nearly all one night with two policemen, and I have been in your place; don’t 3mu have women come in there? A. We have women come in there. Q. Just answer my question direct: don’t y'ou have women come in and sit around and pick up men? A. I don’t know if they pick up men. Q. What do they pick up men there for? A. To take a drink and listen to the entertaining; that’s all I could see. Q. Who entertains them in ’-our place there; the3’ are soliciting in Public Meetings and Testimony 451 there, and you don’t know that they are in there, either? A. Well, I didn’t see it. Q. I know, but you are running the house. What do you have a doorman there for? A. To open up the doors and help people to cabs. Q. What people do you help to cabs, slummers do you mean? A. I don’t know whether you call them slummers or not. Q. Young man, come out and tell us; I have been .out there myself and I am positive; now, come on and tell what you have got there; what is the use of denying it; you have got a place there where men meet women and women meet men; there is where the business is started right there. Then these very men take them over to cheap hotels in the neighborhood, isn’t that true? A. There is people that come there in these machines. Q. Who? A. These business people. Q. Do any business men of standing come down there to your place? A. I don’t know where they come from. Q. Do you believe that there is any business men of standing who comes down to your place? A. Yes; they come down to see the enter- tainment. Q. I will ask you again: don’t women come into your place and sit around and watch to catch men; if so, I want to know; I was there; now, tell us, yes or no. A. I don’t know. Q. Don’t you see women coming there alone? A. I don’t see women coming alone. Q. Did you ever see a woman come in there alone? Answer that question. A. Alone? Q. Yes. A. I have two or three times. Q. And you saw them go out with men? A. No, I generally see a woman go out alone if she comes in alone; if she comes in alone she would go out alone. SENATOR BEALL: You are a wise man. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Where is Lazarus? A. He is not in town. Q. When is he going to be in town? A. I expect him about Mon- day. . SENATOR TOSSEY : What kind of an entertainment do you have i at your place? A. Colored. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What do these entertainers do? A. Just i sing. Q. Do they ever dance? A. Yes, the harem dance, the same as elsewhere. Q. _ What do you call the harem dance? A. I don’t know, it is something — just come up and you will see. ii Q. It’s a muscle dance, isn’t it? A. Yes — no, I would not say it is f a muscle dance; I don’t know what a muscle dance is. I _ SENATOR TOSSEY: You consider that kind of a dance or enter- t tainment all right, do you; elevating? A. No, I guess it is not elevating. SENATOR BEALL: It is only suggestive, that is all. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Suppose they took away your bar permit, could you exist? A. No, I do not think so. Q. It would bust you? A. I should say it would. Q. They have some political campaigns once in a while in the City of Chicago, don’t they? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did they ever come around and ask you to contribute? A. No; never. Q. You never contributed to the campaign fund of any party'' A No, sir; I didn’t myself. Q. Did you ever contribute to the campaign fund of any party? A. No, sir; I didn’t myself. Q. Did you ever instruct anybody how to vote? A. No, sir; I never did. 452 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You never took any interest in politics? A. Xo, just cast my vote is all I ever had to do with politics. Q. Did you ever give any money for protection? A. Xo, sir; I never did. Q. _ Did you ever hear any man say that he had ever given money for protection? A. Xo, I never did. Q. You still want this Committee to believe that you have only re- spectable women patronizing your place? A. That is all I know that is patronizing the place. Q. Yet you think that if your bar permit were revoked, your busi- ness would go to smash right away? A. Well, we don’t feed enough people in the place to keep up the business, you know; it is the bar that keeps up the business. Q. In other words, your place is practically a saloon where both men and women get drinks? A. Yes. Q. That is practically what it is? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: You say you was not there the night I was there; you know the kind of place you got there just as well as I do; you know it is a meeting place there for men and women, coming and going both ways; there are girls in short dresses in there, and you know it to be the fact; you know I am telling the truth; you know that jmu are around that place, and you see those people come in there; you see those girls come in all alone, and you see girls go out with men and go to these cheap hotels, and you know it as well as I do, because I had a chance to see it myself. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I will say this to you, Mr. Novak, that you would make a good deal better witness for yourself if you would come out and admit these things, that every reporter here knows to be true, and every member of this Committee knows to be true, and then discuss frankly as to how we can remedy these conditions. Q. Lazarus has been there longer than a year? A. X'ot this last time; no, sir. The place has not been open over a year. SENATOR WOODARD: You say that Lazarus was connected with it when it was closed uo before? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: It was closed up by the city? A. Yes, sir. Q. Because of some disorderly conduct? A. Yes. Q. That is why he is now a silent partner, isn’t it? A. Well, I guess so. SENATOR TOSSEY: It is rather strange that they would close up a nice respectable resort like that! THE WITNESS: I -was not around when this occurred. I -was not here. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: At the time the place was closed, the bar license was held by Lazarus? A. Yes. Q. Was the bar license revoked? A. Yes. Q. In whose name is the bar license held now? A. In mine. Q. Lazarus got into trouble? A. Yes. Q. And they closed the place up. Now, since the place has been open, the bar license is held in your name, Lazarus being a silent partner? A. Yes. Mrs. Louise Bowmen’s Testimony. MRS. LOUISE BOWEN, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name, please? A. Louise Bowen. Q. You are interested in welfare work? A, I am president of the Junior Juvenile Protective Association. Public Meetings and Testimony 453 Q. What is your opinion of dance halls, in general? A. I think they are, some of them, bad places for young people, especially where liquor is sold, especially in the majority of halls. Q. In the majority of halls? A. Yes, sir. Q. In how many halls in the city do they sell liquor at dances? A. In 240 out of 328 halls they sell liquor. We made our first investigation two years ago, another one last winter and another one this winter. Q. Has this condition been called to the attention of the city officials or police department? A. It has. Q. What was done about it? A. I have been myself to the Mayor in regard to it. He took great interest in it. I took some of these little books and laid them before him. He said he would see what could be done. But I don’t know, I don’t think very much has been done. I think that the dance halls are better this winter than last year, but a large number are especially bad in which they sell liquor. Q. Have your investigators made an estimate as to the number of girls who are annually ruined in the city of Chicago through the influence of dance halls? A. No, I have no such figures. I have seen a great many girls who come into the Juvenile Protective Association; we have got many cases on record. Q. If you were to make a conservative estimate what would you say as to the number of girls annually ruined in the city of Chicago through the influence of vicious dance hlals? A. It would only be a guess. I know there are a great many, because when you get a great number of young people together where liquors are sold, where we have such im- mense crowds, and boys and girls are drinking, they are bound to go wrong. I should think that a great deal is due to that special bar permit. This special bar permit allows the sale of liquors from 3 in the afternoon to 3 o’clock in the morning, while saloons are obliged to close at 1 o’clock, and at that time the disreputable element come out of the saloons and go to the dance halls, and it us usually between the hours of 1 and 3 that so many terrible things occur. Q. What do you call a special permit? A. Where a number of men and women wish to get together and hold a party they give themselves a name, they call themselves “The Jolly Owls,” or something like that, and they go down to the Mayor’s office and get a special permit to sell liquor, for which they pay $6.00. Q. For a permit to sell liquor? A. Yes, they are allowed to have a special permit for $6.00 to sell liquor during the night from 3 o’clock in the afternoon until 3 o’clock in the morning. We have made an investigation of a number of these so-called organizations, as to the number of bar per- mits that have been taken out by them, and we find that one association in one year had taken out thirty-two special bar permits. Q. They are permitted by law to take out how many? A. Six per year. Q. Did you ever report tliat violation of the law or the city ordinances to the proper officials? A. I have. Q. How long ago? A. I should think about a year ago. Q. What action was taken? A. I think that the Mayor gave orders, if I remember correctly, that they would take greater pains in investigating the associations that apply for these special bar permits. Sometime ago a little girl, perhaps only three weeks ago, came into our office and asked advice about taking out a bar permit and giving a party. She wanted to take out a permit to sell liquor in order to get to New York. She wanted to get a permit to sell liquor in connection with that party in order that she might make enough money. Q. The saloons all pay a license fee of $1,000 a year in Chicago? A Yes. Q. And saloons, under strict regulation, must close at 1 o’clock? A. Yes. Q. Is it possible under this system to go right across the street from 454 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the saloon, which is paying this $1,000 a year, when the saloon closes at 1 o’clock, and enter into these dance halls and resume drinking? A. Yes, many of them do. At some of the dance halls they don’t charge an admis- sion late in the evening. Q. Without making this a question of prohibition or non-prohibition, looking at it from a saloon standpoint, why does not the saloonkeeper, who is paying his $1,000 a year, protest? A. I don’t know. I addressed a meeting of saloonkeepers on that sort of thing a year or two ago. Q. What did they say? A. They didn’t seem to care about it; I am told that it lays with the breweries and not the saloonkeepers. Q. You think the first evil to be corrected as regards to dance halls is the elimination of the bar permit? A. That would be my idea, that the sale of liquor, that it should be prohibited; personally I would not have any liquor sold in any dance halls where young people congregate. Q. What do you think can be done to remedy that evil? A. Per- sonally 1 would not have any liquor sold at all where young people congre- gate. I would have a state law providing that no liquor should be sold at any dance halls or other places of amusement where young people congre- gate or gather together. I am very much in favor of dance halls; I think they are absolutely needed for young people. I only object to liquor being sold to the young people. Q. Of your own knowledge, do you state that girls go into these dance halls and become intoxicated? A. I know they do. They drink, they are not accustomed to liquor, and they don’t know w'hat they are doing. Q. Those girls that frequent the dance halls have not very much social life? A. No, sir, very little. Q. That is practically the only avenue of social activity they have? A. Yes, sir. Q. Many of those girls are poorly paid? A. Yes, sir. Q. Underpaid? A. Yes, sir. Q. Making less than a living wage? A. Yes, sir. Q. In your opinion is the matter of wages a factor in the dance hall problem? A. I think, of course, when a girl is underpaid she has less resistance to temptation generally, especially when she is underfed, but I think all girls, all young people, are bound to get social amusement one way or another; if they can’t get it legitimately, they will get it illegiti- mately. Q. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that the girl who has more money is more apt to find other ways of enjoying herself? A. Yes, sir, naturally. She goes more to the theatre, the high priced theatre, while the girl with very little can’t afford to do that. Q. So after all wages has got all to do with it? A. Yes, sir, a good deal, directly and indirectly. Q. Do you think that low w'ages has ever caused, directly or indirectly, a girl to go wrong? A. Oh, yes, I know, because we have a great many instances where we have cases of girls going wrong, directly attributable to that cause. I believe it is a great factor in the matter. Q. As a woman who has devoted time to the study of these problems, and who has sought a remedy for the menaces which surround our woman- hood, do you think that this committee has pursued a proper policy in devoting part of its investigation to the matter of low wages? A. I think it is one factor, but I think there are so many other things; I think lack of education of the public on sex hygiene is another factor. Q. If you were conducting an investigation of this nature on behalf of or in the name of the state of Illinois, would you inquire into the matter of low wages? A. I would. Q. That is a factor that you would not ignore? A. No, I would not ignore it, but I would not give it all the importance, because I think all statistics show such a large number of girls enter into a disreputable life Public Meetings and Testimony 455 are domestics, and they are paid better than a good many others; they are very well paid. Q. Why does the girl in domestic service sometimes go wrong? A. I suppose there are a great many reasons. In communities like ours, she must have her recreation and she goes out to dances and places of that kind, and gets into difficulties in that way. Most of American girls don’t want to see their men friends in somebody else’s kitchen. Q. Where do they go? A. They go out in the street, or else into the saloon, or the parks, or five-cent shows. Q. That is usually the Case? A. Yes, sir. Q. The housewife there is the employer, isn’t she? A. Yes. Q. She may have only one employe? A. Yes. Q. And that is her maid? A. Yes, sir. Q. The maid works hard during the day, and at night has only the street or the kitchen in which to meet the young man? A. Yes. Q. That lessens her matrimonial chances? A. Yes. Q. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that girls feel reluctant to go into domestic service because of the uncertain hours and treatment and the certain lessening of their chances matrimonially? A. Yes, and another strong reason is that they do not feel that they stand as high in a social way as in a shop or factory. Q. Why is that? A. I suppose there is that sort of, I don’t know exactly what it is that attaches itself to domestic service, that sort of odium which attaches to domestic service. Q. In this connection have you any legislation to propose, any way of bettering the condition of the domestic through the enactment of any law? A. No, I hardly think there is. There is no use of enacting any more laws in that direction if they cannot be enforced. I think it would be a good idea if we would open all of our school houses in Illinois to the public whenever they are not being used as a school, for entertaining and for social centers. I believe that it should be a common meeting point, a community center where everybody could gather together and become acquainted and could build up a social fabric that would be for the best interests of the community. I believe that girls and men would rather go there because that is a part of the work of the town or city rather than to accept charity perhaps, or go to a church, or something of that kind. We only have twelve school houses open in Chicago out of 267 public schools and 166 parochial schools. Q. Why aren’t they opened? A. Because the Board of Education say they have not enough money to open them; it would cost too much money, about $100.00 to the school house. Q. One hundred dollars per year? A. One thousand dollars per year. Q. How would you propose using the schools? A. We would have classes for boys and classes for girls in athletics; I would have dances, bands, orchestra, a good deal of music, and anything that the boy or girl likes to do. Some of our big schools are very well fitted for that, and the schools are used only a very short time compared to the number of hours that they are closed. Q. Mrs. Bowen, you are interested in the welfare of the girls in our large retail stores? A. Yes, sir, very much. Q. You believe that they are underpaid A. Very much so; I know they are underpaid, a large number. Q. What do you consider is the lowest amount that a girl can live on respectably in the city of Chicago? A. I think a girl can live on $8.00 a week in the city of Chicago; she can get her board, her food, her clothing, not very good, but decent, her lodging, not very good, but it leaves nothing for the emergencies of life. Q. In case of sickness? A. In case of sickness, $10.00, or anything like that, she can get along on that, but it leaves her absolutely nothing left. 456 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. If .she gets $8.00 a week she is selling her services without profit; she is just getting a living out of it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Whereas the employer quits a business if he just breaks even? A. Yes, sir. Q. These girls at $8.00 a week are selling at cost? A. Yes, sir. Q. Without any profit? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the girl who is working at less than $8.00 a week is selling below cost? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your solution of that problem? A. Higher- wages for girls. Q. How are you going to enforce that? A. By a minimum wage law. Q. Do you believe in a minimum wage law? A. Alost decidedly. Q. Do the girls believe in a minimum wage law? A. So far as I know. I have been to a great many meetings of working girls, and they are very much interested. Q. You have been to a great many meetings? A. Yes, sir, recently I spoke at the Women’s Trade Union. Q. Have they attempted to organize the girl clerks? A. Yes, they have. Q. How many girls working in department stores have attended those meetings within the last few weeks? A. I should say several hundred. Q. Do you know of any girl employed by any retail store who "’ttended a meeting called for the purpose of discussing the organization of girl workers — A. Yes. Q. — and who after the holding of that meeting was discharged? A. I have been told of eighteen that were. Q. Can you within a reasonable period of time, say within a week, furnish this committee with the names and addresses of those eighteen girls? A. I do not believe that I can. I was told that by one of the officers of the Women’s Trade Union League who told me, two were in the office at the time she telephoned me, and gave their names, and said that they knew four more, and stated that eighteen had been discharged from the store where she was working, and she would furnish their names. I don’t even know who the girl was. SENATOR WOODARD: Where was that? A. At Siegel Cooper & Company’s. SENATOR WOODARD: Thej- have paid the lowest wages of any store in the down-town district. MRS. BOWEN: I couldn’t say, I don’t know. SENATOR WOODARD: I believe that was testified to before this committee. If it is true that they are paying lower wages here than else- where, isn’t it a fact that they are capitalizing human flesh and blood? (No answer.) SENATOR BEALL: Have you known of any girl, of any specific case, wlio went wrong because she was paid a starvation wage? A. \ es, sir. Q. You have known of cases of that sort? A. Yes. sir, I have known of several that came into the Women’s Protective Association. Q. Where you believed that the girl was telling the truth? A. \ es, sir. I had no reason to believe any other way. Q. You know of cases where she has sold herself for money? A. Yes, sir, I know of one case, she was hungry; she hadn’t had an 3 'thing to eat for a long time. Q. And she sold herself for money? A. Yes. Q. You believed that she had been good up to that time? A. Yes, sir, she came to the Juvenile Protective Association, bringing with her another little girl, and told her own storj' to me. She said, “It is too late now, you can’t do anything for me, but perhaps j'ou can help this little girl.” Her storj' was ver}- true; do vou wish me to give the name of this girl? Public Meetings and Testimony 457 SENATOR TOSSEY: Have you heard any of the testimony given by the merchants? A. I have only read what I have seen in the papers; I have read that with great interest. Q. Where they said that wages have nothing to do with the question of immorality? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you any reason for suspecting that self-interest caused that testimony to be given? A. I could not say that; I think, of course, every merchant wants to make out his case as well as he can; that is only natural. SENATOR BEALL; What are those cards you have here? A. These are one or two of the dance halls. I have picked them up at random as they came. Do you want me to read them? Here is one, “The German Hod Carriers’ Hall; very dirty; light bad; liquor served in the bar; platform ! around top; vulgar with girls; no ventilation; conduct very bad, etc.” Q. Are all of those about the same class? A. Yes, they are about the same class. Q. They are mostly dance halls? A. They are all dance halls. Do you want another one? Here is the Schlitz Hall. (Reads): SCHLITZ HALL. 1600 W. Division St. Reputation? Fair. I Given by a Polish Society. Reputation of person or organization giving dance? Good, j Approximate number present? ISO. ! Special bar permit? Yes. I Minors present not accompanied by parent or guardian? Five boys and two girls. Was liquor served in hall proper? Yes, beer. A family party. Was liquor served to minors? No. Were persons in hall intoxicated? No. Was there disorder in consequence of drinking? No. Bar operated by club. Conduct of employes? Good. Was there indecent dancing? No. Did men smoke in hall? No. Were there children under sixteen years employed after 7 p. m.? No. Inspected by Joseph Holt. Ellen Gustafson. Date. 1-28-12 SCHLITZ’S HALL. Division St. and Ashland Ave. Opening from saloon? By rear door. Rooming house or hotel? None. Beer garden attached? None. Safety? One exit. Cleanliness? Fair. Ventilation, fair. Lighting? Poor. Location of bar and toilet rooms in relation to dancing floor? At head of stairs close to dance floor. Minors present not accompanied by parent or guardian? Few. Liquor served? Yes. Where? At bar. Special bar permit? Yes. Liquor served to minors? Yes. Conduct of employees? None present. 458 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Conduct of dancers? Tough. Dance hall habitues or “rounders” present? Yes. Children under sixteen employed after 7 p. m.? None. Dance given by? Polish lodge. Reputation? Bad. Police officers present? Yes. Admission? Fifty cents. Inspected by S. H. Leavitt. Date: Nov. 13, 1910. Remarks: Herman Gerstein manager and proprietor of saloon downstairs. He formerly was manager of the Schoenhofen Hall. The Schlitz Brewery Company are owners. There is a saloon downstairs in the rear of which is a wine room. There is a small door leading to the stairs which leads to the dance hall. The hall is small with a large number of tables and chairs around the hall. On this night the people were all Polish and few could speak English. The* bar is open until 3 a. m. There is also a narrow balcony around the hall. A large num- ber of fights ensued, of little consequence,, however. No prostitutes were present. A number of boys under age were present and drinking. SCHLITZ HALL. Division St. and Ashland Av. Opening from saloon? Yes. Safety? Poor, narrow, crowded stairway, one fire escape. Cleanliness? Very dirty. Ventilation? Very bad. Lighting? Fair. Location of bar and toilet rooms in relation to dancing floor? Narrow hallway leading to dance floor. Bar at one side, women’s wardrobe and toilet. The other with door usually open. Minors present not accompanied by parent or guardian? Yes. Age of girls? 15-25, a few older. Age of boys? 18-25. Liquor served? Yes. Where? Tables around floor, bar, tables in gallery, liquor carried across hallway and dance floor to tables. Liquor served to minors? Yes; signs up, “No minors allowed.” Ages? All ages present. Conduct of employees? Good. Conduct of dancers? Bad. Bouncers stood in center of floor but did nothing. Dance hall habitues or “rounders” present? Yes, habitues and rounders of both sexes. Children under sixteen emplo 3 'ed after 7 p. m.? No. Police officers present? Three. No. of stars, 3613, 3595, 3596. Service rendered? Poor. Admission? 25 cents each; wardrobe, 15 cents each. Inspected by E. Belden. J. Anderson. Date Dec. 21, 1912. Remarks: Officers 3613 and 3695 drinking. No attempt made to regulate the conduct of the crowd in the bar, hallway or dance floor. After 1 o’clock a set of “bums” came in free. The conduct in this hall was the worst I have seen. Most of the men and women were drunk. Public Meetings and Testimony 459 some exceedingly drunk before we left. One girl was so drunk she fell on the floor, tearing her waist almost entirely from her belt. She went on dancing, but was too tipsy to keep it up. During the intermissions of twenty minutes and more spooning was continuous. A man sat on a girl’s lap until he was too sleepy to do anything but lie back in his chair doubled up. This couple scarcely danced at all — sat by a table drinking and carousing — the girl with her feet upon the seat of the chair in front of her. Kissing, hugging, indecent dancing positions, carousing with loud, boisterous singing and yelling by groups of men. Men on the floor whistled up to girls in the gallery to come down to dance with them. Fellows in the gallery would single out a couple and yell down to them. The floor was too crowded for decency. Girls stood in hallway by barroom door making dates for other nights. A half dozen girls looked like professional street walkers. Two nice little girls said they were fifteen years old, but one looked much younger. They came with a girl about eighteen; other girls about same age. Ventilation terrible, air blue with smoke and heavy with odors of liquor. In case of fire it would have been impossible to get half of this crowd of a thousand out of the building. Mrs. Gertrude Howe Brittain Gives Additional Testimony. MRS. GERTRUDE HOWE BRITTAIN: Here is a hall which we have a report on, and it shows a very good state of affairs. I am taking these cards at random, that you will see the way in which we have been checking them up. (Reading as follows): SCHILLER HALL. 109 E. Randolph St. Opening from saloon? No. Rooming house or hotel? No. Beer garden attached? No. Safety? Good. Cleanliness? Good. Inspected by C. F. and Marie Leavitt. Date: March 4, 1911. Remarks: Hall for rent. We doubt if this hall has been used for a dance this winter. Elevator man said that was on nights during months of November and January he never knew of a dance being held there. MRS. BRITTAIN: Here is another one, the Hesperian Hall, situated at 69th and Ashland avenue, at which the conditions are very bad. (Reads as follows:) HESPERIAN HALL. 69th and Ashland Ave. Hall unsafe and very dirty. No dance — complaint lack of business. Reputation? Very bad. Inspected by C. Franklin Leavitt. Date: 12-3-11. HESPERIAN HALL. 69th and Ashland. Opening from saloon? No. Rooming house or hotel? No. Beer garden attached? No. 460 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Safety? Very poor. Cleanliness? Filthy. Ventilation? Fair. Lighting? Poor. Location of bar and toilet rooms in relation to dancing floor? Bar directly off dance floor. Toilets properly separated. Liquor served? Yes. Where? At bar and in dance hall. Special bar permit? Yes. Liquor, served to minors? Yes. Ages? 12 and over. Conduct of employees? Careless. Conduct of dancers? Vile. Dance hall habitues or “rounders” present? Very many. Children under sixteen employed after 7 p. m.? No. Dance given by? South Side Shwaeb.-Badish Ladies Ben. Society. Reputation of hall? Bad. Police officers present? Yes. Number of star? 1896. Service rendered? None. Admission? Men 25c, women 25c; wardrobe 10c. Inspected by C. F. and Marie Leavitt. Date: January 28, 1911. Remarks: Attendance about 400. This hall is on the third floor over a saloon and is reached by a narrow, twisted, wooden stairway. It is across from a large street car barn and many conductors came in as they went off duty. The stairway, entrance hall, dance hall and toilets are filthy beyond expression and were so crowded that a panic would surely have resulted in the loss of many lives. The dance was a masquerade given by German women and they sat around, complacently watching their young people misbehaving vilely. There was no super- vision either in the hall or at the bar, men, women, children and the policemen drinking together over the bar and young people dancing in an immoral manner. There were some intoxicated men. The .girls sat around on the boys’ laps, permitting them indecent liberties. One girl, conspicuous for her bad behavior, I knew to be a dependent ward of Juvenile Court. She is fifteen years old and came to the dance with a girl sixteen, both dressed in bloomer suits. She told me she had never seen the boys before, yet she lolled about in their arms, permit- ting them everj^ liberty. 'She told me also that it was 4 a. m. when she arrived home. We hear that the dances at this hall are uniformlj- bad. HESPERIAN HALL. 69th and Ashland Ave. Opening from saloon? Downstairs. Beer garden attached? Yes. (Bar.) Safety? Fair. Cleanliness? Dirty. Ventilation? Poor. Lighting? Fair. Location of bar and toilet rooms in relation to dancing floor? Bar attached to dance hall. Minors present not accompanied by parent or guardian. Age of girls? Twelve to sixteen. Age of boys? Fifteen to seventeen. Conduct of employees? Poor. Conduct of dancers? Boisterous and vulgar. Liquor served? On floor and bar adjoining. Public Meetings and Testimony 461 Special bar permit? Yes. Liquor served to minors? Undoubtedly. Ages? Twelve to sixteen. Dance hall habitues or “rounders” present? Dance hall habitues mostly. Dance given by? Trolley A. A. Reputation? Bad. Police officers present? Two. Number of star? 1996, 2069. Service rendered? Poor. Admission? 25 cents person; wardrobe, 25 cents person. Inspected by M. E. Long and K. McGoorty. Date: December 14, 1912. Remarks: The police officers present at this dance were paying very little attention to a boisterous crowd in attendance. As one “drunk’ expresesd it, “Everything goes here.” Both officers were seen at one time in the evening standing at the bar adjoining the hall and both were smoking. They paid no attention whatever to the drunken fellows who were spilling beer and spitting all over the floor. Waiters were rushing back and forth between the dancers, and one waiter carry- ing a tray of beer nearly knocked a couple down. The beer was scat- tered all over the floor, dancers and tables, but no one seemed to think .f it was out of the usual run of things. There is a bar opening off the I dance hall, and the liquor was also served at tables on the dance hall floor. There is a saloon with wine-rooms directly under the hall, and one did not have to leave the building to get to it, as there is a door at the bottom of the stairs leading directly into the saloon and wine-rooms. Here the crowd (many of the boys and girls not over fourteen or fif- teen) would congregate between dances. Very long intermissions were given between each dance, evidently to allow the dancers plenty of time to drink. One young fellow made the remark (he was very drunk; in fact, could hardly stand) that he was going downstairs to “get” a girl he had his eye on all night. He said, “I guess she is pretty well stewed by this time, and if I get her you fellows won’t see me again tonight.” He didn’t return to the hall. The hall of itself has the repu- tation of being patronized by a tough gang. MRS. BRITTAIN: And here is another one, which I will read. This is Germania Hall, at 33rd and Wentworth avenue. (Reads as follows:) GERMANIA HALL. 3311 Wentworth Avenue. Opening from saloon? Yes. Rooming house or hotel? No. Beer garden attached? No. Safety? Unsafe. Cleanliness? Dirty. Ventilation? Good. Lighting? Good. Location of bar and toilet rooms in relation to dancing floor? Bar adjoining hall floor; one toilet. Minors present not accompanied by parent or guardian? Yes. Age of girls? Fourteen to sixteen. Age of boys? Fourteen to eighteen. Liquor served? Yes. Where? Bar adjoining hall floor and tables. Special bar permit? Yes. 462 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Liquor served to minors? Yes. Ages? Fourteen to sixteen. Conduct of employees? Fair. Conduct of dancers? Fair. Children under sixteen employed after 7 p. m.? No. Dance given by Lithuanian Society. Reputation? Fair. Officers present? One. Star No. 361. Service rendered? Fair. Admission? Twenty-five cents person. Remarks: One officer, star No. 361, was present. He was in stand- ing at the bar part of the evening, but laughingly said, “I drank so much beer this afternoon I can’t stand any longer.” He was smoking, but did not appear to be drinking. This dance was given by a Lithu- anian Society. Many families were present, and the elderly part of the crowd did not seem to object at all to very young fellows and girls sit- ting on each others’ laps, drinking, kissing each other, etc. The worst feature of this hall is the toilet. There is but one toilet for men and women. The sign on the door reads, “Ladies’ Dressing Room,” but when the writer entered this place I saw a young fellow standing out- side the toilet waiting to get in. A young girl (not over fourteen or fifteen) walked out, spoke to him in a friendly way, and he went into the toilet. This was repeated several times in the evening. We ivere told that they had been dancing and drinking since 2 p. m. Sunday, and they did not close the place until 1 a. m. Monday. At the bottom of the stairs leading down from this hall is a saloon, but there are no wine- rooms in this place. SENATOR BEALL: You say there are 78 dance halls with dis- reputable houses attached? MRS. BOWEN : I said there were 77 disreputable lodging houses connected with dance halls or in the immediate vicinity that were used by dance hall habitues. There are 240 halls, out of 328 halls licensed, where liquor is sold; of that 146 were selling liquor to minors, 77 had disreputable lodging houses attached or in the immediate vicinity, and while we found at 158 of these dances, 202 policemen were on duty, but at only 17 dances did they render good service, or in any way attempt to enforce the law. SENATOR WOODARD: First you would refuse the dance halls bar permits; could they be run without those permits? MRS. BOWEN: Oh, yes, I should think so. It seems that is rather peculiar to Chicago. Some dance halls in other cities, in Kansas City, they have their dance halls without liquor selling. Q. Aside from that what do you think is the next best step? A. Per- sonally I should like to see woman police in dance halls. She could not do the same work that a policeman does at all, but she could look after the girls. She could see the girl drinking and she could go up to her and show her police authority and say, “You can’t drink any more.” She could follow girls that were going away with young men. Q. How do you think is the best way to get these women police? A. They should not be appointed by a Chief of Police; they should take the examination the way the men do. I should think they should be trained women. SENATOR BEALL: Don’t you really think about these dance halls, there is not so much bad about the dance halls as in the disreputable houses that are usually established in the neighborhood of the dance halls, houses like the Royal hotel, the Cadillac hotel, that were pointed out bj' the plain- clothes men as being rooming houses. I was at a dance and had a long talk with a young girl, and she said she had a nice furnished room, girls came there and danced and met these fellows and went with them to these lodg- ing houses. MRS. BOWEN: Yes, that is true. SENATOR BEALL: And I am of the impression that these cheap hotels are merely assignation houses. Public Meetings and Testimony 463 MRS. BOWEN: These girls wouldn’t go to them so much if they hadn’t taken liquor. SENATOR BEALL: That’s what we found out: this young lady this morning told about the same story. I was up to a dance house along about 2 o’clock in the morning and they were running full blast then, selling whiskey then. They say in the bar license, they say they close at 12 o’clock, but they had whiskey selling at 2 o’clock when I left there. MRS. BOWEN: Might I tell one little experience we had with a man running a dance hall? A man came to us who was running a dance hall on the northwest side of the city, and he said that his dance hall was not respectable and he was very much worried about the girls, and he asked us what he should do. He had a saloon in connection with the dance hall and we told him that he should close his saloon and have no drinks disposed of. He agreed to do this. He has dispensed with the selling of liquor and he pays a social worker who goes up there and attends those dances, and the social worker has been able to keep order in the place. The man came down a little while ago and laid his check down and he said he could sleep nights now on account of the girls. SENATOR BEALL: Would you care to say what place it is? MRS. BOWEN: It is Brodies’ Hall, Sangamon and Grand avenue. SENATOR BEALL: That speaks well for him. Have you anything else you care to say? MRS. BOWEN: No, I think that’s all. I have a great deal to say, but I feel very strongly about this subject of dance halls, because a great many girls go wrong in them. SENATOR BEALL: Do you have any power to investigate or stop the owners from admitting minors? MRS. BOWEN: No, we have had a great many prosecutions, but it is very difficult to obtain evidence. Our state law provides that no minor shall be present in any dance hall, and we have had prosecutions, I don’t know how many, but they are rather hard to convict in, because we have to get the minor, to follow him or her home, and get their age and then get them to testify. On one of these cards I have I notice that a girl of seven was drinking in one of these places. Coroner Peter Hoffman’s Testimony. PETER HOFFMAN, called as a witness before the committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CH. 4 IRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. My name is Peter M. Hoffman. Q. And your office? A. I am Coroner of Cook County. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Coroner, a young man was on the stand today and he told of an episode in his life when he was a boy. He is a fellow who never had a home, has knocked around in the world, and he had, I guess, one love affair. MR. HOFFMAN: He was fortunate to have but one. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: This little girl was not getting very much money, and he not very much; she was lured into a life of disgrace and dishonor, and to get out of it she committed suicide. After hearing that story, Mr. Coroner, we decided to call you. MR. HOFFMAN: Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How many suicides do we have a year in the red-light district in Chicago? MR. HOFFMAN: Well, now, that would be hard for me to say off- hand, Governor. I believe that my statistics will show that during my tenure of office, covering a period of over eight years, eight years and three months, that we have had about 36,000 Coroner’s cases. Out of the 36,000 there were probably about 4,000 and some odd hundred suicides. Out of 464 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee that 4,000 and some odd hundred suicides I presume that about one out of every three were women, making about 1,500, more or less, women and girls. It would be necessary for me to refer to my statistics to ascertain the ages, or between what ages those women were. Offhand speaking, I would say that there are some suicides due to the causes you are investigating. I could not mention any specific cases, however, without going through mv files. It would be natural that there should be some cause. Those unfor- tunates, as you all know, very often have suicidal tendencies. This could be determined by looking through my statistics. I don’t know what the percentage were due to that cause; I haven’t any idea; a small percentage, I presume, but I have no doubt that there are some. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: In your experience what have you found to be the most common cause of self-destruction? A. Well, despondency, insanity. I contend that all those who take their own lives, at the time the life is taken are insane at that moment. If they had a chance to think it over for a few seconds, perhaps they would not take their lives. Q. It is your observance that in the majority of cases despondency has led to insanity and self-destruction? A. Yes, that is the main factor. Q. An employer before this committee last week said that there were three avenues of escape for girls who are being paid starvation wages: matrimony, white slavery, and death; now do you recall any case where a girl committed suicide because she was not making enough money to live on? A. Well, I would answer that in this way: that the immediate cause is despondency. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you state it as your opinion, born of knowledge, that there have been cases of suicide resulting from despondency because of the insufficiency of the wage? MR. HOFFMAN: I believe I do. Governor; we all know it. We know that men, women or girls, who have been unable to obtain employ- ment, have walked the streets of our large cities looking for employment, and not having ample means of securing the necessaries of life and so forth, we all know that that would lead to despondency. Small wages would be liable to do that beyond a doubt. And suicide would even follow. There is no question about that. We have a great many cases which would per- haps not interest your committee here, men between the ages of thirty-five and forty, or forty-five and fifty, or fift 3 '-five; also women of those ages that have committed suicide because they are out of employment, and when they seek employment they find that in the mercantile world the^' want younger men and younger women and they can’t secure emploj'ment, and they even commit suicide because of that fact. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How are we to remedy the evils that we see on all hands springing from low wages? MR. HOFFMAN: Governor, you have a hard task to perform. I could not answer, and I would not wish to attempt to answer that question. It is a perplexing problem. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You have thought along this line manjq many times, I know, Mr. Coroner, what remedies have suggested them- selves to you? MR. HOFFMAN: Why, I don’t know. Governor. I would hate to have to answer that question. I would have to require some time for thought. I would have to require some time for a checking of the records in m\- office. I will admit this, however, that as a coroner of this counU', that contains upwards of 2,500,000 people, I see more of it than an\" other official. The question of suicide, industrial accidents that leave a widow, perhaps, and orphans unprotected; those things require serious thought and stud\'. Something should be done along those lines, and if your committee please, with the consent of the Chairman, I might furnish you the statement cover- ing a period of eight years past showing the condition of things in my office. It is often, that in a moment of mental disorder, the bread winner of the familv is taken away, and usually there are left a widow and numerous chil- dren as a rule. Those children have the choice between assault and bat- tery and public alms. They are brought up on the streets of our city without proper food, care or education due to that cause, and I presume we Public Meetings and Testimony 465 have a great many bad citizens, because of that very fact, because of those conditions. Those conditions should be remedied. It would take time and careful study for me to suggest an adequate remedy for those condi- tions. In my_ quadrennial report I speak of these conditions and of the suicide condition especially in that report. I think it would be well to appoint a committee such as the committees that are appointed for other public purposes to look up and study the question of suicide and self- destruction. Also we should have a committee to look into the question of industrial accidents that leave a widow and orphans in a great many cases unprotected. There are perhaps some other suggestions that I might make, but I do not wish to make them here today without referring to my records and papers in the office. SENATOR BEALL: Let me ask you a question: You hold inquests, do you not? MR. HOFFMAN: I have a number of deputies for that purpose. I do hold a great many important cases. SENATOR BEALL: Do you hold inquests in these so-called hotels, or assignation houses, on prostitutes that have been killed there? MR. HOFFMAN: Oh, yes, we have cases in those houses; yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Do you know whether they are generally suicide or natural death? MR. HOFFMAN: If they are not suicide they come not under my jurisdiction. A natural death does not come under my jurisdiction. SENATOR BEALL: I mean in cases of sudden death. MR. HOFFMAN: Cases of sudden death without medical attendance would come under my jurisdiction. ' Q. Do you have many of that kind? A. We have, yes, quite a num- ber. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Coroner, I wonder if your records would permit you to report to this committee at a later date as to the number of girls in employment who have committed suicide within the last eight years and the amount of money they were receiving from their employment at the time of the suicide? MR. HOFFMAN: No; I could give you the number of girls and their ages, but as to the compensation that they were receiving, I could not say as to that; the evidence in these cases might in some cases show and in others it might not. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Could you go over your records and at our next meeting in this city in a week or two again appear before us with some specific cases and such figures as you might find available to give us? MR. HOFFMAN: I would be pleased to make a report to this Com- mittee showing the number of suicides and ages and the probable causes. 1 could prepare a statement of that kind. I wish to say to this Committee that during the tenure of my office it has been my aim that wherever we find a woman has committed suicide we generally find that that suicide is due to some cause, and we try to find what that cause is, and to make rec- ommendations to obviate that cause. We can do that more readily in acci- dent cases than we can in suicide cases. But there is no question but what the suicide problem is a serious problem, and it should receive the attention of somebody, of some official that has higher authority than the coroner of the county, perhaps. SENATOR WOODARD: Mr. Coroner, did you say that there was one woman in three among the suicides? MR. HOFFMAN: Yes, about one in three perhaps, or a little better than that. Q. The larger proportion of men and children that commit suicide have found it impossible to get from the world a living? A. Yes, I think so. SENATOR WOODARD: And that is often due, where a woman or man is concerned, and more especially a woman, to the fact that the burden is on their shoulders; isn’t it reasonable to assume that the women often 466 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee commit suicide for that reason, that is that the burden of life, perhaps of sustaining or caring for a large family, is upon them? MR. HOFFMAN: Yes, there is something in that proposition, no doubt. It is often the case with the head of the family. Now, I don’t know that my statistics would show that, but where the head of the family is out of employment,^ and there are girls in that family, and they have not the necessaries of life at home, it is a fact that they sometimes go wrong to bring to the home support for the balance of the family. I think that is true. Mrs. Gertrude Howe Brittain’s Testimony Continued. MRS. GERTRUDE HOWE BRITTAIN, recalled, and testified as fol- lows: SENATOR BEALL: You and I were talking in the room above, and we didn’t get, through, about Roy Jones’ place. What do you know about that place? MRS. BRITTAIN: We had reports of the carryings on there, -where colored people congregated. SENATOR BEALL: When 1 was in there, there w-as a colored band and there were a couple of women and a couple of men performers. MRS. BRITTAIN: We had a report on that place, some little time ago, that it was a very immoral place. I have the report here. They have pasted on the back the newspaper report showing just exactly what we found. SENATOR TOSSEY: What do you think about putting up a hotel for working girls? MRS. BRITTAIN: I think a hotel would be a very good thing, but 1 can’t help feeling that it would not be wise to have the people for whom the girls work put up the hotel. I think it should be an independent place where the girls could go and board, where they could go and eet proper recreation and all the things that go with a good home, but have it done by someone outside of their own employers. I feel to have them put it up would be rather a mistake. I think it is very important that it should be free of all influence that might be exerted upon them. SENATOR WOODARD: Have you any testimony that 3 'ou think would be good to go in the record at the present time? MRS. BRITTAIN: I know of one girl, in speaking of small wages: I seem to be dwelling on that, my mind seems to dwell on that toda^^ A girl came to my office and told me that she was in a very bad condition physi- cally and she didn’t know what to do. I took her to a doctor and found that she needed medical attention. I could only get that for her at the County Hospital; she was inflicted with a venereal disease. She did not look like a girl who was a street .girl, or who ever could be, and I talked to her and she told me that she had been getting $6.00 a week at the Boston Store and could earn no more. She had to have a pair of shoes. She had tried to save her money, but she had not been able to save enough to get her a pair of shoes, and in her extremitJ^ and she thought that she would just do it, just for once, that she might have this pair of shoes, with this result. It is rare and an extreme case, I think, but it does happen. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What became of her? MRS. BRITTAIN: She is all right; she was cured, so it was possible for her to go on and live. Now, we see that she is getting sufficient monej'. I have a little fund given me by a man of this town, so that I can loan money to these girls who need it. This man gave me this monej’- to use so that any working girl might be able to borrow money without interest. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Just on her word? MRS. BRITTAIN: Just on her word, j-es, we make no investigations in these cases, because in many cases the girls do not like to be investigated. I have to depend on my own judgment and my knowledge of human nature. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do jmu have them make a note? MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, she signs a little note to me. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: If they fail to pay it back it is charged to charity? Public Meetings and Testimony 467 MRS. BRITTAIN: Yes, but they do pay it back. SENATOR TOSSEY: How much have you loaned? MRS. BRITTAIN: About $200.00 to girls. SENATOR TOSSEY: How much do you loan to a girl? MRS. BRITTAIN: It all depends. This fund has not been in opera- hion very long. For instance, I have used funds of my own and at times when I have not had it I would ask some woman friend of mine to give me $10.00, or $20.00, but this fund has just been opened. I began the first oper- ation last week. A girl came to me to my office, having been sent there by the Mayor; she went to the Mayor’s office, and said that she had come to Chicago to get work but she could not get work, and she was without funds, that she lived in Louisville, and that $10.00 would cover her real needs, so I sent her back to Louisville, paid her way, got her trunk moved, and gave her $3.00. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: She has paid that back? MRS. BRITTAIN: She is to pay it back, and I know that she will. SENATOR TOSSEY: If it gets out that you are loaning money to working girls under those conditions, will there be a great many applica- tions? MRS. BRITTAIN: I am not afraid of applications. I believe if the applicant is worthy I will have no trouble in getting money to take care of it. I am willing to have a great many applications. 1 may be extreme in this matter, of course, I don’t know, but I would like to try it out. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all, I think, Mrs. Brittain. Thank you. The witnesses who have not yet been heard will report here at 10 ■o’clock tomorrow morning. The Committee will now adjourn until mid- [’ night in the Rockwood room, on the first floor of this hotel, but the wit- 1 1 nesses subpoenaed to appear today, and who have not been heard, will not 1 be called upon until 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, when they will present ' themselves in this room. I Whereupon a recess was taken by the .Committee. SESSION XVII I The Committee meets in a midnight session to interrogate / witnesses subpoenaed directly from a notorious cafe; also patrons, ) entertainers and proprietors of fashionable restaurants in the busi- I ness section. Witnesses questioned about entertainment features ? personally witnessed by Senators Beall cmd Tossey of the Com- j mittee and described in the testimony of investigators in the Com- l| mittee’s employ. Testimony of: ! r Jack Carvin, manager, Roy Jones’ cafe; ' L ; H. H. Mueller, traveling salesman; M. Blair Coan, chief investigator for the Committee; , “Natalie,” professional dancer; i Martin Ferrari, professional dancer; Abe Frank, manager. Rector’s restaurant; H H , cabaret performer; j E W , cabaret performer; I Maude J. Josaphare, investigator for the Committee; I Charles M. Richter, publisher; I O. B. Stimpson, manager. States restaurant; Dora Wilson, professional dancer; f George H. Wilson, professional dancer. I Chicago, April 11, 1913, 12 :00 o’clock Midnight, La Salle Hotel. The Committee met pursuant to notice, all members being pres- ent, and the following proceedings were had: ; Jack Carvin’s Testimony. JACK CARVIN, called as a witness before the Committee, and being first I duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Jack Carvin. Q. What is your occupation? A. I work for Mr. Roy Jones. Q. What business is he in? A. Running a cafe and restaurant on 21st and Wabash. Q. You are manager of that place? A. Yes, sir. Q. What time do you go to work in the evening? A. Why, between eight and eight-thirty. Q. What time did you go to work this evening? A. About 8:15. Q. You have been there since 8:15? A. Yes, sir. Q. Until you were brought down here? A. Until I was subpoenaed. Q. Is that a respectable place? A. Absolutely, so far as I know what respectability applies to ; it is the same as any other place. Q. Do you run a cabaret show? A. Yes, sir; from 8:15 until one o’clock every night. I Q. How many entertainers do you employ? A. Ten; all colored. I Q. How many men and how many women? A. Two men and eight ; women. I Q. Can you furnish the Committee with a list of the songs sung by these : women tonight? A. I could furnish some of them. Everything is popular they sing. Every show that comes in town, the music from those shows are sung. Q. At the time you were summoned here what song was being sung? A. I Well, I will swear I would not know. 469 ^7% Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Who was singing at that time? A. Just a minute, I will tell you who was singing, if I remember correctly I think there was one of the songs from the Follies. Q. One of the songs from the Follies? A. Yes, sir; I think it was, “You Big Blue-Eyed Baby,” or something like that. Q. About that time was there a negro woman singing alone? A. Yes, sir. Q. Dancing up and down the place singing? A. Dancing. Q. Yes, and wiggling? A. No, not wiggling, she might have been dancing. They all dance with some of the numbers just the same as any show. There are some numbers they dance with, some sing straight and some sing ballets, and some sing ragtime. Q. Now, Mr. Carvin, was the song sung at that time an obscene song? A. No, sir. Q. Was there a passage in there that no man would permit in any re- spectable place? A. I don’t believe so. Q. Were these words used? (Chairman whispers words to witness). A. Absolutely not. Q. You swear to that under oath? A. I do. Q. Those words were not used? A. If the words are in that song, they might use them, but I don’t believe there is ever a song with those words in there ; they were not sung in our place. Q. You didn’t hear those words used tonight? A. No, I didn’t. Q. Or any words of that nature? A. No, sir, not that I can recollect. Q. By the way, Mr. Carvin, did you meet the investigator of this Com- mittee in your place a few days ago? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you tell that investigator that you had no respect for the State of Illinois? A. No, sir. Q. That this Committee could go and jump in the lake? A. This inves- tigator came and asked me to serve a subpoenae for him and I asked him SENATOR BEALL: You remember seeing me in your place? A. Yes, sir. Q. You remember what they were doing when I was in there; do you know where I was sitting? A. Yes. Q. Do you know what they were doing on the floor, with the woman go- ing up and down with her clothes up around her waist and the fellow on the floor looking up under her clothes? I saw that in 3-our place; j'ou remember that, don’t you? A. I remember absolutely. Q. You remember tonight you had a negro playing a piano? A. They were dancing. Q. And a negress was going up and down, with her clothes up to her waist? A. We don’t allow anything like that. If you should naturally dance with a dress on, your dress will naturally go up and down. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Senator Waage, will you inform this Committee, as a member of the State Senate, what power we have to punish this man for perjury. SENATOR WAAGE ; I would say, Mr. Chairman, I would say this, Mr. Chairman, that the Committee would not have the power to imprison a witness at this time. The Committee, however, could at once, if necessar}-, if known to the defendant, call the attention of the police to the statement and have him now apprehended for committing a perjury in the presence of the Committee, and upon such statement the police will undoubtedly apprehend the prisoner on a charge of perjury. It would be for violating his oath in the presence of this Committee and known to this Committee. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Were you present, Senator Tossey, when the things spoken of by Senator Beall were performed? SENATOR TOSSEY: Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Was this gentleman present at the time? (Indicating the witness.) SENATOR TOSSEY; I think he was; I think he came and sat at the Public Meetings and Testimony 471 table just a few moments after we got there. (To witness) I think I was introduced to you. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Was this gentleman present at the time? THE WITNESS: Yes, I was there. SENATOR BEALL: Let me call your attention to a thing: don’t you remember that after we got there a woman walked up and down the floor with her clothes around her waist and a fellow with a straw hat on got down on his stomach on the floor and looked up under her dress; do you remember that? A. I remember very distinctly; there is a dance Q. She was walking up and down the floor and every person in the saloon iin front of her saw her? A. Yes, but I didn’t see that dance. Q. And did you know that she was exposing herself to the people in the room? A. What do you mean by the term “herself?” Q. Well, a woman pulling her clothes up around her waist, I don’t know what you would call it. A. When they dance they might grab their skirts and hold them up a little. Q. She was doing what we call the “hootchy-kootchy,” she was swinging her back and her hips and throwing her dress up and going back and forward and back again with her hips, do you remember that thing? A. Yes, I re- member the dance very distinctly. Q. Well, if you call that a dance! Did you see anybody looking up under her skirts? A. I don’t believe I ever saw the man lying down on the floor. If he did that, this is something I didn’t know. Q. I saw him do it. A. Yes. I don’t recall it; it might; you know such a thing could happen. It might even be those words were in the song. Mrs. J. D. T ’s Testimony. MRS. J. D. T , called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Mrs. J. D. T . Q. Where do you live? A. I live in Peoria, Illinois. Q. You are married? A. Yes, sir. Q. Live with your husband? A. Yes. Q. Is your husband with you tonight? A. No. Q. Where is he, in Peoria? A. Yes. Q. What business is he in? A. He is in the grocery business. Q. What were you doing at Roy Jones’ place tonight; were you there? A. Yes, I was there. Q. How long had you been there? A. About ten minutes. Q. What were you doing there? A. I was sight-seeing. Q. Did you see any sights worth while there? A. Well, let me see, there was something unusual by a colored girl ; I seen that. SENATOR BEALL; Who was with you? A. My brother. Q. Where from? A. From Springfield, Illinois. Q. Was there a negro woman singing there? A. Yes, there were several, three or four. Q. How would you describe the dance that she was going through with? A. Oh, I don’t really know what the dances are. She did some sort of steps, I suppose you call it, something on the bear dance order. Q. Did she have her dress pulled up? A. Yes. SENATOR WOODARD: What kind of a dance was it? A. I really didn’t notice the dance. ' Q. Didn’t you listen to the song that she was singing? A. I tried to, but I didn’t know the song at all. Q. You didn’t exactly recognize the words? A. No, I didn’t get the song. Q. Have you a daughter. Madam? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old is she? A. Ten years old. 472 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. When she is older, would you like to take her to Roy Jones’ place? A. No, I would not. Q. You believe that your daughter would have a better chance to lead a good life if there weren’t such places as Roy Jones in existence? A. Well, no, because I don’t think she will ever come in contact with them. I am sure she won’t. Q. Were there some young girls there? A. I don’t know, there were three or four young women there at the other tables, I couldn’t say as to the age; we were just there, we had just gotten in. SENATOR BEALL: You say you are a married woman? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you think that is a very nice place to be? A. Well, I don’t know. Q. You knew where you were going? A. No. Q. Were you on a visit here? A. Yes, sir. Q. A stranger here? A. Yes, sir. Q. You say that your brother took you in here? A. Yes; he doesn’t know anything about it Q. He is a stranger too? A. Yes, sir. Q. Didn’t you think that kind of a dance that they had on the floor there was very suggestive? A. Not very suggestive. I have been to see Gertrude Hoffman. Q. Were you drinking in this saloon? A. Yes, I had just got a glass of beer; I hadn’t drunk it. Q. Were most of the people in there intoxicated? A. I could not say, because I was not in there long enough to know. L G ’s Testimony. L G — , called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. L G . Q. And your residence? A. Peoria, Illinois. Q. Are you married. A. Yes, sir. My husband is dead. Q. When did you arrive in Chicago? A. About eight weeks ago. Q. Where are you living m Chicago? A. Ellis avenue. Q. How long had you been in this place tonight, Roy Jones’ place? A. I don’t think we were in there but ten minutes. Q. You were with this other womar*who testified? A. Yes, sir. Q. You had known her at Peoria? A. Yes, sir. Q. You were there on a slumming party? A. No, not exactly a slum- ming party; we had been to one cafe before that for dinner and we just en- tered there ; we had heard of the place before, and just got off of the car and went in. Q. You had heard of it favorably? A. Well, we just heard it was a sight-seeing place to go for amusement. Q. Do you care to go there again? A. Why, hardly now; I think I care very little for Chicago, in fact. Q. What happened during the ten or fifteen minutes that you were at Roy Jones’ tonight? A. I didn’t see any dancing or anything. The first thing I knew a gentleman stepped up to me and said, “You will have to come with me down to the LaSalle Hotel.” I thought he was insulting me. I had heard of such things as women being taken away; I had heard of such things being done in Chicago, of men picking you up, and I naturally thought this was possibly one of them; I thought the vice was after me. Q. Did you hear any singing there tonight? A. I heard, “Here Comes My Daughter.” I don’t think there w^as anything suggestive in that. I just heard the music; I could not tell you a word of the song. THE WITNESS: (Referring to a newspaper photographer who had just taken a picture of witness on the stand.) That is not right; I think that’s a mean trick. SENATOR BEALL: Don’t you be afraid. Madam, there won’t be any Public Meetings and Testimony 473 i ! more of it here tonight. That was no place for you to be, because I have been j I there myself. A. We knew nothing about it. I I SENATOR BEALL : It was no place for a lady to be. I believe you to L ■ be innocent in the matter, but this was no place for you to be. A. We didn’t r know, we were just told that the place was a sight-seeing place. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : Will the photographer who took that photograph ii kindly destroy the plate? THE PHOTOGRAPHER: (Taking plate out of camera and handing 1; same to witness.) Yes, sir. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA; I am satisfied that these two young women were *t there, not knowing the exact nature of the place, and the Committee has no desire to subject them to unnecessary publicity or annoyance. SENATOR WOODARD: We don’t wish to injure any of them. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : The names given are genuine, and we wish that the press would not use them. FIRST WITNESS ; I have been connected with social work in Peoria for . , several years back, more or less SENATOR BEALL ; Oh, were you? MRS. FIRST WITNESS: Yes. What may I tell them when I . return. SENATOR BEALL: Just tell them that you were caught out and couldn’t f get back. 1 H. H. Mueller’s Testimony. ' H. H. MUELLER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first ! duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Have you been sworn? A. Yes. Q. Do you live in Chicago? A. No, sir. I am a traveling man, I make my residence in Springfield and Peoria, mostly in Springfield. Q. Where is your regular home? A. In Indianapolis. Q. Where do you live in Springfield? A. The Leland Hotel. Q. Had you ever been at Roy Jones’ before tonight? A. Never. I Q. How did you happen to go there? A. I had come to Chicago and I had been here about — I got in here at 5 ;30 tonight, and we were around to the cafes, had been down to one of the cafes in town for lunch, and I suggested |j that we go to that place, Roy Jones. It was more of a side proposition than i| anything else. I was in company with the two ladies, and they felt like they II' were being protected while going there; there was nobody else in the com- " pany at all. Q. You went there because you understood it was one of the places in t Chicago to see the sights? A. I did. j Q. You have heard of it before as one of the real sights in that district? ,! A. Yes, sir. |j I Q. What do you think about the place, do you think there are any sights t worth seeing there? A. Well, it is an education — an education on things to 'J keep away from. I SENATOR BEALL: Now, I think you were a good, clean-cut fellow. I like the way you went to the defense of the women when the pictures were being taken. What this Committee is trying to do is to defend the womanhood of this state, just as you went to protect your friend when you thought she was getting undesirable publicity through no fault of her own, and I want you to co-operate with us and tell us exactly what you saw there tonight. A. I ( don’t suppose I was there more than eight minutes; we were just seated, and we were in the rear of the cafe, and the music was going on in front. In fact, we were engaged in a personal conversation that didn’t pertain to I the cafe in any way, and I could not say what was going on. Q. Was most of the people around there drinking? A. I believe they were. I Q. Were any of them intoxicated? A. Pretty well tagged; I was not ( paying hardly enough attention to know, but I suppose they were. 474 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Everybody was feeling pretty good? A. Pretty good, yes. Q. Did you see any girls around there soliciting? A. No, sir. Q. You didn’t notice any girls going from one table to another and call- ing men over to them. A. No, sir, I was not looking for it. I wasn’t paying attention to any table except our own. SENATOR TOSSEY : Did you see any immoral dances there? A. That depends on what you call immoral. SENATOR WOODARD: How old are you? A. Twenty-five. Q. How long have you been on the road? A. Four years. Q. You have been around right smart? A. I have been in San Fran- cisco, been in Seattle during the time it was wide open. SENATOR BEALL: When you come to Chicago again forget that there is any such a place as Roy Jones in Chicago. A. I have been here for a month or so, and this is the first time I think I have exactly what you might say been in such a place. Jack Garvin’s Testimony Continued. JACK CARVIN, being recalled as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Jack Carvin. Q. How old are you? A. Thirty-one years old the 18th da}' of April. Q. You have been down at Roy Jones since the last of June? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you have an interest in the business? A. Absolutely none at all. Q. Have you ever tried to get a better job? A. I believe I have. Q. In any other kind of business? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is down in the so-called red-light district, isn’t it? A. It is supposed to be, yes. Q. Is the district closed now? A. Supposed to be. Q. Well, is it closed? A. So far as I know. Q. How has business been in your place since they closed the district? A. I don’t believe it has affected our business at all. Our patrons didn’t come from that district. Q. The same kind of patrons come in your place now the same as tlrey did before? A. Just the same kind, there is not any difference. Q. Then the closing of the district didn’t affect your business in the least? A. It has not hurt our business. Q. What kind of people go to your place? A. People that want to come around there and have a little entertainment or want to see a cabaret show, or want to seek a little diversion, they come frequently to those places, the same as to any of the rest of the places that put on cabaret shows. Q. Do you have many women there? A. No, sir. Q. Do men come in there alone? A. Oh, yes, hundreds of them, abso- lutely alone. Q. Do they meet girls there? A. No, sir. Q. You never saw a girl meet a man there? A. I could not say that; yes, by appointment if somebody happened to call them up. Q. You don’t have any solicitors around there? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever have any solicitors around there? A. No, sir, not to my knowledge, no, sir. Q. Did you ever see any “cadets” in there? A. Well, that is rather a leading question. I suppose they frequent every place ; it is a public place and they go every place there is, I suppose. Q. Did you ever see any in your place? A. I couldn’t say that, I didn’t know what they were. You don’t ask anyone what their business is as a rule. Public Meetings and Testimony 475 unless you get acquainted with them. If I meet anyone, should get acquainted with him, it is not customary to ask a man what his business is unless you are acquainted with him, is it? Q. Did you ever see any man get down on the floor and look up under a woman’s dress in your place? A. Outside of the man in that dance where he lays down on the floor Q. Tell us about that. A. As the Senator told you. Q. You denied that. A. Denied what? He asked me if I saw it. I said, yes, I saw him lay down on the floor, but I didn’t see him look under any dress. Q. What was he doing on the floor? A. Laying down flat on the floor. Q. What was he down there for? A. I don’t know; that girl was five or ten feet away from him. It was in the way the song was to be acted. Q. What did he do? A. He threw himself onto the floor. Q. And looked at the ceiling? A. No, he was looking up that way; I suppose he was looking at her. Q. (To Senator Beall) : What was he doing when he was down there, Senator ? SENATOR BEALL; Looking under the woman’s clothes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I don’t know but that there is only one thing to do, and that is to make a request of the Mayor to close this place. SENATOR BEALL; I believe the fellow tried to do all right. Cut out that part of the business and keep little girls out of there. There are little girls in there fifteen and sixteen years of age sitting around at the table. You have them there, don’t you? You have young girls coming in occasionally with the fellows, girls fifteen or sixteen years old, I daresay they are. A. I don’t sup- pose they ever come in that young. Q. Don’t you think you can cut out that trick show and make it nicer ; you wouldn’t want to take your sister there, would you? A. I would not take my sister in the locality, no, sir. Q. Well, you would not want your sister to see what you have in your place? A. I don’t think there is anything wrong about it, but I would not like to bring her in the locality. M. Blair Coan’s Testimony. M. BLAIR COAN, called as a witness before the Committee, and being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. M. Blair Coan. Q. Were you at Roy Jones’ place tonight? A. I was. Q. Did you hear any song sung? A. I did. Q. Will you tell the Committee what words were used in these songs? A. 1 only heard one song that was sung by a negro girl. Q. What did she say? A. “Put ; put — = .’’ She was doing a dance; that was the chorus; she was doing a contortion and muscle dance. _ Q. Was anybody else with you at the time? A. Mr. Scouten and two policemen. Q. They heard that? A. They all heard it. Q. Do you make that statement under oath, Mr. Coan? A. I do. Q. Realizing that if you state an untruth you are liable for perjury? A. Yes, sir. (Witness excused.) John J. Harding’s Testimony. JOHN J. HARDING, called as a witness before the Committee, and being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows ; Q. You work for the City of Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. As an officer? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were you at Roy Jones’ place tonight? A. Yes, sir. 476 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Did you hear any singing down there? A. Yes, sir. Q. What words did you hear sung? A. Why, a colored lady was singing, ‘‘Put Q. You heard that? A. I heard it. Q. You make that statement as a police ofhcer, knowing that if you tell an untruth you are liable for prosecution for perjury? A. Yes, sir. M. J. Farley’s Testimony. M. J. FARLEY, called as a witness before the Committee, and being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Michael J. Farley. Q. You are a police officer of the City of Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were you at Roy Jones’ place tonight? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you hear any singing there? A. Yes; there w^as a colored lady singing and dancing on the floor. Q. What did she say? A. “Put ,’’ and w'altzing around. Q. You make that statement, officer, knowing that if it be untrue you are liable to a charge of perjury? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Was the woman wffio was singing this piece a colored woman, a short, fat woman? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did she have her clothes up? I have been there myself, and that is the reason I ask it. He denied it. A. She had a dark suit and was holding her skirts up. (Witness excused.) CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Senator Tossey has moved that this Com- mittee use all of its influence to have this place closed; that we wait upon the Mayor of Chicago and present to him the evidence heard here tonight and request that he act as his best judgment wall dictate in the matter. The question is on the adoption of the motion. Those in favor will say aye. Whereupon the motion w'as put by the Chairman and the same was unanimously carried. “Natalie’s” Testimony. “NATALIE,” called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Natalie. Q. Is that your first or your last name? A. That is m3^ first name. That is the name I go by. Q. Haven’t you a last name? A. Maybe. Q. What is your business? A. Dancer. Q. Do you dance at cabaret shows? A. Yes, just now. Q. Where were you dancing tonight? A. At Rector’s. Q. How long have you been dancing at Rector’s? A. A week. Q. Where were you dancing before? A. In New \ ork. Q. At what place in New York? A. Wallace’s. Q. How many times a night do you go on at Rector’s? A. Once. Q. And for how long? A. Three minutes. Q. What do you dance during that three minutes? A. Tango or turkey trot. Q. You don’t object to publicitj', do j'ou? A. No, no; indeed no. Q. W^hen you dance do >'ou throw your clothes around a great deal? A. No, I never touch mj' clothes. Public Meetings and Testimony 477 Q. Do you dance the turkey trot exactly like every other person dances it? A. No, we dance it better. Q. You think it is a perfectly proper dance? A. Yes, sir; I cer- tainly do. Q. How long have you been dancing? A. Oh, about five years. Q. You begun when you were fourteen? A. Yes, when I was thirteen. Q. What did they pay you for dancing that dance there? A. Oh, well, I don’t care to tell you: this is my manager, if he wants to tell you, all right. I' SENATOR BEALL: You are the boss, aren’t you? A. What? Q. You are his boss? A. Oh, no; he is my boss. Q. Then what do you make him stand around for? A. To protect ' me. I I I SENATOR BEALL: We are going to protect you, don’t you be alarmed about that. The girl is all right. She makes her living that I way, don’t you? You make your living through dancing three minutes ] every night? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. Do you take part in the general free-for-all dance at Rector’s beginning at about 11:30 o’clock? A. If I dance there? Q. In the free-for-all. A. Yes, sir. Q. That dance generally starts about 11:30 o’clock, does it? A. Yes, sir. Q. It lasts how late? A. Well, to about 1 o’clock. Q. Your dance is put on just before the general dance starts? A. Yes, I believe so. Q. They try as best they can to imitate or dance as you do? A. Oh, no, no; they all have their own style of dancing: just a turkey trot and two-step and waltz, that is all. Q. How many people have you seen dancing there at one time? A. Oh, about ten couples. Q. Anybody who is a guest there, who eats down there or drinks down there has the privilege of dancing? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever, madam, visited any of these so-called cheap dance n halls where w'orking girls go in for 5 and 10 cents? A. No, I have never been in a place like that. I don’t even know where they are. I know : they have cheap d«,nces, but I never heard of working girls’ dances. SENATOR WOODARD: You don’t give dancing lessons? A. No'. Martin Ferrari’s Testimony. MARTIN FERRARI, called as a witness before the Committee, be- ing first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Martin Ferrari. Q. Are you related to this young woman? A. No. Q. How long have you known her? A. About two years. Q. Where is your home? A. My home at present is in Chicago. Q. How long have you been playing at Rector’s? A. I have been playing at Rector’s since last Wednesday. Q. Do you dance with this young woman? A. Yes. Q. What kind of a dance is it? A. It is a good dance, a proper dance. Q. You throw your arm about her? A. Yes, I do. Q. Is it what is commonly known as a muscle dance? A. It is not. Q. What is a muscle dance? A. A muscle dance is an individual dance that has got to be performed by an individual. 478 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Now, as a matter of fact, don’t you wrap yourself up with this young woman almost as though you were one and glide together? A. At times we do, but only at certain parts of our dancing. We have done certain things, but I do not consider that they are bad, because I object to anything that is licentious. I don’t approve of it. I am a dancing teacher myself, and I don’t see anything good in indecent dancing. Q. What is your opinion of these modern dances? A. It is only a passing fad. Q. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that dances such as you perform, and such as are witnessed in our higher-priced restaurants, have any effect on the dances of the poor class of people who frequent these so-called vicious dance halls? A. It is pretty hard to define the effect they have, because it makes lots of difference. What might appeal to one in one sense might not appeal to one in another. It is the difference in tempera- ments; temperaments are different, and a dance might appeal in one way to a person of a certain temperament, whereas to a person with a dif- ferent temperament it might appeal in an entirely different way. It all depends on the person and on their temperament. Q. Is it your conclusion, then, that whereas you possess an artistic temperament and view matters from an artistic standpoint, there are people of a different kind of temperament who would view' the same thing from a different standpoint, and where you would see art they would see vice? A. Yes, that is my understanding. I think that the dances in themselves originally are an incentive to certain emotions, and you can’t get away from the fact that we are all human, and we naturally have our inclinations. If we feel like dancing, we dance, that is natural. SENATOR WOODARD: Do you think that a restaurant is a proper place for dancing? A. Any public place, either a restaurant or any other place of public gathering is appropriate for dancing, more so than any other place. Q. You don’t think the stage is the proper place? A. Oh, yes; the stage is also proper. So far as that is concerned, I prefer to work on the stage; it lends more dignity to it. After all, it is the public that creates the demand; if it w'as not, the dance would not be here. Q. In other W'ords, your philosophy is that whatever the public wants it ought to have? A. If it is the majority, let them have it. Q. You think that the dances that you are giving nightly at Rector’s are entirely decent? A. Yes, sir; I do. It is my business, and I want to eliminate everything that is indecent. We aim to give a dance that is apart from anything that is in existence today. It is really nothing but a little incidental exhibition of movement that is positively harmless. My real vocation is specialty dancing. Q. You think the kind of dances you are doing now will last very long, do you? A. No; it will soon pass aw'ay. Abe Frank’s Testimony. ABE FRANK, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Abraham Erank. Q. What is your business? A. Manager at Rector’s, and the North American restaurants. Q. You were present when this young woman and this young gentle- man were dancing there tonight? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was there anything objectionable to that dance, Mr. Frank? A. Not in the least. Q. Following that dance, you have a general dance for your patrons? A. We have one that starts at the last minute, yes. Q. How do you manage that general dance? A. Just simply allow the public to indulge in dancing. Public Meetings and Testimony 479 Q. Do you clear away some of the tables? A. We have a small ipace assigned for that purpose, the same as in anything else. Q. How many people generally in that dance? A. So far there las not been over fifteen to twenty couples. Q. Is the fad growing? A. Well, the only reason we started it, it vas on account of the demand of my patrons. The very best class of )eople we cater to, and the very best class of people in Chicago asked me rom time to time, asked why we didn’t start dancing the way they do in ^ew York. I hesitated about doing it until I made an investigation and bund that the style of dancing they call the turkey trot or tango was prevalent in all the best homes and clubs in the city. The South Shore Country Club and all those places allow these dances regularly; they hold ::hese dances regularly. I see no objection to holding them in a restaurant, if they can be held in the best homes and clubs in the city, I don’t see ivhat objection there can be to holding them in a restaurant. Q. The idea came originally from New York? A. Well, it was suggested to me by all of my patrons, the very best class of patrons in ny place, which I consider the best in Chicago. Q. Did that originate in New York, or did New York take it from some European city? A. I could not say. I imagine it may have come from Europe, because it is generally prevalent, as I understand it, in European countries. Q. What dances do they dance at your place? A. They call it the curkey trot, the tango, two-step and waltzes, that is as I understand it. Different people have different ways of dancing; that is, the steps are different. Q. Have you anyone to regulate the dancing at your place? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who? A. I have a man on the floor there that is familiar with the style of dances, and I am there myself. I am there always. We are there to see, and any conduct that is not just right we would not permit it; people have to dance in the proper manner. Q. During the time you have had dancing at your place, have you stopped anyone from dancing because of objectionable steps? A. No, there has not been anything objectionable. Q. What would you consider to be the bounds of decency in a dance? A.. People that would conduct themselves, would embrace or annoy other people by bumping into them, or anything of that sort, we would stop them, or if a person was not well behaved we would stop them in a moment. Q. If a man or woman had been drinking too much, you would not permit them to dance? A. No, sir. Q. Do the patrons of Rector’s have drinks served to them before and between dances? A. No, we have very little trouble with that class af people. We don’t sell drinks to anybody that shows signs of intoxica- tion. Q. Have you ever been on an excursion steamer running over to Michigan? A. Well, it is five years since I have been there. Q. Did you ever see the kind of dances they have on those boats? A. Yes, sir. Five or six years ago there was dancing that seemed to me aught to have been stopped. There were little, young people that were lancing who would not be permitted in our place to dance. It is a different ;lass of people we have in my place. Q. That is the point I have in mind. An earnest woman was before IS today and testified that many girls were ruined for life at vicious dance rails. We have met tonight in an effort to ascertain the root, or the nspiration, of this evil complained of. You describe your patrons as the ‘best people of the City of Chicago.” Is it your opinion, or is it not, that 'the actions of those persons form a pattern for some of our working boys ind girls; that the latter are likely to say, “We are doing nothing harmful rere, because if they can do it at Rector’s, why can’t we do it,” and that ;o that extent there is some connection between the dances at Rector’s md the dances at places you admit are not proper? A. We do not give 480 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee improper dances. We would not give an improper dance any more than you would permit it in your home. Q. You do it because it is good business? A. Yes, but we would not allow anything improper, because it would ruin our business if we did. SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you think that a dance that is danced in your place and is considered perfectly proper, if danced in one of these so-called dance halls, would be considered indecent there? A. The dance itself is perfectly decent. It is the kind of people that they permit to dance it. Q. Do you think the kind of people has something to do with it? A. Yes, sir; I certainly do. The dance is decent. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: About how many people eat at your place a day? A. O, possibly 2,000. Q. You have a right smart amount at stake? A. Oh, yes; a good deal: we could not afford to do anything at Rector’s that would deteriorate the standard. We cater to the best people in Chicago only.- Any place of the character of Rector’s could not afford to allow anything like that: if they did, it would ruin their business entirely. We would not permit anything but a first-class dance to go on the floor. Q. Don’t you think that that dance we have been discussing at your place went very much to the extreme? A. Absolutely not; it is a great deal more decent than you can see in one of the best theatres in Chicago today. We see it every day in grand opera, we see it in the theatres a great deal worse. Q. Who tells the girls that sing at your restaurant, the performers, what songs they shall sing? A. I have a cabaret manager, but all songs are subject to my approval before they are put on. We engage the per- formers to do their act; they say that they shall sing for us, but any objectionable songs they must cut out. If the songs border on the line of suggestiveness, I order it stopped. Q. What do you think of the harem song? A. I stopped that a couple of months ago. Q. But you, stopped it after this Committee had started its work? A. Perhaps; I don’t know. I saw something in the newspapers, stating that the harem song was objectionable. Q. Are they singing “All Night Long” at Rector’s? A. If they are singing “All Night Long” in my place I’ll buy you a banquet. I will set up a banquet for this Committee and everybody in this room if that is so. Q. Our investigators tell us that is so. A. I will buy a banquet for everybody in this room if that is so. (Leaning over and pointing toward one of the investigators.) But I want you to be careful what you testify to about me, or 1 will make you prove it. I wish this man to be placed under oath, and let him state here what he said, and I will make him prove it. I don’t want to butt in on this, but I don’t want j-ou fellows to be stating anything about me or my place that a'ou can’t prove. Q. How long since the harem song has been sung at Rector’s? A. I think it is something like si.x or eight weeks ago, or two months. Q. Could either the harem or any other song be sung tonight at your place without you knowing it? A. No, absolutely not. Q. Or some other night? A. It might some other night. I take one night a week off. I stay at home and get acquainted with my family, and remain there the rest of the evening, but they wouldn’t dare to sing them in my absence. I don’t think they would dare not to follow instruc- tions that I gave. Q. Have you any other songs in mind that j^ou consider objection- able? A. There is one song called “Goodie, Goodie,” where some of the people get up and make love to one another, that is one of the songs I stopped. The song this gentleman tells us I don’t think was ever sung Public Meetings and Testimony 481 ‘ in either one of my places. There is nothing in the nature of any song in Rector’s that can be considered as objectionable. Q. Do you employ any women in your place? A. In the capacity of performers in the cabaret? Q. Outside of the cabaret? A. No, sir. Q. Any dish washers? A. A great many kitchen h^Ip and cashiers, f and attendants in toilets, and such as that. ' Q- What is the lowest salary you pay to any girl working for you? A. Thirty-five dollars and her board. SENATOR WOODARD: Do you think a man, if he takes a girl to a I first-class restaurant such as yours, and buys her a good meal and a few : drinks, do you think that might be a factor in making her step aside or in lowering her morality? A. That might be possible, I would not say. I imagine that a woman — a man going out with a woman to dine, so long . as they act perfectly proper in an establishment of our kind; that is, as far as we can go: what they do after that is none of our business; if they conduct themselves properly in our place then I have nothfhg further to do with them. H. H.’s and E. W.’s Testimony. I H. H. and E. W., called as witnesses before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, were examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. H. H. Q. And what is your name? A. E. W. Q. Where are you working? E. W. : At Rector’s. Q. Are you paid by any publisher for singing his songs? A. No, sir. Q. What do you do? H.H.: Whistle. Q. Where? A. At Rector’s. Q. How long have you been there? A. Since Monday. Q. Are you being paid by any publisher to whistle his tunes? A. No, not now. Q. Were you ever? A. Once. Q. What do you think about the harem song? A. Well, I don’t ii know. Q. You would not sing a song of that character? A. No, sir; I ■ would not sing it. I only sing ballads; I don’t pay any attention to the ] others. i Maude J. Josaphare’s Testimony. j MAUDE J. JOSAPHARE, called as a witness before the ComrAittee, l| being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as j follows: p EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. 'Maude J. Josa- phare. Q. Were you at Rector’s tonight? A. I had supper there. Q. Between what hours? A. Between 10:45 and 11:45 o’clock; I left there at 12:10 o’clock. Q. During the time you were in Rector’s tonight did you hear any singing or see any dancing? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will you describe the songs that you heard and the dances that you saw? A. I was too far away to hear the words of any song. The music that accompanied it was evidently operatic, one of them; the other one had something to do with the topics of the day, because I heard the White Sox mentioned; those were the only two songs that I heard sung. 482 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. And the dances? A. The dances are on the platform. The solo dance was performed by the young woman that sat in this chair and testified before the Committee. In the first dance she wore the usual ballet dancer’s dress, white muslin skirts and pink tights. She might just as well have absolutely had no skirts on at all at various portions of the dance. I couldn’t just tell you how it happened, but when she turned around rather quickly she might just as well have had no skirts on at all. Q. That was the girl who was here with that young man? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did they dance together? A. No, the man did not dance in that dance at all; that was the solo dance. Q. When did they dance together? A. May I say that after that dance she appeared in pink tights and a costume of black chiffon that made a sort of a harem costume; I suppose she had Turkish trousers. Of course, one thickness of black chiffon over pale, pink tights was all she wore. In that she danced the Oriental dance alone. Q. Was that a suggestive dance? A. Well, I think that all of those pantomime Oriental dances are, and that was one of them. Q. Do you know something of art? A. I was a teacher of art in the public schools in Philadelphia for two years. Q. Have you seen this kind of dances there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Describe the other dance you saw. A. The third dance was what I should call the tango. It was danced with a man. I have seen one there in the slums in New York. In the modern tango the man picks the girl up and throws her around, bends over to the floor that way, rests his arms on her arms and his head on her shoulder, and vice versa. Q. Is it art or suggestive? A. I don’t think there is any art in that. I think it is very suggestive, the kind of suggestiveness that may confuse in the mind of a young girl. Q. Could any young girl view it without confusing her sense of right and wrong? A. Well, I should not want my daughter to see it. It might not have any bad effect on her at all, but I would not want to risk it. Q. You think that kind of dancing is a menace to womanhood? A. Yes, sir; I think it is a menace to womanhood; at least if the things I heard men say at the other tables around me are any criterion. Q. What did they say: do you care to repeat them? A. I heard one man say, for instance, that he was awful glad she wore silk tights, that he was awful tired of mercerized ones. Q. What other remarks were made that you heard? A. Well, the usual remarks that “I am for her,” “She can have me,” “I wouldn’t mind making a date with her,” “She is one of the prettiest I ever saw.” SimpR the usual remarks we hear men make when a girl dances prettily and well, or otherwise. SENATOR WOODARD: It must have been suggestive, because they made suggestions. A. Yes, they did. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Was there any other dances after that? ’A. Then there was the general dance. Q. Tell us about that general dance. A. Well, I saw a girl there who looked about nineteen; of course, you can’t judge ages in a restau- rant under an artificial light, with a pink rose in her hair; she did a verj" peculiar thing. Q. What was that? A. The man held her out a distance of three or four feet and they danced three or four steps; then he embraced her, then loosened her and then danced three or four steps and then embraced again. Q. Again, art or suggestion? A. There wasn’t any art in it, if that is an answer to your question. Q. How many people were dancing? A. I should think there were twenty couples dancing: I think three or four couples were dancing the ordinary two-step; the others were doing the modern variations of the tango and turkey trot. Public Meetings and Testimony 483 Q. Were any of the dancers intoxicated? A. Oh, I didn’t notice anything of that sort. Q. Were the majority of the dancers young? A. Perhaps two-thirds of them were. Q. Some of them very young? A. This young girl with a rose in her hair was the youngest. I venture she was nineteen. SENATOR TOSSEY: In your opinion, are there many girls that frequent Rector’s, or places of that character, that go wrong? A. I am sure I am not enough of an authority to know. I saw girls there, but I know nothing about their private lives. SENATOR WOODARD: Do you think that a restaurant like that is a proper place to dance the tango? A. Well, I am telling you what 1 thought tonight. I thought there was once a time when women who gave balls or dances had to beg men to come and dance; now they have to give public dances to accommodate all the people who want to dance. It must be that the sort of dancing they do must be very different from the old kind. There is something wrong with it when people want to dance everywhere. Q. Do you think it is more proper on the stage than in the home? A. I don’t think it is proper anywhere if it is not proper in the home. Q. You don’t know the people on the stage, but in the home you do know the people. A. Well, I don’t see how it can be right at one place and not be right in another. Charles M. Richter’s Testimony. CHARLES M. RICHTER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Charles M. Rich- ter. Q. What is your business? A. Publishing business. Q. Were you at Rector’s Restaurant tonight? A. I was. Q. Did you see anything out of the way there? A. Not in the least. Q. Did you see those dances? A. Yes, sir. Q. What kind of dances were they? A. Well, my attention all the time was not on the stage. One was a ballet dance, and the other was what they call the tango. I don’t think you can give it any particular name; it was more or less of an acrobatic dance, I should say. Q. Do you think that a dance of that sort has any wrongful in- fluence upon the mind of a young girl of nineteen or twenty who might be a witness of it? A. I don’t think so, because I think it is altogether an exclusive acrobatic dance, and carries no suggestion with it. C. Gregg’s Testimony. C. GREGG, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. C. Gregg. Q. And your business? A. Waiter. Q. You were over at Rector’s tonight? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you see anything there that was not right or proper in your liidgment? A. No, sir. Q. Did you see a dance there tonight? A. I saw a new dance with conventional costume, sort of Egyptian dance, with a carpet on the floor, and then the dance with this man. Q. Do you consider that kind of a dance has a good moral influence 484 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee or bad moral influence on the community? A. I am not competent to answer. O. B. Stimpson’s Testimony. O. B. STIMPSON, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. O. B. Stimpson. Q. What is your business? A. Manager of the States Restaurant. Q. Do you have any general dance down there? A. Yes, sir. Q. What time do you begin the general dance? A. 6:30, 8:30, 11 and 1 o’clock. Q. What kind of dances do you have? A. Waltzing and two-step. Q. How long have your patrons been dancing in this manner? A. I don’t think it is two weeks that we started it. Q. How many people were dancing there tonight? A. Four couples, I believe; I think three couples, besides one professional. It might have been more; the most we ever danced, danced tonight; I know that, and I think four couples was the limit. Q. Were all those dances proper? A. Every one of them; j'es, sir. Q. You serve drinks in your place, do you? A. Yes, sir. Q. It is an important part of your business? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is it your observation, or is it not, that public criticism is directed against dances in any place where drinks are sold? A. That is possible, and probable. But we have been forced to do it by the demands of our patrons. We haven’t had any tango and this sort of things; we have onh' been doing it a few days. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We have brought you here tonight because several persons, who have been interested in restricting vice and cleansing dance halls in Chicago, have asserted the necessity, or at least advisability, of prohibiting drinking at public places where dancing is indulged in. We are merely an investigating Committee. We seek facts, and we welcome viewpoints. We want yours. We want 3 ^ou to talk franklj' and freely. Obviously the rules applying to the poor halls must apph' to the first-class restaurants as well; we cannot investigate the poorer places without in- vestigating the places patronized b}" the wealthier people. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: It would be a hardship on j‘ou without the sale of liquor? A. Yes, sir.. Q. Is there any money in the restaurant business anj’ more? A. At present, no. Q. You have to pay it all to these cabaret performers, don’t j'ou? A. Pretty near. Q. Do you think some of these popular songs are going too far? A. I think so, yes. Q. What is that “/\11 Night” song that they talk about? A. I don’t know, sir. Q. Do you ever hear any song of that sort sung in j-our place? A. No, sir; not that I know of. The harem song I cut out. It was sung in my place last week one night. Q. When did you cut it out? A. Last week. Q. Whjf? A. Why, somebody mentioned the fact to me, and I had it cut out. Q. You are in your place every night? A. Everv' night; j^es, sir. Q. Didn’t you hear “All Night Long” sung there tonight? A. I Public Meetings and Testimony 485 don’t know; it might have been sung: I paid very little attention to it tonight. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: In putting on this cabaret stunt you have to raise the price of food at your place? A. We haven’t raised the price yet. Q. You will have to do it eventually? A. We will have to do it if we keep up with the times. Q. In other words, you will raise the price of living? A. That is right. Q. Do you think that people demand it? A. It seems they do; they won’t go to places where we don’t have it; you would starve to death without it. I tried one month without it and lost $2,200. Q. Do you think it possible to bring these restaurants all to- gether, managers and owners, and have a mutual understanding to cut out this sort of thing? A. Yes, it is possible, although it has been attempted several times by restaurant co-operative associations. We have even tried to cut out music two years ago. I worked very hard for it. Q. One more question: what makes girls go wrong? A. Why, the majority of them go wrong because they don’t get the proper education. They are not like a young boy. Their parents, to begin with, are probably ignorant and their environments had a good deal to do with it. Q. All right; a girl is working, we will say, for a starvation salary, or insufficient wage, she is a good girl, and some man comes along, possibly a decent man, and how does' he court her? A. In the first place, he takes her to a restaurant or bar, and buys her a drink for the inner man, or stomach. Q. Many of those men will take a girl to such a restaurant as yours? A. Or to the LaSalle. Q. Or any first-class place? A. Yes. Q. And he buys her a good dinner, w'hich costs him about as much as she makes in a whole week? A. That is true. SENATOR TOSSEY : What is the lowest wage you pay? A. Twenty-five dollars a month to the scrub girls and their board. I pay as high as $60.00 a month, $50.00 a month in the restaurant, but there is only six of them. Dora Wilson’s and George H. Wilson’s Testimony. DORA WILSON and GEORGE H. WILSON, called as witnesses before the Committee, being first duly sw^orn by Senator Beall, was ex- amined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Dora Wilson. Q. And yours? A. George H. Wilson. Q. What is the relationship? Mr. Wilson: Man and wife. Q. (To Mr. Wilson): Where do you dance? A. I happened to be at the States tonight. Q. You dance with your wife down there? A. Yes. You have heard from Mr. Stimpson that he desired to put on dances following the style in this city, and he thought it would be advisable to engage a recognized dancer in the city. I believe he engaged, or at least I know he did engage a Miss Long, who has one of the best schools in the city in the Powers Building. Miss Long being in my profession, she requested me, when I had time to come over and help her demonstrate and help her take care of the work over there. So I and my wife, when we have nothing else to do, go down to Mr. Stimpson’s restaurant and entertain ourselves and Mr. Stimpson. Q. Are you paid for dancing? A. No, there is nothing — of course, the consideration is that our check is overlooked, I guess. It is more for a favor to Miss Long that I do it than anything else. 486 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do you see anything indecent in any of the dances? A. No, sir; because there is nothing indecent in my mind. Q. If there were something indecent in the mind of the onlooker, would the dance then be indecent? A. No, sir; the man’s mind might be indecent, but not the dance. Q. Nothing can be indecent except the man’s mind? A. That is all. SENATOR WOODARD: Did you hear “All Night Long” sung there? A. I haven’t much of an ear for listening to these songs; I heard that question asked of Mr. Stimpson. I was trying to think then: I couldn’t say. Q. You have quite a foot for dancing, but not an ear for music? A. I have a good ear. SENATOR TOSSEY: He has no ear for “All Night Long,” and, therefore, he has got a decent mind. SENATOR WOODARD (to Mrs. Wilson): Did you hear “All Night Long?” Do you sing? A. I don’t think anybody would want to hear me sing. Q. Have you ever heard “All Night Long” sung? A. Yes, sir. Q. What sort of a song is it? A. It depends on how you sing it. I can sing “All Night Long” and not see anything bad in it. Q. What is the chorus of “All Night Long?” A. I don’t know, but I think I will look it up tomorrow. There isn’t much to it. It hasn’t anything that I could object to, or anybody else with a decent mind. I think it is just the way that you look at it, the things that affect people. MR. WILSON: Some places they have to pay to get in to dance. Q. Are there any professional dancers at the States? A. Miss Long and one or two of her paid assistants, and sometimes some of her better pupils have to fill in two or three couples there; and Miss Long, I am sure I can safely say, has as high a class school as there is in the City of Chicago. Of course, you probably naturally recognize that I have made this subject more or less of a study. Whereupon a recess was taken by the Committee to ten o’clock A. M., April 12, 1913. SESSION XVIII Proprietor describes efforts made to guard girl patrons of “Dreamland” dance halL Caretaker tells of orgies held in East End hall. Owner of Columbia hall, criticised by other witnesses, thanks the Committee for an opportunity to explain how his hall is conducted. Testimony of: Frank Bement, proprietor of “Dreamland;” Walter Bassett, caretaker, East End hall; F. T. McGuire, proprietor, Columbia hall. Chicago, April 12, 1913, 10:00 A. M., La Salle Hotel. The Committee met pursuant to adjournment. All members being present, the following proceedings were had : Frank Bement’s Testimony. FRANK BEMENT, called as a witness before the Committee, was first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Frank Bement. Q. Your business, Mr. Bement? A. Dancing master. Q. With what hall, if any, are you connected? A. Dreamland. I am the active and executive manager. Q. You have a financial interest in the hall? A. None, whatever. Q. Where is it located, Mr. Bement? A. Paulina and West Van Buren street. Q. How often are dances held there? A. Six times a week. Every night except Monday and Tuesday, and Sunday afternoon, and additional to that, when it should be rented straight for a night. Q. What time do the dances begin? A. 8:30 each evening. Q. What time does the last dancer leave the building? A. Midnight, except Saturday. Saturday at 1 in the morning. Q. How many people will this hall accommodate? A. A full hall will accommodate about 1,000 couples. Q. Is it often filled to capacity? A. Not very often. Q. What would you say is the average attendance, or average number of couples? A. Between 500 and 1,000. Q. Are any indecent dances permitted? A. None whatever. Q. To prevent any indecency what system have you? A. We have not less than six or eight people with their eyes on the crowd every moment. Q. Where are those six or eight people? A. Some are on the floor, and all over the house. Every emploj^e of the house is instructed to look out for things that we would not want. We have one man in the center of the floor all the time, others moving about the place Q. You consider it good business to protect your hall in that way? A. I certainly do. I have been 24 years in the dancing business in Chicago, longer than any other man in the business, dealing with this class of people. Q. Do you serve intoxicants? A. None whatever; it is prohibited, even when we have other people there than our own. Q. This Committee has been informed that your company has also assisted in cleaning up some of the rooming houses in that neighborhood; is that true? A. We have made complaints against them. The place called the Blue Light is closed entirely. 487 488 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Your hall is paying? A. Yes, sir, making money. Q. Do you wish this Committee to understand that you don’t allow the sale of intoxicants, that you are assisting in cleaning up the neighborhood, making it a moral neighborhood as nearly as you can, and that you guard your own patrons from indecency, because it is good business? A. Yes, sir. This is our second year, but I do not think that we would have been doing business now if we had not followed that plan. We would have been out of business. I do not think a place of that size could exist unless it was properly handled. Q. Will you tell the Committee something about the moral cleaning up of that neighborhood? A. Well, the building we took where we found it. The neighborhood was not good. When we opened up there we were under a heavy burden. We felt that we were going to do business, and it was up to us to do what we could to prevent things that would injure our place, the moral standing of it. And we made complaints; whether it was our complaints or the lack of business, I could not say possibly; but a great many of the places are closed. There is not anything close to there now. There are two or three saloons close, and two or three rooming houses close. One called the Rink, because it was formerly an ice rink, is the nearest one. I notice it is vacant, as there are signs “For rent” up today. It has not promoted the bad features of the neighborhood, having Dream- land there, not by any means. My orders, when we opened up there, were to keep the dance absolutely and strictly clean, and I have always done it, and I think we have had less objectionable things occur there than any other hall in the city, notwithstanding its large size. Q. How much do you charge for a dance? A. Five cents each dance. We require a gentleman to buy two tickets before he enters the hall. Q. That is, five cents a person or couple? A. Five cents a couple. Q. Now, when a person has purchased his ticket, or ten cents’ worth of tickets, and has gone into the hall, is there anything to prevent him from going out and walking a block or two and getting a few drinks and coming back and buying more tickets? A. Yes, we won’t permit it. unless they get by us without our knowing it, but they don’t very often do that; they might do it once or twice. Q. What is the rule? A. We don’t admit the same person twice on the same evening, whether they pay their way in or not. They never leave the hall without a ticket and they are refused admittance the second time. They never leave the hall without taking their wraps with them, as if they intended to stay, and we expect them to staJ^ Q. Do any girls go there without escorts? A. Oh, yes. a great many. Q. What do the}' pay when they come in? A. They don’t pay any- thing. Q. How is that? A. They pay nothing to come in. Q. Then it is possible, under your system, for a man to go into your place and make a selection of girls to dance with? A. \ es, sir. Q. Is there any way of minimizing the danger attaching to that sys- tem? A. It might be minimized. It could not be prevented, the getting acquainted, the girls coming to a public dance alone and getting acquainted, but we promote their introduction and acquaintances as much as possible. But at that, the introducing of two people does not make any difference with them; if they get acquainted, whether they get acquainted with an introduction or without it. But we watch over the people, and if a girl comes in and stands around and doesn’t dance, doesn’t take her wraps off, she usually doesn’t do that over two or three times until we find out what she is there for, and we ask her to stay away. Q. Mrs. Britton has informed this Committee you have one of the best regulated dance halls in Chicago, but that there are a few faults. The girls come in, they are admitted free; and men come in, respectable so far as you know, and’ they mingle with these girls. Among the men coming in might be, and in some cases it does happen, agents of the white slave industry, who are looking for girls to seduce; now, ^Ir. Bement. from your experience what would you say can be done further to minimize the danger? A. From observation we can learn a great deal of a person’s Public Meetings and Testimony 489 motive by keeping close watch on how they are acting and what they do. We have a matron in the ladies’ room to inform us if anything looks as if anyone was there after the girls: we keep pretty close watch over them. Only a week or so ago 1 spoke to one of our stockholders and said, “1 believe there is a woman that 1 will go and tell to stay away.” He says, “You had better be careful, don’t get in bad.” That same night he called around there and saw the same woman and told her not to come back. He had observed something. Q. What did he observe? A. She passed out cards to two or three men, and he simply went up to her and told her to leave the place and stay away, and she has not been back since. Q. You are always on the lookout? A. Always, constantly. Q. Does that happen once in a while or quite frequently? A. Not very often, but it has happened a few times. Q. Do you ever order any men away from there? A. Oh, yes. There is one single man I had in mind now, and I made up my mind from observation that a young girl would not be safe in his hands. I had other reasons to tell him to stay away, and I did so. Q. Have you ever ordered any man away because, in your judgment or in your belief, he was an agent of commercialized prostitution? A. No, I never have; never have met with them. 1 don’t think that there is an effort to get girls out of there, unless there was some personal, in- dividual case; not for any possible proposition of white slavery. You see, we keep such a close watch over them, and they know it, that they don’t feel that it is a profitable place to come. Q. Is there any singing in your hall? A. None whatever. These lellows come around, music publishers, and want to put it in, but I have always said, “Nothing like that.” Q. What kind of dances are the most popular? A. The waltz, the two-step, and once in a while the three-step. Q. What do you call the three-step? A. They are gliding steps to three-four time, to Mazurka time, they glide. It is just as chaste a dance as any ever was. Q. How about the tango and the turkey trot? A. We have no tango or turkey trot; nothing of the kind there. Q. Are they prohibited? A. Absolutely. Q. If anyone dances the tango or turkey trot are they ordered from the place? A. They are corrected, and if they don’t observe the correc- tion they are told to leave the floor and place and not come back. Q. Is there any embracing? A. Nothing like that, no close posi- tions, no heads together; none of the tough looking dances that you see in the tougher halls; nothing like that, whether it is right or wrong. Some things are prohibited that are right, that are not objectionable even in other places, for instance, the dip, and so forth. Q. How old are those girls that visit your place? A. We don’t admit them under eighteen years unless they are with their parents. Q. But you don’t always know it? A. I presume they get by us sometimes; sometimes we make mistakes the other way and keep them out when they are over eighteen. Q. How many times in the year have you refused admittance to girls because you thought they were under eighteen? A. Well, that all de- pends. We get reports from the Pinkerton people that we use. I have some of them here. I just picked out a few from the bundle. Here is one of March 5th. It says: “As per instructions of Peter Lavin, the follow- ing persons at the door, twelve boys and seven girls who appeared to be under fifteen years of age, and fifteen men, who appeared to be under the influence of liquor, were refused admission.” Q. Are many of the girls who patronize your hall working girls? A. Most of them, I presume. Q. Some of them perhaps work for wages below what this Commit- tee is pleased to term the bread-line? A. Very likely. O. Your dance hall especially caters to them? A. Yes, we have 490 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee a bargain counter in dances. They come in there if they haven’t any money to spend an evening. A great many of them have no other place to go, there is no doubt about it. Q. You have met a good many of those girls? A. More or less. If a girl comes in late in the evening two or three times, we find out what her occupation is. She may be a telephone girl, or a waitress, she may be employed and come in there from her work. If her work doesn’t keep her until late, why then we don’t want her there. Q. In your judgment, what makes girls go wrong? A. I think igno- rance more than anything else. Q. Ignorance? A. Yes, sir, and the designing influence of men. Q. What makes them succumb to the “designing influence of men”? A. Well, I think that is where the ignorance comes in as much as any- thing else; that is my opinion from a great deal of observation in Chicago. Q. Is it your opinion, or is it nob that low wages are a factor? A. I think it has an influence. But it is not the only factor. I think a woman might go hungry if she had a strong will and was properly im- pressed in her childhood to protect herself rather than let anybody carry her away. Q. It is your opinion that it is one of the large contributing causes of a girl’s downfall? A. Yes, I think it is. Q. You say that as a man who perhaps has seen more working girls in their moments of innocent enjoyment than any other man in Chi- cago? A. Well, I have conducted this kind of dances for 24 years, and never conducted one in a way or spirit that I would be ashamed to have it brought out on the Day of Judgment. SENATOR TOSSEY: What relation do you think the sale of liquor at a dance hall has to a girl going wrong? A. I think it contributes greatly. I think it is one of the worst things that happen at dances, is the dispensing of liquor at a public dance, under any circumstances. Q. Under any circumstances? A. It is very bad under any cir- cumstances at a public dance. Walter Bassett’s Testimony. WALTER BASSETT, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Walter Bassett. Q. And your business? A. I am manager of the house furnishing department of the East End Store, and take charge of the hall at that place. Q. What hall? A. The East End Hall, on Clark street. Q. To whom is the hall rented? A. Well, since we have had dances much of the time it has been rented to organized parties. Q. That is, an organization comes and they rent it for an evening to run a dance themselves? A. Yes, sir. Q. How do you know that those organizations are really bona fide? A. We could not say as to that, whether they are or not. Q. You take their word for it? A. We take their word for it. Q. If they come and show you their money that deposit mone}- looks all right? A. I don’t have anything to do with the renting of it; I just go up in the evening to take care of things. Q. Why doesn’t your employer run dances there? A. In the first place, I don’t think it would pay them, because the crowd of people around that district would not spend enough money to make it pay; that element around there would not be fit to have in the dance hall. Q. So he finds it more profitable to hire it out to other people and let them run it? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 491 Q. Did you have a dance there on the evening of March 3rd? A. Yes, sir. Q._ Who gave that dance? A. That was the South Water Street Commission Drivers, supposed to be organized, but they were not. Q. It was not an organization at all? A. No, sir. Q. Did they sell liquor there that night? A. Yes, sir. Q. With or without a license? A. Without a license. Q. With a special bar permit? A. They didn’t have a permit. Q. How do you know they didn’t? A. Because it was closed about eleven or twelve o’clock when a policeman came up there. Q. Did the policeman stop it? A. No, the police went away, and about two o’clock they came back and raided the hall. Q. How many people were there that night? A. I should judge about five hundred. Q. About 250 girls and about 250 fellows? A. As a rule, there is more girls than fellows. Q. How many of these girls are young girls? A. I could not say as to their ages, but judging from their appearance they are very young. Q. Some are very, very young? A. Judging from their appeaance. Q. How young would you judge some of them were? A. Why, I looked at some, some were fifteen and some were under fifteen. Q. Some were fifteen and some under fifteen? A. Yes, of course there were a good many older ones there. Q. Did some of those girls that in your judgment were under fifteen come unescorted? A. I could not say as to that; I didn’t see them with any escorts around there. Q. Were any of those girls drinking? A. Yes, sir, they were all drinking, these girls under fifteen — all drinking. Q. What kind of drinks generally? A. I couldn’t say that, but I know a few of them were intoxicated. Q. A few of those girls under fifteen were intoxicated? A. A few of them. Q. Well, is it a fact that at most of these dances girls do get intoxi- cated? A. There is a few now and then, but this is the only one that I have any knowledge of where young girls were intoxicated. Q. At all these other dances they all do a good deal of drinking? A. They all drink. Q. Occasionally some of them do get intoxicated? A. Yes, sir. Q. And occasionally some of the girls are fourteen or fifteen or six- teen in your judgment? A. In my judgment. Q. You say about three hundred girls and two hundred fellows, and some of the girls intoxicated and the fellows intoxicated; what happens then? A. Then there is rough house, and it is time for me to get out. I don’t stay there then. Q. Is that your policy when this place is rented and rough house begins, it is time for you to get out? A. I am up there to see that the lights are out, and to check up; but when they start a rough house I get out. There is always a special policeman, when they have a bar permit, to watch those things; but in this case they didn’t have a policeman — they done just what they pleased. Q. What did you see before you left there that night? A. I iust walked around there and I seen them take strange girls back in the wine- room and drink and come out with them. The girls were dizzy, and I would come in just about that time. I sat down in a chair and a fellow comes along, and he says, “Hello,” and I says, “Hello.” He said something to me and I called him and he hit me. I got up and hit him back, and there was about fourteen on top of me, and just about then a detective came in and he stopped us. I went out and stayed out until about two o’clock, and then I thought it was about time to come back just before the dance closed, and we checked up to see that everything was there. 492 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You didn’t check up that night? A. No, sir, they took them all in the wagon. Q. How many were taken in the wagon? A. I could not say. Q. Any girls? A. I don’t know about that; there were hats and cloaks left up in the hall that they didn’t get. Q. Did you notice any young men taking liberties with any of the girls? A. Well, in a way I did; a good many liberties that should not be taken in public; there were girls laying on the table drunk and fellows kissing them; and some were trying to do worse than that. One fellow was up behind the piano with a girl. He was taken off. REPRESENTATIVE KARCH: What does that building consist of, just a hall? A. No, a hall with a department store downstairs, and theatre — five-cent show. Q. You work in the department store, do you? A. Yes, sir. Q. What does that hall rent for on those occasions. A. On Satur- day nights I think they get $125 for it. Q. For one night? A. Yes, sir. Q. How frequently does it rent? A. As a rule every Saturday and sometimes during the week, to political meetings and so forth. Q. Your proprietor owns that place, does he? A. Yes, sir, the w'hole place. Q. You are there only as property man? A. Only just up there in the evenings. Q. You have no authority so far as the regulating of conduct is con- cerned? A. No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Who owns the building in which that hall is located? A. The Grand Brewery. SENATOR TOSSEY: Where is that located? A. Clark and Erie streets. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You say this hall is occasionally used for political meetings? A. Yes, sir, mostly on week days or Saturday after- noons. Q. Have you an idea how much they charge for the use of that hall for political rallies? A. That depends. Q. Is that below or above what they charge for dances? A. Below. Q. Very much below? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do they ever give the hall free for political rallies? A. No, sir. Q. Always charge for it? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: How much do they charge for a political rally? A. Sometimes twenty or twenty-five dollars, and sometimes not that much. Q. But they charge $125 for a dance? A. Yes, sir. REPRESENTATIVE ZOLA: Are there any rooming houses near that dance hall? A. Not adjoining. Q. How near? A. There is two of them in the block across the street from there. Q. Did you ever see any of the people go from the dance hall to these hotels? A. I never seen them go into the hotels; I don’t know where they would go after they left the hall. Q. You stated 3 ^ou saw some improper conduct behind the piano? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you make any attempt to stop it? A. No, sir, I had noth- ing to do with it. I would get killed if I did anything that waj'. Q. Who closed the hall there? A. I did. SENATOR WOODARD: They went out before the hall was closed? A. A policeman stayed there with me until all got out. REPRESENTATIVE ZOLA: Is there a saloon downstairs in this dance hall? A. No, sir, but across the street there is some. Public Meetings and Testimony 493 Q. Did you tell your boss what happened on the night of March 21st? A. No, sir, he very seldom believes anything he hears of what happens up in the hall, so I didn’t take time to tell him. He knew the place was raided that night. In the morning, when I told him, he didn’t seem interested, so I kept still. Q. Does he know of the general conduct of people that come to that hall? A. Well, in the way they come in, they are supposed to be incorporated, and he lets them in. He has only taken the hall since January 21st. He had it leased out up to that time, and then he put the people out that were running it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I think we ought to put into the record that this boy is one of the best witnesses we have had before this Com- mittee. He apparently has told the truth. Is Mr. Larson here? MR. McGUIRE: Mr. Larson is not here, but I represent him. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We will hear you. You will be sworn, please. F. T. McGuire’s Testimony. F. T. McGUIRE, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Frank T. McGuire. Q. What is your business? A. Dancing master. Q. With what hall, if any, are you connected? A. With the Colum- bia hall, 1527 North Clark Street. Q. What is your connection with that hall? A. I am lessor and manager, and give dances there, teaching and dancing; have full charge of the property, it being my lease. Q. What connection has Mr. S. A. Larson with you? A. He is the main lessor. I su’o-lease from him. Q. Did you hear the witness who was just on the stand? A. Yes, I heard part of it. His voice was very low and I did not hear it all. O. Have you ever had anything of that sort happen in your hall? A. Never. Q. How often do you give dances there? A. We have five dances a week, two schools and three receptions. Q. What do you call a school? A. A school is where we teach dancing. Q. What do you call a reception? A. A reception is a kind of assembly where all of the dancers go for pleasure to dance; they come there to dance. Q. Anybody can attend a reception if they have the price? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the price? A. Fifty cents for gentlemen and twenty- five cents for ladies, and wardrobe free. 0. How many couples do you have there a night? A. Well, that is different, on different nights; school nights we have less, and reception nights more. We will say about three hundred, two hundred fifty to three hundred couples; the school runs from two hundred fifty to three hundred. Q. Do you have more boys than girls, or more women than men? A. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t, according to the time, the nights and conditions. If it is a rainy night we don’t get so many girls as boys. On a nice evening you probably get more girls than boj^s. Thursday, that is a good night, and a great many girls come out on Thursday. Q. Girls pay a quarter? A. Everyone; everybody pays and no girl is allowed out. 494 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do many girls come there without escorts? A. Sometimes. Q. When these unescorted girls come there where do they go? A. To the cloak room first. Q. Suppose a girl is a stranger and she doesn’t know anybody in the place at all, what does she do, does she go into the dancing parlor and wait around until some fellow comes up and introduces himself? A. No, we have an introducer there that always takes care of a gentleman that is not known, and ladies; a great many come up and ask to be introduced; they say, “I am a stranger here, would you kindly get me a partner,” and we see that everybody is taken care of in that way. Q. Do you guarantee to all the girls who come there that you are going to get them a dancing partner? A. Oh, no, you can’t do that. Q. As a matter of fact, do any girls go in there by paying a quarter and fail to get a dance during the night? A. Yes, sir, I daresay they do. There is quite a few that do not get a dance a night, because there is more girls than boys. Q. Ever ask for a rain check when they leave? A. Not the girls, sometimes the boys do. Q. Especially when they can’t get a dance? A. Yes, especially around Christmas, when the girls arq working and the boys are not. Q. How old is this introducer of yours; what is his name? A. Mr. H. Gail. He is about twenty-five. Q. Is he married? A. No, he keeps his mother and works in the Board of Trade. Q. He is the introducer? A. Yes, I do some introducing myself. If I see somebody sitting around that looks like a stranger I go to them and ask them: “How are you enjoying yourself?” and try to entertain them. Q. Do you serve any drinks in this place? A. Yes, soft drinks only, ice cream, lemonade, and such as that, and cocoa-cola. Q. Did you ever serve anything stronger than lemonade or ice cream? A. No, sir. Q. You have no bar license and no permit to run a bar? A. No. Q. There are no saloons in that immediate neighborhood? A. Oh. yes, there are saloons two doors from there, across the street, and half a block further up, and the Red Star saloon is right across the street. Q. Do some of your patrons go over to the saloon and get a few drinks during the evening? A. Oh, no, ladies are not allowed out. A man can go out if he wants to, and come back again, but no ladies are allowed out unless she takes her wraps and leaves. Q. Suppose she does, can she come back again? A. Not unless she pays, and that they never do. Q. Why do you have that provision? A. In order to guard our girls and keep them from going out and hunting around; we do not allow that. Q. Do you ever have any men in there intoxicated? A. Well, j'es, around Christmas, when they get a bundle on they come in with it some- times, when they get it for a Christmas present, but we don’t allow anything like that, if we know it. Q. Have you ever ordered anybody out of there? A. No. never ordered anybody out, but we have stopped them at the door; if they looked to be a little under the influence of liquor we stopped them at the door. Q. What dances do you permit there? A. The waltz, two-step and three-step. Q. What is the three-step? A. Well, this is a dance, we used to call it the Newport when I was taught to dance. The Newport is a round dance, you know, a great deal on the order of a waltz and two-step, the same position, it is a close position, but nothing like the tango. Q. How many steps in the tango? A. V’^ell, I don’t know, and I guess nobody else does. Public Meetings and Testimony 495 Q. Do you permit the tango in your place? A. No, sir, we don’t teach it and we don’t permit it. Q. Do you teach the turkey trot? A. No, sir. SENATOR WOODARD: How many trots are there in the turkey trot? A. I couldn’t tell you; there is no trots to it; nothing but a freaky dance, you know; there is nothing to it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You don’t permit that? A. No, sir. Q. Do you permit muscular dances of any kind? A. None what- ever. Q. Or close embracing? A. Not if we can help it; we stop that as much as possible at all times. There are two floor managers and myself there all the time. Everybody in the place that is employed has been instructed to watch everything at all points and all times, and if they see anything out of order to let me know, or one of the floor man- agers, that we might take care of it. I have two men on the floor and myself, and an introducer that can be watching pretty carefully in a fairly good sized hall. Q. How many people do you actually employ for that purpose, just to watch? A. Well, there is three. Q. Let us name them, who are they? A. Mr. Burkhard, Mr. Theis, Mr. Kelley and myself. Q. Where are you stationed? A. As a general rule, we all are in the center, on the sides and all around, looking here and there and seeing that everything is conducted fine. Q. The principal thing is to see that everybody is enjoying himself? A. That is the idea, to see that everybody is enjoying themselves, that is what they are there for, to dance, and that is what we are trying to do, to see that they enjoy themselves. Q. That is practically your sole interest? A. Yes, sir. Q. You want to see that they all have a good time? A. That is what I am there for. Q. Where is the limit? A. The limit is when I see them getting too close together. If I see them dancing anything such as that I imme- diately stop it and set them down and tell them, “You will have to sit down and watch somebody else until you can dance it like you should. If you can do that you may get up and dance, otherwise you will have to sit and look on.’’ Q. That sometimes happens? A. Yes, sir; once in a while it does. Q. What class of ?irls patronize your place? A. All kinds of girls. A public dance gets all kinds, working girls, home girls; most of the working girls live at home, the majority of them are that way. I have a nice class of people. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Any questions. Senator Beall? SENATOR BEALL: No, he looks good to me. THE WITNESS: Come up sometime and see for yourselves. REPRESENTATIVE ZOLA: You say these men go out sometimes to take a drink; you leave them go out whenever they want to? A. Yes, sir. Q. And come back again? A. Yes. Q. And you say when you feel as if they were under the influence of liquor you stop them at the door? A. Oh, well, they don’t go that far; that is not the class of people to go that far. Q. Have you ever had occasion to stop anybody at the door? A. Yes, we do; if they don’t look just right they don’t get in. Q. Suppose they pass by and you find them in the hall under the influence of liquor, do you ever order them out? A. Weil, they never get in in the first place; they never get their wraps off; the men in the wardrobe will discover that; there is somebody always that will get them if they are under the influence of liquor, they don’t get far. Q. Then you never have occasion to order them out? A. No. 496 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR TOSSEY: How long have you been in the dance hall business? A. About fifteen years, pretty close. Q. You have had a good deal of experience in it; now what relation do you think the sale of liquor at dance halls or places of that kind has to girls_ going wrong? A. It has a whole lot to do with it. I don’t believe in running that kind of a place. I think that it has a whole lot to do with the downfall of girls. SENATOR WOODARD: You don’t think that the two ought to be allowed together? A. Oh, no, without a doubt I should say not. Godfrey Johnson’s Testimony. GODFREY JOHNSON, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Godfrey Johnson. Q. What business are you in? A. I am manager of the Dearborn Club on North Clark Street. It is as nice and orderly place as there is in the city of Chicago, barring none. Q. Suppose I tell you that two girls came before this Committee and traced their downfall directly to that hall, what would you saj-? A. It might be possible. Q. What means are you taking now to prevent a repetition of that sort of a thing? A. We are using the same means towards them that we always used. We have got a floor manager, and I am myself on the floor personally every night. 1 don’t believe I miss a night there. I don’t believe I have missed a night there to speak of, well, in eiehteen years that I have been there. Q. How long since you stopped the sale of into.xicating liquors there? A. Two years ago. Q. You haven’t sold any since? A. No, sir; I will modif}' that to say that we have two or three bar permis there; clubs run permits on Thursday. Q. What do you sell? A. Soda water. Q. Where do you get that? A. From the klanhattan Bottling Company. Q. What else do you sell? A. Lemonade. Q. Make that yourself? A. Yes, sir. Q. What else do you have? A. Cider. Q. Bottled cider? A. Yes. Q. Where do you get that? A. Manhattan Bottling Compan}'. Q. What else do you sell? A. Cocoa-cola. Q. What else do you sell there? A. I guess that is all. Q. No alcohol in these so-called soft drinks? A. None whatever. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Coan, or Mr. Scouten, will 3'ou serve a subpoena upon the City Chemist forthwith? MR. SCOUTEN: Do j'ou want it right now? CHAIRMAN O’HARA: No, I would like to have him here at two o’clock this afternoon. THE WITNESS: Mr. Chairman, I came here for the purpose of explaining how those bottles of beer was obtained. I was not sub- poenaed when I came here. I came here voluntarih- and asked to be heard. For fifteen j'ears I sold liquor in that dance hall, and naturalR I was used to having a bottle of beer or two ever}- evening, and probabh- ever since, and after we discontinued the sale of liquor I kept a case of beer of my own, which I thought was perfect!}- proper. Well, on Friday evening two men came in and wanted a drink, wanted to buy a soft drink, and the boy who tended the bar happened to be out for a moment and I Stepped around behind the bar and asked them what Public Meetings and Testimony 497 they wanted, and they said, “give us a bottle of Falstaff beer.” I said, “I sell no beer.” They winked at each other, and they said, “Give us a bottle of near-beer.” At that time we sold near-beer, and one of them says, “What can we have to drink?” and I says, “we can give you near- beer, soda water, pop or lemonade.” Just about that time the boy came up, and I said, “serve those two gentlemen to a glass of soda.” At that time there we^ six or eight bottles of beer that belonged to me laying back of the bar on ice. I put them there myself. As I was going out, one of the men says, “What is that laying there?” I says, “That’s beer, and that is mine.” I went out of the door, and I hadn’t been out of the door more than two or three minutes when those two men came running on a gallop out and down the stairway. I went back and asked the man what had happened. He says, “One of them took a bottle of beer from behind the bar.” I think it was a city officer. But I immediately wrote a letter to the sergeant, telling the facts as they were. SENATOR WOODARD: When did this happen? A. There wasn’t, I don’t suppose, over eight or ten people in the house. Q. You don’t remember about the date? A. Why, I should judge that is probably a month or so ago, and I want to say here to this Com- mittee that I understand my hall, my place of business, has been criticised and that class of trade that I have got, and I want to show this Com- mittee this, that a lot of women have testified to hearsay evidence over there, the so-called investigators or reporters. A woman sat here and read a card pertaining to my business and this man’s business, and some- body else’s business that didn’t know anything about it, just merely some- one’s report that such and such was the condition. Do you know the character of those men that reported those conditions? Do you know the men who conduct business like mine? I have sold drinks. I have sold them, and think it is proper to sell drinks at dance halls under proper conditions. You like to go to a dance hall and you would like to have a drink. Isn’t it proper for you to have a drink? It does not follow, it does not signify because you sell drinks that you must sell them to children. Children never were admitted to my hall. I leave it to the two senators here that have investigated those conditions. I will ask you. Senator Beall, if that is not true? SENATOR BEALL: I have been around a little. THE WITNESS: I am asking you to say if I had any children in my dance hall. They were men and women, everyone of them. I had a bartender that I have had for more than seven years, and no children at any time were admitted. We cater to men, to working people, not to children. I have complained to the city of Chicago and not once, but hundreds of times, about the condition of Clark Street. I have com- plained about the condition of the hotel, and have asked them time and again to detail officers to see that no such women came into my place. I went to the Chicago Avenue station and I told them that if they con- sidered there was anything wrong about my dance hall that I wanted to know it. I have tried everything to run a respectable dance hall. Mr. Bement says it does not pay to run a tough dance hall. All of the bad names that I am called is because some of them realize that I have made some money, and therefore I am picked on. I will ask any of you to come up at any time and verify my statements. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you think a girl of 17 or 18 years of age, who does not know anything about you personally, but who has been wronged and sold into white slavery through an acquaintance made in your dance hall comes before this Committee merely to injure you? A. No, Governor, I am not speaking about any poor, unfortunate, inno- cent girls. Certain _ conditions exist in that locality over which I have no control. This girl may have come in there and met those two men. Whenever the kind of a man you speak of comes along, if we know it, we do not permit him in the hall. Now, this man that you have reference to may have been a decent man, a man whom I could not for any reason exclude from my hall. I could not afford to cater to anything else but a respectable class if I expected to be successful in business. You must prove that I cater to this class of people before I am accused. One of these men I don’t know and never saw him at all until afterwards. I 498 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee made it my business to find out who those men were, and I found or that one of them is a successful business man, has got a good barbe shop. Q. Is he still running that barber shop? A. Yes, sir, to the bes of my knowledge. I have seen him in there. Q. Is he still a patron of your dance hall? A. No such a thing you must give me credit for having a little better sense than that, Gov ernor. I want to say this to you, however, that I have seen this mai in another dance hall and I pointed him out there to the proprietor. Q. What dance hall was that? A. Do I have to answer that? Q. Yes. A. I saw him up on Wells Street at the Lincoln Park Hall at Mr. Wrenshaw’s place, and Mr. Wrenshaw objected to him coming there, and this man sent word back to me that he was going to knocl my head off for doing what I did, and I says, “Welcome to our country.’ Q. _ What do you think about the dance hall from a moral stand- point; is it a good thing for the community? A. It is not bad. Q. Well, is it a good thing? A. Yes, it is in a good many cases I will give you an instance; in my own particular case we have got ten thousand roomers in the district between the river and North Avenue. There is probably (I am taking round figures now, I am not sworn to these figures), I have closely estimated that out of those ten thousand young people that is rooming in that district there is four thousand men and probably six thousand women all having little back rooms, the majority of them, a dollar and a half or two dollar rooms. There is probably only about not ‘one-half of those houses that are steam heated; gas-lighted, some of them probably, and some of them not. We will take for instance a woman working at six or seven or eight, or probably up to twelve hours a day; she comes home at night to a cold room, when for fifteen cents, or twenty-five cents, she can go in a nice warm place and find companions, companions that she cannot entertain in the house that she is roomig in. We will say that a man of family, for instance where there is three or four grown girls in the family, from sixteen to twenty-four years old, they are living in a small apartment, living in a flat of probably four or five rooms; each one of those daughters, if they brought their sweethearts home would be entitled to entertain their sweetheart one Sunday, alternately, we will say one Sunday in five. She can’t_ do that. Now, where is she going to go? Where is a w'orking girl in a rooming house to go to entertain her sweetheart? She has to go in the back room of some saloon, or into some place where drinks are sold. You can easily see the situation. Those are conditions that dance halls are not to blame for. and it is for that reason I say that in a good many instances dance halls are a good thing for the community, especially if they are conducted rightly. I do not believe in liquor being sold in connection with dance halls; that should be cut out in all dance halls. Q. What makes girls go wrong? A. Nature; bad principles. Q. Altogether? A. I say nature; next I believe it is the fault of the parents in bringing them up. They do not know that thej^ are doing wrong. They don’t look at it in the manner that you gentlemen are looking at it. They don’t know any better; they have no example before them. They do not give their children the proper surroundings, do not give them the proper teaching. They let them do as thej^ please. Q. What percentage of alcohol is there in beer? A. Six per cent, I believe. Q. Six per cent? A. I would not answer that; I have heard it and have known it, but I would not answer it; between five arid sixr they vary. There are some beers that are stronger than that, and I want to say this, that I sold what we called “near-beer,” after my license was taken away for a while, but I done away with that, too, to avoid criticism. Q. When did you do away with that? A. Probably two months ago. Somewheres along in there, we done away with that. The statute does not require license for the sale of any alcoholic drink containing less than two per cent, but the government does, so I had a government license. I had the right to sell it. Public Meetings and Testimony 499 I SENATOR WOODARD: Your government license run out and you Jidn’t renew it? A. No, I had a government license; it was taken out in Tly, the first of July; that don’t expire until next July. I took one out last ;ummer, when I was selling this near-beer. Q. What protection are you taking to protect girls from white jlavers? A. We have the same system that we have always had; we have jeen pretty careful about that; we know the situation that we are in. Q. How many people have you in your dance halls now? A. I have >ne floor manager at the present time when we are not selling any drinks; it the time we were selling drinks we had two men upstairs. My building ionsists bf two floors. ; Q. How long had you been in business there, Mr. Johnson? A. Eighteen years. Q. During those eighteen years did you ever find any public officials, or police officials, that you could reach? A. I would like to have you explain yourself. Governor; do you mean to say or are you asking me if I had ever put up any money for protection? Q. Yes, sir. A. Absolutely no; I had no business that I had to do that for. SENATOR TOSSEY: You say you used to sell liquors? A. Yes, sir, for sixteen years. Senator. Q. Has it ever come under your observation of any girls going wrong on account of your selling liquor? A. Not to my pesonal knowledge, no. Wait until I explain that to you. Senator. When I say selling liquor, when I was selling liquor there I had four or five floor men; I was the general supervisor and did not come much in contact with the girls per- sonally. I Q. What is your experience with that — did more of them go wrong iwhen you were selling liquor than when you were not selling liquor? A. I could not answer that; if they don’t get the liquor in my dance hall they will go out and get it if they want to. Q. It is a better dance hall for not selling it? A. I believe so, yes, sir. That is, not from a financial standpoint, but from a moral standpoint I believe that liquor should not be sold in dance halls in Chicago. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Will you please tell the Committee about the night that I called on you and inspected your place? A. Yes, the Sena- tors called and inspected my place. I didn’t know them. I saw a couple of distinguished looking gentlemen standing up there, and I says, “Those men must be here for some other purpose than to dance, and I think I will cultivate their acquaintance,’’ and I went up to you and shook hands and said, “How do you do?’’ And I asked you. Senator, to look these people over and see if there was any young girls. I think that was about the substance of the conversation. I asked if they were not all men and women. . I asked you if you saw anyone there that looked like the sort of women that should not be there. I asked you if you did not think, in your opinion, if they were not nice working girls, and I offered to call one of them off the floor. Q. Tell about the man in the center of the floor. A. Oh, yes, we have a floor manager. I must say, my room is only fifty by ninety, and a man can stand in the center of the floor and observe everybody in the house. This man in the center of the floor is there to see that everything is correct, that everybody dances correctly; that there is nothing im- proper goes on on the floor of the hall. Q. Do you make as much now in your dance hall since you cut out the sale of liquor as you did before? A. Certainly not. Q. How much do you think your business fell off? A. About thirty- three per cent. SENATOR TOSSEY: Is it on the increase or decrease now? A. I don’t understand that: it fell off about thirty-three per cent after we quit 500 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee selling drinks; we are increasing a little bit now — it was after we first took the bar away. SENATOR BEALL: Do you think that you will gain in business enough after a while from people that would not go before when you had liquor for sale, that you will gain it all back in time? A. That is the reason I am staying there now. I believe that after people in general find out that drinks are riot sold, that quite a different class of trade will come there and we will do business. There is two different kinds of trade in the dancing line. One class is that which goes only to those bar dances; another one goes to these other kind of dances. If you will allow me to say something, I will say this, that you are on the right track so far as those club dances are concerned, but you don’t go far enough. Club dances are usually run by a few — a half dozen young fellows sixteen or seventeen or eighteen years of age get together and call themselves a club. They rent a hall, give a small deposit of five or ten dollars and give a dance. I have had a lot of opportunities to take the same kind of money, but I have always refused it. They will give five or ten dollars as a deposit for the hall. Two or three dollars more given as a deposit on the print- ing — some printer whom they know will print ten thousand complimentary tickets at about sixty cents a thousand, which is six dollars. Then they will scatter those complimentary tickets all around throughout the neigh- borhood — usually throughout the neighborhood where there is a lot of young girls. Those boys have no investment in it, and nothing to lose; no reputation and nothing else at stake. They open up this hall and they sell beer. And along come girls fourteen, fifteen, sixteen or eighteen, it doesn’t matter what age they are — they are there to take all of the money that they can get in that night. I have probably an investment up there of thirty-five or forty thousand dollars. I have got an established busi- ness. Gentlemen, I can’t afford to take those chances. I can’t afford to take this kind of money that they are taking. That is one kind of a dance. 1 am going to tell you about another kind of a dance, and that is the so- called respected organization and societies. 1 had a hall on Randolph street — 75 Randolph street — at one time that was used exclusively' for renting; it rented to labor organizations, so-called good organizations, social organizations of the better class. A lot of men was appointed on the various committees, usually with big badges on, but I found as a rule that those men on those committees were the very first ones in the hall to get tanked when the drinks were served. Those men often brought with them their wives and their children, and I have often seen the old lady on the one side and probably a couple of children on the other, taking their hus- band and father home. I believe you gentlemen have seen the same thing, if you want to admit it. SENATOR BEALL: I understood y'ou said first y'ou ought to have liquor at dance halls and then y'Ou said that you believe that in time you will secure a trade, a good respectable trade, that won’t mix with people that drink; you will have a more respectable house and you will get back- more than you ever had before? A. I believe so. I guess you mis- understood me. I said that liquor sold under proper conditions I be- lieved to be all right. Take the room that I served my liquor in: it is as large as this room in here. It was open. We served those liquors on the floor and there were men in the center of the floor all the time to see that nothing improper went on. These same girls go to a dance, we don’t serve liquor to them now; they will come up to the dance just the same; then they go out to some side entrance and go in the back room of some saloon, after they leave the dance, and the result is that they go home — if they go home at all — very much under the influence of liquor, and from that point of view I think it is better to have drinks sold in connection with a dance hall under proper regulations than that they should go into the back room of some saloon without any regulations whatever. Q. It is pretty hard to regulate. A. I believe that a little liquor should be served. I believe beer could be served without any harm, but I believe that whiskey cocktails, highballs and so forth should never be sold to girls. I believe that a malt license would be a happy medium between beer and no beer at those places. They clamor for drinks. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did you appear before the Chicago \ ice Public Meetings and Testimony SOI Commission? A. I did not. I was not asked. I saw some of their in- vestigators, however. Q. Did they mention your place in their report? A. I believe they did, and very unfavorably. Q. What did they say about you? A. They said everything that they could find in the dictionary, I guess. I believe that their investigators were unreliable. *I have nothing to hide and nothing to deny. Q. They gave you a pretty black eye? A. They did, and it has stuck to me ever since. Q. But you are beginning to see the light? A. I am beginning to see it. Q. From your testimony this morning it would seem you now realize there is more money in running an unquestionably respectable dance hall than there is in running a disreputable one? A. I have not admitted that I run a disreputable dance hall. Q. You are a very careful man and you are not admitting anything before this Committee that you think will hurt you. Is it your opinion, then, that you will make more money by running a good place than by running a disreputable one? A. Not any more; I say I might make as much. Q. If you make as much, you will have at least a clear conscience? A. I always have a clear conscience. THE WITNESS; I want to thank this Committee for this oppor- tunity, that is all. This is the first time anybody ever tried to give me a hearing, to give me a chance to have my say. It has always been the other way. The other fellow did all the talking. They have been afraid of me; they have been afraid that I will tell the truth. Whereupon the meeting was adjourned to Monday morning, April 14, 1913, at- 10:00 o’clock A. M. of said day. I '■ H n-’v 'T '■ i';' , »y.i* t.ticf, ■ ' it- / SESSION XIX i a ij I The owner of a cafe that was closed, upon request of the Vice ; Committee, by the Mayor of Chicago, is given a hearing by the I Committee and promises to make any suggested reforms in the ■ conduct of his place if his license is restored. A police sergeant ' i of long experience in the vice district gives his testimony. Saloon- ' 1 * keepers and dance hall proprietors dispute evidence gathered by I' the Committee’s investigators. A clergyman devoted to reform !: *, work describes his experiences and promises to bring proof of . payments of protection money by resort keepers. Opinions of a jl - St. Louis investigator as to the causes of vice. Testimony of: ji ' Roy Jones, cafe proprietor; [ji V Wm. F. Bowler, police sergeant; ) R. Fozzo, saloonkeeper; Hi ' Dr, Carl Quale, investigator; {■ Wm. J. Schoen, dance hall proprietor; {i Wm. Shemberg, saloonkeeper; 1: Rev. Elmer Williams, pastor, Christ M. E. Church; j E. J. Howse, special investigator for City of St. Louis. Chicago, April 14, 1913, 10:00 o’clock A. M. La Salle Hotel. THE ILLINOIS SENATE VICE COMMITTEE met pursuant to last adjournment; Chairman O’Hara and Senators Beall and Tossey being the only members present, the following proceedings were had : iRoy Jones’ Testimony. ROY JONES, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. My name is Roy Jones. Q. What business are you in, Mr. Jones? A. Cafe and restaurant business. Q. You have heard of the evidence given before this Committee con- cerning that cafe? A. Yes, sir, I heard of it; I was away at the time, and |I just got back last Saturday. ' Q. You had some pretty tough dances down there? A. If there was, it was really unbeknown to me. I never approved of anything such as that there. I wish to run as clean a’ place there as anybody can. ' Q. How long have you been in business down there? A. I have been |in business there twenty months, and I never had a complaint against jmy place in all those twenty months. Q. How long had that place been run before you took charge of it? jA. I don’t know. j Q. Who owned the place before you took charge of it? A. Jack Jordan owned it. i Q. Did he go out of business? A. No, he is in business across the 'Street. Q. Is the red-light district closed now? A. I believe it is. Q. Where did all those women go? A. Well, they are pretty well scattered now; there is a few once in a while that drop around, but they ,are fairly well scattered all over Chicago. 503 504 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What do you mean by scattered, that they have gone into the residence district? A. A whole lot of them have; yes, sir. Q. Did you ever hear, Mr. Jones, of any establishment to which good girls were lured and then sold to wealthy men for so much a head? A. No, I have not. Q. Do you believe that such a thing exists in the city of Chicago? A. No, I don’t; I really don’t. Q. What do you think about the turkey trot or tango? A. Well, I think it is just what people make it; they may either make it suggestive or otherwise. There is a whole lot of people that imagine things are sug- gestive and you can’t modify it so that it is not suggestive to them at all. It is danced on every stage in the United States. There is a lot of ways, of course, of grasping a girl so that a lot of people may construe it as suggestive. It is not suggestive to a liberal-minded man; it might be to a narrow-minded man; to a girl of seventeen or eighteen or nineteen, it would be quite a novelty to her. It is really a difficult dance. One has to be a real clever dancer to dance it; you have got to be a good dancer to dance it. Q. Who employs those negro performers you have down at 3 mur place? A. Why, I put them all in the charge of a man by the name of Dorsey, who has employed them since I left. I really don’t know. I have been away off and on for ten weeks. Q. Well, who is in charge during your absence? A. In my absence a gentleman by the name of Carvin. I will admit that he might have permitted a lot of things that I would not have approved if I was in there, you know; just used a little bad judgment when I was gone, but I never approved of suggestive dances or suggestive singing in there. Q. Do you know Ike Bloom? A. I do. Q. What does he do? A. He is manager of the dance hall. Q. What dance hall? A. At 22nd street — Freiburg’s. Q. Do you know the Marlborough Hotel? A, The Marlborough Ho- tel at 22nd street, do you mean? Q. Yes. A. I know of it; I don’t know it. Q. Who owns that hotel? A. Some woman owns it by the name of LaSalle, I believe; I know she used to own it. Q. Is there any connection at all between Freiburg’s dance hall and the Marlborough Hotel? A. I am sure I don’t know. Q. Did you ever hear that there was? A. Well, I don’t know, I don’t believe I have. It is possible, though. Q. Have you ever heard that at any cafe in the Twentj'-second Street district girls have been discharged for refusing to take men to a certain hotel? A. Well, no, I haven’t; I will tell jmu now, I have not run one of that kind of places. I have been running an altogether different place; my business is almost all automobile business. I don’t get out of mj- place when I am in town once a month; I live away out of the neighborhood, down south; I don’t run around the neighborhood. I haven’t been around in any of the dance halls, well, in, I should judge, over a 3 'ear. Q. Some of the business, Mr. Jones, j-ou saj^ j'ou appeal to is slum- ming parties and automobile parties passing through that district? A. No, I don’t; I don’t cater to those slumming paries. I have a nice, steady trade there; I have people who have been coming there over a year; it is an automobile business strictly. Thej' come from downtown to my- cafe and from my cafe out south. Q. One can take a girl out there, say seventeen or eighteen years old, and get in? A. No, sir. Q. Why? A. I would not allow her in if the girl looked young to me. Q. Suppose she were eighteen or nineteen? A. I don’t think so. Q. Who would stop her? A. If I was there I would stop her. Q. You haven’t been there in the last ten weeks? A. No, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 505 Q. If you were away, who would stop her? A. Mr. Carvin would top her; he has orders not even to let those young fellows in. Q. You don’t have any young girls there at all? A. Not one. Q. Don’t you permit girls in there of eighteen or nineteen years of 'age? A. Oh, no. i Q. Suppose the girl is 21 years of age? A. Well, if she was escorted and she looked plenty old enough, I would let her in. ' Q. Now, she is a good girl, she is 21, and she is in your place, we jwill say; there is some moral responsibility on your part, as the proprietor !of that cafe, to see that the dances that you stage are not vulgar? A. Oh, yes. j Q. And that the songs are not vulgar? A. Oh, yes, there is no argu- ;ment to that. I always do when I am here. I never have my enter- itainers ever sing unless it is sung to me first. There is many a song that I have heard sung that I haven’t let them sing in there, that has been “sung in different places aroimd town. Q. The truth is, they were singing there at the time that our investi- [gators visited your place last week, to the music of a popular song, words that were so obscene that I did not care to pronounce them Before a com- :pany of men; now, where does the responsibility for that rest? A. The responsibility rests on Mr. Carvin, because that is the one thing that he had no right to permit in there. Those kind of suggestive songs would not do for my class of trade in there; it would keep a whole lot of trade out of there which would not come in there if such songs were sung there. Q. Senator Beall was at your place a week or two ago and he found one of these negro women dancing, and a negro man laying on the floor presumably looking under the woman’s dress. How do you account for such a thing as that? A. I can’t account for it. I would not stand for it if I was there. Q. How are you going to stop that? A. I would not permit it. Q. Well, ARE you going to stop it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you going to clean it up? A. Yes, sir, positively. During the twenty months that I have been there, I have never had a complaint against my place. Q. Do you realize that good morals in a place of that sort is good business? A. That has always been my practice there; always has been. Q. It wasn’t here last week. A. Gentlemen, I am awful sorry that that happened. It must have been that somebody got awful neglectful. I don’t approve of anything like that; I really don’t. Q. Do you believe that the old Twenty-second Street district is cleaned out? A. Oh, yes, positively. Q. How long will it take to clean it up? A. It is pretty well cleaned up now, so far as disorderly houses and things like that are concerned. There might be a disorderly flat here and there scattered around. Q. Is the Marlborough Hotel still open? A. I don’t know; I have only been back since Saturday, then Monday after I got back my mother was taken sick and I have been home since. I haven’t had a chance to talk to anybody, or see anybody, or anything else. Q. You know the district, you know its influence, you know of lots of things that you are not going to testify here today. A. I am telling you I haven’t been on the other side of Wabash avenue in a year back. I haven’t been on the other side of Wabash avenue. I am on the northeast side of Wabash avenue, and I haven’t been even across the street in that time. I was the happiest man to get out of it, and I am out of it, and there has never been any attractions in it for me since. I really thought that I had succeeded. I had a nice class of people coming in my place, and I have never had a fight in my place in the twenty months since I have been there, and that is a remarkable record for a cafe. Q. You haven’t had a fight for how long? A. Twenty months. Q. That is a remarkable record? A, Yes, sir, haven’t had a fight there; and haven’t sold to intoxicated people, either. 506 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do they frequently have fights in some of the cafes? A. Ye< there used to be an awful lot of fights. Q- Did you ever hear of anybody being killed in your neighborhoo' in the last year, we will say? A. No, I could not say that I ever have Q. Or in the last three months? A. No, I have heard of a mai who was picked up unconscious on Wabash avenue, who was supposei to have been beaten up in one of those cafes or in front of it. I didn’ pay much attention to it, because it was just rumor. I didn’t know posi tively that, but I think fights in these kind of places can be very easib avoided by not selling to intoxicated people. Q. Do you ever sell to intoxicated people? A. Not in my life; no since I have been there. Q. Is it a matter of good morals or good business? A. It is a mat ter of good morals. I think when a man has drank so much, it is his placi to be home. Q. In all those places in your district, do they have solicitors, girl; in their place, to solicit? A. Well, I don’t think so; not around me. ! know; not right in my neighborhood there. Q. If you know of such a thing you would not care to say so, wouk you? Let us be honest with each other. A. To tell you the truth, ] would not. Q. Any questions of that nature that I might ask you, j'ou would hav( a bad memory on, or would not know about it? A. Well, I would no; lie to you on it. Q. Well, you would avoid the issue? A. I would try to if I possibh could. Q. I have asked you just a few questions from much evidence verifiec by this committee, but I did not expect you to answer very satisfactorily. A I would not want to be put in the light of abusing my neighbors. Q. How much money are you worth? A. How much money am 1 w'orth ? Q. Yes? A. Well, my home is mortaged for sixty-five hundred dollars my mother is living in it with four children, and I haven’t got a dollar ir the world. Q. How much have you made in the last ten j-ears? A. I haven’t made a dollar in four years. ’ Q. Has this place been making any money for you? A. It was just getting on a basis where I was making a little money; just on a basis where I was making on an average of five hundred dollars a month. Q. What were you paying those ten negro men and women performers down there? A. I paid them from twenty-five dollars to thirty-five dollars a week apiece ; they vary in price more or less. They are the only talent you can handle, you can handle them a good deal better than the white talent out there. The white talent are awful unreliable in places like that, don’t you know, and they are awful hard to get along with. They abuse customers that come in and try to get acquainted with too many girls that come in the place. A gentleman comes in with an escort, and the minute their back is turned one of the entertainers is up to the table singing directly to that girl. I don’t approve of that. I approve of singing on the platform, or the little space in the floor that is provided for that purpose, and in their minding their own business strictly. Q. Do they practice table singing down there? A. Oh, no. The white entertainers always did. Q. Where do the negro entertainers sing? A. They sing in the center of the space. Right in front of the music there is a little space left between two rows of tables for them to work in, and they can’t work out of that space. Q. But the Senator says they don’t do it. He says they walk the entire length of the floor? A. Yes, .there is a space between the tables about ten feet long, and there is where thej'' work. Public Meetings and Testimony 507 EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL : She walked up about two-thirds the length of the oom, this colored woman did, and Senator Tossey saw that at the same time ;iat I did. MR. JONES: If she did that, she did it unbeknown to me. I would ot have stood for that. I always have a space for them to work right in etween the two rows of tables. Of course, they might have done some naughty umbers while I was away; they surely must have. SENATOR BEALL ; I am of the impression that you haven’t given close aough attention to your business. A. No, sir, I haven’t. I have been sick nd have neglected it a lot. I have had a lot of sickness at home. I have been 'ck myself and my business has been neglected. My manager was there, but ■le chances are that he has been neglecting it. ^ SENATOR BEALL: If your manager had come out and told the truth bout the matter ! He knew better, but he didn’t do it ; neither in the case /hen I was there or the case when the investigators were out there Friday 'ight. Four of them were there, and I am under the impression that he knew e wasn’t telling the truth. A. He ought not to have done that. I never knew e was subpoenaed, never knew it. I was up in Milwaukee at the time. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; You were here that night, weren’t you? A. 'he night he was subpoenaed? Q. Yes. A. No. ; Q. The night he testified? A. No, I got in the next day. j SENATOR BEALL; Mr. Jones, I have always been on the side of the iyeak; now, we have not come here to Chicago to tear down, but to build up. ijVe were out Saturday night again until one o’clock visiting. I don’t know ■ow many institutions, but a good many. Of course some of them recognized }s right away, others didn’t. Everything they had was very tame, I can ■ ’ay that much. Of course, they were expecting something, and were F ifraid of something. MR. JONES: Sure. SENATOR BEALL; And I had a talk with several managers, different ’nes, I don’t remember the names, there were so many of them, and I told ' hem that no one would have objection to decent dances. 1 MR. JONES: No, surely not. ^ SENATOR BEALL; And nobody has, provided it is carried on right, •ecause young girls unquestionably have got to have some kind of amusement, lut in all of my travels, and I have been to a good many places, and in all 'if the places that I have been to, your place was the worst I ever saw in my jife. I wanted to find out about it. Three weeks ago you had a colored woman : ihere going up and down the floor, I don’t know what her name is, exposing r lerself to a man on the floor making all kinds of gestures, suggestive, such tls putting their bodies together, and all that, and when I came back I told the governor what was going on, in fact Senator Tossey was with me. Still noth- ' ng was done about it until Friday night we sent four investigators out there, '.nd they came back and reported a worse condition out there than I had ”een, so all they could do was to subpoena them to come in, and your young I itian denied everything to us. If he had come out and told the truth, if he had f ’.cknowledged it, but he didn’t do it ; he denied everything, but six of us knew r letter. A. I am awful sorry that he done that, of course it is too late now. !' Q. I suppose you have got some money invested there? A. Every dollar ’ I have in the world is invested there. 'j Q. How much have you got invested? A. Twenty-two thousand dollars. [ SENATOR BEALL: Do you suppose if the Mayor of Chicago should inflow you to open again out there, that you would open a good, clean house ,ind keep it clean? !j MR. JONES; Yes, sir, positively. Any suggestions which this Committee 'fvould make I would live up to. I SENATOR BEALL; Please remember that this Committee is appointed !’or two years, as I told your man Saturday night ; of course you are fixed for ■ |is tonight, but you can’t tell what moment we will have one of our investi- I 508 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee gators here, and the Mayor of Chicago, I am under the impression, is going to work with us. The fact of the matter is, you see how promptly he acted Satur- day morning. He telephoned the Governor. No, we don’t want to see any man ruined; you say that all of your money is invested there? MR. JONES: I am ruined, even my home at Milwaukee is mortgaged. I have a mother 69 years old raising four children, and the youngest is seven years of age. Q. If the Governor would appoint one or more of this Committee to go and have a talk with Mayor Harrison, would you enter into a bond that you would keep a clean, orderly house provided they would grant your license back? A. Yes, sir. Q. I don’t say that he will, but he is the boss. A. I would do anything that the Committee would suggest for me to do, no matter what it is. Q. We have no right to suggest. A. I will do anything this Committee wants me to do. SENATOR BEALL ; We are not in power here, the Mayor of the city is in power, and we have nothing to say whether your license is granted or revoked, but the question is between you and the city. I think you were on the right track now in promising to clean up. MR. JONES: I will tell you I would be willing to help the Committee in every possible way that I could out there. I would do anything and every- thing that I could to run a clean place, as clean a place as anybody has in Chicago. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: If some of the down-town places are permitted to give cabaret performances that are indecent in the opinion of some people, you should be permitted to give them out there. If you are not permitted to give them out there, they should not be permitted to give them down here, but I don’t think that either of you should be permitted to have any songs or any dances that are indecent. MR. JONES: Well, I don’t really approve of that, and I never have had out there. The chances are just while I was gone the management got a little careless and stood for a whole lot of things out there that I would not have stood for. SENATOR BEALL: I think the trouble, Air. Jones, is this: there might be in your neighborhood someone that had a place like yours that would put a stunt on that was a little shady MR. JONES: Sure. SENATOR BEALL: — and j'ou went possibly beyond and put on one a little more shady. MR. JONES : Oh, no. SENATOR BEALL : And your competitor would put one on a little more shady until you never knew about where to stop. If a line was drawn both you and everybody else would have to hew to the line, and I think that it would be better for all of you. AIR. JONES: There is no doubt about it. SENATOR BEALL: Well now, the line should be: clean places all down the line, and keep them clean. I could stay in Chicago with this Committee, and we could clean up this place in three months, anyhow, and I guarantee to you it would be clean if we got into it once; there would be nothing except what was right. But this matter is in the hands of the Mayor. I don’t know what the AIa 3 'or will do in 3 'our case; we have nothing to say about that. Perhaps this will be a lesson to j'ou. MR. JONES: Yes, it will be a lesson. SENATOR BEALL : In fact, it is a lesson now, everything is very tame in Chicago as long as we stay here. It is up to you if you want to stay in business that the responsibilitj- to keep things right is with you. MR. JONES: Well, I have kept things awful right out there for a long time. Of course I admit when I went away things might have got loose down there, but there w'as no complaint about my place as long as I was in town. CHAIRAIAN O’HARA: \ou have been called here this morning by this Committee because it was represented to us by a number of people that you Public Meetings and Testimony 509 had been sick, and in a way had not been in close touch with your cafe. More than that, they said that you had invested all of your money there ; and that you were entitled to a hearing. In all fairness, this Committee accords a full hearing to any citizen desiring to be heard; and that privilege has not been withheld from you. If you have nothing further to say, you are now excused. Sergeant William F. Bowler’s Testimony. SERGEANT WILLIAM F. BOWLER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. William F. Bowler. t Q. What is your business? A. Sergeant of police. Q. Of the city of Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been connected with the police department? A. Thirteen years. Q. Have you ever worked in the red light district? A. I have. Q. How many years? A. Since October 28th, 1909, I have been detailed with a committee of fifteen. Q. How long a period is that? A. Three years, going on four. Q. What is that commitee of fifteen? A. It is a committee of busi- ness men, professional men, to stop pandering. Q. To stop pandering? A. Yes, sir, and work in conjunction with the police department and with the United States Government; Mr. DeWoody’s office. Q. During that three years you have become pretty well familiar with the girls who fall? A. I have made a study of it. Q. Now, what would you say, sergeant, is the most direct cause of a girl’s downfall? A. Poverty. Q. Unquestionably poverty? A. Why, certainly. You can take a dozen contributory causes, you can say it is fondness of dress, hasty marriages, divorces, Greek restaurants, Greek cafes, and so forth, but if you sift it right down, it is poverty. Q. Do girls making four or five dollars a week sometimes fall be- cause they can’t live on the amount of money they are paid? A. Yes, but I don’t say all girls. Q. In your experience there has come to your attention some cases where girls have fallen simply because they could not live on their wages? A. Why, certainly. Q. In your opinion, as a police officer and a citizen, who is respon- sible for her downfall — the man who is paying her a starvation wage? A. Yes, sir. I have investigated conditions and know whereof I talk. I know what I say. There has been ninety-seven straight convictions of pandering, and eighty-six per cent of these cases were brought in by police officers and not by reformers. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Did you ever talk to these girls? A. I have. Q. What did they say to you? A. There is no question about it, ‘it is poverty. That is what most of them say. Q. How long have you been connected with your present work? i A. Going on four years. I Q. How many girls have you talked with? A. I couldn’t tell you, 'perhaps five hundred. Q. You think of the five hundred girls that the majority fell from , poverty? A. From poverty, yes, sir. 510 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What do you think is the least that a lone girl could live on in Chicago, live respectably, and have decent clothes and a decent room and an ordinary living, at what cost? A. I don’t know, it is a pretty deep question. I know I am a man of family, and I can hardly live with the family I have on the wages I have been getting. Q. Suppose a girl should come to Chicago, a poor girl without a home, looking for work, do you think that she has much of a chance of coming out clean in the end? A. Well, hardly. Q. A lady tells me that they had some auxiliary committees tc meet these girls at the depot. A. They have. Those ladies at these depots, they are doing good work, there is no question about it, but o these wild carriage rides and stuff like that, I have never seen it. 1 re- member a case that I saw a while ago of two young girls coming here fron St. Louis, Missouri. They were picked up at the Polk Street depot, pickec up by._ these good women around the depot. . They thought it was £ pandering case. I found out that one of the girls had married a young fellow in St. Louis who ruined her and deserted her and her little baby The other girl, she is going with a chauffeur down there, and she was going to get married to him. The father and mother had been divorced and the father had left, and had come here to live, and she came to stay with her father, and he turned her away from the door, and she went on the street. She said that her mother had married this young fellow after she had been intimate with him. Q. Have you ever had any experience with the white slave traffics A. I have, yes. Q. Girls brought here from New York, Canada, Michigan and othei states? A. I only remember one case from Canada. Q. Bringing them in here from different states for immoral purposes have you had cases of that kind? A. Yes. Q. How many cases have you had? A. Perhaps thirty. Q. These girls brought from other states to houses of prostitutior and probably sold? A. The majority of girls that are brought here are girls that are brought here by their husbands, have only been marriec two or three months and go on the street. We pick up hundreds o' these. Q. Were the husbands living off the girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. From their soliciting? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you catch many of them? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are a man of experience? A. I think I have had plenty in the four years. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Someone told me that you had arrested more panderers in your experience than any other police officer in the Unitec States, is that true? A. That is true. I have been specially^ detailed on it. Q. Did I correctly understand you to say that effectively' to stof white slavery we must go into the matter of poverty'? A. \es, yor know that poverty is the cause of seventy-five of eighty per cent of al crime, I think so. SENATOR BEALL: Could you offer any suggestion: we are out to learn? A. To stop this condition of affairs? Q. Yes. These things you have heard and have testified to; y'or know all about it probably. Take this first witness you have heard, Jones you heard him testify a while ago and y'ou know all about him, probably They all promise to do better. What do y'Ou think about him? A. 1 don’t know much about this man Jones, but I know he is trying to be on his good behavior. I know he has been drifting away' from what he was before. Q. Do you know Ike Bloom? A. I have never met the gentleman R. Fozzo’s Testimony. R. FOZZO, called as a witness before the Ccjmmittee. being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: Public Meetings and Testimony 511 li I EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. ' I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. R. Fozzo. <' I Q. What do you do, Mr. Fozzo? A. I am a saloonkeeper. ' I Q Do you own your own place? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you own it or does the brewery own it? A No, I own it ri Q. Where is it located? A. Sangamon and Madison. < I Q. Is there any dance hall in connection with that saloon? A. Yes, !ir. [. I Q- What is the name of that dance hall? A. The Vermont. [ I Q. Do you own that? A. No. I I Q. Who does own it? A Phillips. ^ : Q. What is Mr. Phillips’ name? A. Robert. ' Q. Where is the saloon, on the ground floor? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where is the dance hall? A. On the third floor. Q. What is on the second floor? A. Billiard hall. . j Q. Is there an elevator connected with the ground floor and the . Krird floor? A No, sir. i ; Q. Just flights of stairs? A. Yes, sir. I i Q. In the front? A. In the center of the building. Q. You can leave the saloon directly and go into the dance hall? i. Yes. , |l Q. How often do they have dances out there? A. Oh, about three t fimes a week, sometimes four times. , Q- Who gives those dances? A. Phillips and O’Connor. ? Q. Does Phillips give them or does he rent the hall out? A. He juns it. Q. Gives the dances himself? A. He is the one that gives the dances iimself. , Q. What does he charge for a dance? A. He charges fifty cents I couple. Q. And that admits them into the hall? A. Yes, sir. , I Q. For the entire evening’s performance? A. Yes, sir. Q- When they enter the hall, do they go through the saloon? A. < ,Jo, sir. j i Q. They go there and dance a while and then if anyone wants to i jiring his girl down and get a glass of beer, you have a couple of rooms L et aside in your place where they can get their drinks? A. Yes, we have II big room seating about forty or fifty people. Q. They can come in and dance and between dances they can come li.jiown into this big room and get served? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. Then go back up and dance again? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then come down and get another drink and then go up again? C Yes, sir. Q. It is an harmonious arrangement existing between you and Ur. Phillips? A. No, in fact I don’t have nothing to do with Phillips '.nd they have nothing to do with us. J Q. What do you think of the special bar permit system? A. I don’t i!ee any harm in it to have a bar-room with a dance hall. I ■ Q. You don’t catch my question. In some dance halls, where dances j.re given by societies and clubs, they operate under a special bar permit i.llowing them to sell up to three o’clock in the morning, whereas the laloonkeeper can only sell to one o’clock; now, from a saloonkeeper’s ■loint of view, what do you think of that system? A. Well, the society ' ;ives this dance, and they only give it for the amount of money they Jan get out of it, and in that way they serve drinks sometimes to people }hat should not be served. 512 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that that is hurting the business of every law-respecting saloonkeeper? A. Yes, sir; it is. Q. Do any of the dancers at the Vermont hall become intoxicated? A. No, sir. 1 am the only one, and I take care of the tables. I never serve any drink when I see a man has enough, and I don’t sell him any more. Q. What do you do? A. I tell them that they have got it enough; to cut it out. Q. Do they have any drinking on the second floor, in the billiard room? A. We do serve drinks there; sometimes they have a lady friend step up there, and the escort orders drinks for them up there. Q. During the times that dances are on, in this billiard hall filled with people playing bllards? A. Yes, sr. Q. Is it subdivided or is it all one big room? A. It is one big room, sixty by thirty-seven; they have got eight tables. Q. How late do those dances last? Q. Until twelve o’clock, Satur- day nights until one. Q. Did you ever see any young girls up there dancing? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old are the girls? A. Well, really I don’t think that they let them there under eighteen years old. Q. Some of the girls are under twenty-one? A. No, I don’t think so. Q. You don’t think that any of the girls that go there are under twenty- one? A. I don’t think so, because Mr. Phillips and Mr. O’Conner don’t allow any girl in there that they know is under twenty-one to go upstairs to the dance hall, because many times I happen to be there when the people are going up, and if they see a lady that don't look old enough they turned them out. I have seen that many times. Q. How can you tell whether a girl is under tw^entj'-one or not? A. It is a hard thing to tell ; simply by asking them and they will tell you she is over twenty-one. Q. Last Saturday night was there any dancing in your place? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was there a woman intoxicated at that dance? A. M’ell, she is liable to come in “piped ;’’ I know she didn’t get “piped” in my place, because I am the one that waited on the tables. Q. Was there any woman who left your place, no matter where she got her drinks, who left your place last Saturday night very much intoxicated? A. No, sir. Q. Was there any man who left your place very much intoxicated? A. Not that I know of. Q. Was there any woman w'ho carried an intoxicated man from the Vermont dance hall last Saturday night? A. Not that I know of. Q. Did you ever see a woman carry a man from the Vermont dance hall, the man being so that he couldn’t w^alk? A. No, sir. Q. What are the favorite dances at the Vermont dance hall? A. Well, really, all the dances I know- is the w-altz and two-step. I never danced, so I don’t know anything about dances. Q. Did you ever go up into the Vermont dance hall and watch them dacing there? A. Well, as I told jmu, I am working dowmstairs, and I don’t have time to go upstairs and see the dances. Q. You say you have never seen the turkey trot? A. No, sir. Q. You have never seen the tango? A. No, sir. Q. You have never seen anj- of these modern muscle dances? A. No, sir. Dr. Carl Quale’s Testimony. DR. CARL QUALE, called as a witness before the committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is j-ou name? A. Carl C. Quale. Public Meetings and Testimony 513 Q. Do you know of such an institution as the Vermont dance hall? A. Yes, I do. I have been there twice. Q. Where is it located? A. Over on Madison and Sangamon. It is the ;orner saloon. It has an entrance on the side. It is 923 West Madison street. Right around the corner. Q. When did you last visit the Vermont dance hall? A. Saturday night. Q. Will you kindly tell the members of this Committee, what you saw last Saturday night in the Vermont dance hall? A. Yes, sir, I will do that. 1 went there, and the first thing that I noticed was a young girl coming in out of the men’s toilet. The second thing I saw was down in the billiard hall, an the second floor, stood a keg about this size (indicating with his hands), and girls were going in there and filling up right along, unescorted. The third thing that I saw was one man, hanging on to a woman’s shoulder, going home drunk, going down the stairway. Q. Was he in such condition that he couldn’t walk unassisted? A. No, he could not navigate alone, and further I saw quite a number of girls there that I should say were below twenty-one, yes, below eighteen. There were two there that looked below sixteen. Q. Did you see the dances going on? A. Yes, sir. Q. What were they dancing? A. I didn’t look very much at the dances, and I could not talk as intelligently about that as I would like to do, because I didn’t stay in the room to see the dances. They were dancing at the time that I was there, and the dances were the ordinary dances. Q. The dances were all right then, in the main? A. Yes, sir. Q. Most of the women were of what class? A. Why they looked to be a class of working girls, pretty near all of them. ■ Q. Is it your opinion that most of them were good girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. Unquestionably good girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you see any women there that seemed to be of a different order? A. Yes, sir, I saw quite a number of them that I would call professional women. • Q. Now, Doctor, you had been studying this subject for a good many ■years? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have become acquainted with a great many prostitutes? A. I have. Q. Did you at that hall see any woman that you knew positively to be a prostitute? A. Yes, sir. There were three absolute professionals there that I saw. Q. They were mingling in the assembly, among the other women? A. Yes, sir, I saw one of them take a girl down into the billiard hall and get her a drink. That was in the billiard hall and the keg was inside the door. Q. In the billiard hall there were men? A. Nothing but men, except those women that were around the keg. Q. Now, did you see any of these prostitutes introduce any girls to any man there? A. No, I didn’t. Q. Could that have been done? A. Yes, sir, very easily. Q. It might have happened? A. Very easily. SENATOR BEALL: Doctor, did you see any policemen around that dance hall? A. Not at the time I was there. Q. Did they have any men on the floor looking after the dancing to see that they were keeping order? A. I believe that they had. SENATOR BEALL: Do you know anything about the so-called hotels near these dancing houses? A. Some. They seem to be in the commercial world for the purpose of transient trade, rent out rooms for an hour or two. SENATOR TOSSEY ; Doctor, what is your observation as to the rela- tion of the sale of liquor at dances and girls going wrong? A. It is one of the phases that starts young girls. When a girl comes in she seeks 514 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee amusement, she has not got the price, she gets into one of those places and she is treated well bj^ her escort or company, she gets a drink or two, she is an easy victim then for anything that he might suggest, and the peculiar part of it is, most of them come there very hungry, and a very small drink — not more than a glass of beer — is likely to upset them. Q. You think that the downfall of girls is traced right down to the sale of intoxicants? A. Why, that is one of the causes, that is one of the greatest causes that can be traced in connection with the dance hall; it is the easiest way of ruining our young girls that I know. Q. If intoxicants were not sold at dance halls it would -stop a great deal of that, wouldn’t it? A. Yes, I also want to mention that poverty is at the bottom of the whole thing. Persons that have never had a taste of poverty cannot realize that. From an experience running over twelve years, it seems to me that it has been my lot to find 28 cases in the last two years of straight pandering that low wages was directly or indirectly the cause of. William J. Schoen’s Testimony. WILLIAM J. SCHOEN, called as a witness before the Committee, be- ing first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. William J. Schoen. Q. And your business? A. I am running Schoenhofen Hall. Q. Is that a dance hall? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where is it located? A. It is on Milwaukee avenue and Ash- land, 1224 Milwaukee avenue. Q. On what floor is it? A. It is on the third floor. There are two dance halls, one on the second and one on the third floor. Q. How often do you give dances there? A. Wh\% on an average of about six dances a week; -it is six affairs, not always dances. Q. You rent the hall out? A. Yes, sir. Q. To clubs? A. Sometimes. Q. Do you give any dances j'ourself? A. Never. Q. Is there any bar connected with this hall? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is it a licensed saloon? A. A special license. Q. That is, you rent the hall out to some society and they give a dance and they get out the special bar permit? A. \ es, sir. Q. What do they pay for that special bar permit? Six dollars. Q. That permits them to sell liquor how late? A. Three o’clock. Q. From what time in the evening? A. Well, the bar permit reads from three o’clock to three o’clock, twelve hours, but thej^ never do that. They generally start about nine o’clock in the evening, unless it be on Saturday, when they hold later. Q. Suppose I want to give a dance and I want your hall. What would you charge me for it? A. I would charge you one hundred dollars a night, except Saturday. Q. I would have to pay on deposit how much? A. \ ou wouldn’t have to pay me any deposit if I knew you. Q. Suppose you didn’t know’ me? A. I would not rent you the hall. We have enough of fraternal organizations, nothing but fraternal organizations in our place, and if you wanted to rent the hall j'ou would represent yourself say from the Knights and Ladies of Honor, or the K. P. or something of that kind, and I would look you up, and if j'ou were the party, then I w’ould rent you the hall. Q. You would ascertain positively whether I represented a bona-fide organization? A. Positively. Q. You have ascertained, we will say, that I do represent some bona- Public Meetings and Testimony 515 fide organization, then how much money do you expect in advance? A. Well, we don’t require much, just a deposit of five dollars or something to bind the contract. Q. When must I pay you the rest of the one hundred dollars? A. The night of the dance, at any time. Q. Suppose we don’t take in one hundred dollars? A. Well, then we lose the money. Q. You lose the money? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then, in other words, you take a gamble on the crowd? A. No; we take a gamble on the people who rent the hall; as a rule we haven’t any such occurrences. Q. Did you have a dance there last Saturday night? A. I did. Q. Who gave it? A. An Armenian Singing Society. Q. How large a membership has it? A. Oh, it must have two or three hundred members. Q. Did you ever lease your hall to any society that had less than fifty members? A. I have. Q. To any that has less than twenty-five members? A. Not often. Q. Did you ever rent it to a society that had eight or nine or ten members? A. No. Q. How do you know that they are bona fide members? A. We are very careful about that. Q. Did you ever rent your hall out for political purposes? A. I do, yes. Q. What do you charge? A. Full price. Q. One hundred dollars? A. Fifty dollars week nights and one hundred dollars Saturday night. Q. Do you ever rent your hall for less than one hundred dollars to any party or political meeting? A. I did once for forty-five dollars. Q. Never below forty-five dollars? A. No, sir. Q. How many times have you rented your hall for political purposes last year, roughly speaking? A. About half a dozen times. Q. To what political parties? A. To all political parties. Q. And all of those parties paid you the full price? A. Positively. Q. No system or rebating? A. No rebating. Q. You would not rent your hall to any poltical party or to any politician for one cent less than the full price? A. He could not get the hall. Q. How many couples attend some of those dances at your place? A. It all depends on the night. Q. A nice night, how many? A. About three hundred couple, four hundred couple; last Saturday night we had about 350 couples. Q. Any unescorted wmmen? A. Yes, sir. Q. What does it cost an unescorted woman to get in the dance? A. Fifty cents. Q. The same as a man? A. Yes, sir. Q. Does any of them come unescorted and pay you fifty cents? A. If they want to get in. Q. Do you have an}^ dances up there where you have more women than men? A. That is a hard thing to tell. Q. How does the unescorted girl, wdio is a stranger, go about getting acquainted? A. Well, Governor, it is just like this: She comes in there and we understand, she comes in there with the understanding and knowl- edge that she will know' somebody in the place. For instance, I want to say, a singing society last night gave a dance; it was advertised in the society paper. She comes up there and she knows somebody in the crowd. They are all people that know each other. There is a dif- ferent crowd every night; a different class of people, We have all nationalities, almost, giving their affairs. 516 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Did you ever see an intoxicated man in your hall? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you do with him? A. Asked him to go home. Q. Are there any assignation houses in that neighborhood? A. No, sir, there is one little place up there in the neighborhood, but it is a sort of a private place; they rent out rooms by the week. It is nothing. SENATOR BEALL: By the way, do they ever rent them out by the hour, do you know? A. No, I don’t think so. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Representative Zola tells me j'ou have a very decent hall there. A. I try to keep it pretty decent. Q. It is a pretty good neighborhood around there? A. Pretty good. Q. Just one more question: Do these socities that give dances have to take out Government licenses, or do the single beer permits or licenses given by the city cover ever3Tbing? A. Yes, sir, we have lodges that have no Government license. Q. There are some that have no license from the Government? A. No, sir. Q. But have a special bar permit given by the city? A. Yes, sir. Q. Under that they are permitted to sell up to three o’clock in the morning? A. Yes, sir. William Shemberg’s Testimony. WILLIAM SHEMBERG, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. William Shem- berg. Q. And what is your business? A. Retail liquor business. Q. Where? A. At 527 Milwaukee Avenue. Q. Do you own that place? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have a saloon on the ground floor? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is there a dance hall in connection with the saloon? A. There is a dance hall running on the second floor. Q. Do you own the dance hall? A. Yes. Q. Is there a stairway connecting the dance hall and the saloon? A. There is a stairway from the street, both streets, Ohio and Milwaukee Avenue. Q. There is one stairway or two stairways? A. Two stairwaj's. Q. One in front and the other in the rear? A. Yes, sir. Q. How often do you give dances in jmur hall? A. About five dances a year. We don’t cater to them very much. Q. Why don’t you cater to them? A. Well, half of them are too rough. There is a bad element around there that you can’t control. Mj- hall is mostly occupied by organized union labor three or four nights a week for union labor, Saturday and Sundays I rent it mostlj’^ out for Italians, Polish and Germans and Austrian societies. Q. When was the last dance held in your hall? A. Last Saturday night. Q. Who gave that dance? A. The Ratch Peerless Base Ball Club. Q. What did you charge them for the hall on this occasion? A. Forty-five dollars. Q. How many couples did they have there? A. Thej" had perhaps from 20 to 25. Q. What time did this dance on Saturday night begin? A. About 8:30. Q. What time did it close? A. Three. Q. Three o’clock in the morning? A. Yes. ... _. Public Meetings and Testimony 517 Q. Where did you serve the drinks, downstairs or in the dance hall? A. They had a bar permit, yes, sir. Q. And they were serving the drinks to themselves? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where did they buy the drinks? A. Of me. Q. They had a bar permit but you furnished the drinks? A. The wine and wiske}^ they bought themselves, but they bought the beer of me. Q. Ho.w many bottles of whiskey did they bring? A. They had about one gallon of each. Q. One gallon of wine and one gallon of whiskey? A. Yes, sir. Q. And how many kegs of beer? A. Two half barrels. Q. For twenty-five couples? A. Yes, sir. The wine was taken back, there was used about a pint of each. I took it away yesterday afternoon. The committee was disappointed. Q. The committee got intoxicated after it was all over? A. Yes, after it was all through. Q. Is that usually the case, the committee giving those dances getting intoxicated? A. Yes, they do. Q. Under the special bar permit system, the regulation of the dance is in the hands of this committee? A. Yes, sir. Q. The members of tbe committee regulate the dance? A. Yes, sir. Q. The responsibility is on them? A. Yes, sir. Q. And they are the first fellows that “go under?” A. Well, they don’t get that way until the dance is over. Q. They get pretty well started before the dance is out, don’t they? A. Sometimes. MR. SHEMBERG: I have been twenty-two years in the saloon ' business; there is not much in it. Q. You have the best interests of the business at heart? A. Yes, sir. Q. As a saloon-keeper, what do you think of the special bar permit , system? A. I think that 75 per cent of it ought to be cut out. Q. How are you going to draw the line? A. Well, there should be appointed a commission by the by the Mayor to regulate that and look after these bar permits: let them file their application and give about ninety days notice before they start a dance to find out who they are. li I think the commission would investigate and find out who they are, and not allow a disreputable crowd to have any such a permit. 0- You say in the last year you have given five dances in your hall? A. Yes, sir. Q. And your experience has been such that you don’t care to have any more of it? A. Those dances were all right, though the people who j would have dances there, I would not have anything to do with them. Q. You would sooner rent your hall for other purposes than for these dances? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Did you ever visit any other dance hall in the city? A. Very few that I have been around to in my days. Q. You have been to some, have you? A. Probably one or two in my life. Q. Do you know anything about them? A. I heard so much of them, but I don’t know much about them. MR. SHEMBERG: Can I speak a few words? SENATOR BEALL : Go ahead. MR. SHEMBERG: Two of your officers made a remark to this Committee that a certain hall is running good; I think that that is the worst place in the city of Chicago. In the northwest side. Q. What is the name of that hall? A. Roti’s. This is on Sangamon and Grand Avenue. There is nothing but minors, and boys fifteen, sixteen or eighteen, that is there. I am just a couple of blocks away from there. 518 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Tell us all you know about that hall. A. Why, about two years ago the West Chicago avenue police was going to close the place up, and this man come over to me and wanted to know what he could do. I told him that the best thing that he could do; he bought that hall, it was made out of a church, the building; and the best thing that he could do was to take a carpenter and make a rooming house of it and rent it out, that he could get more money out of it and have less trouble out of it than in the hall. Well, he got fixed up with the Juvenile officers, and he is paying a certain sum of money to protect him. Q. Repeat that again, please. A. He is paying a certain amount of money to the Juvenile officers. He has a saloon on the corner and on the second floor is running a bare lodge hall and in there the boys and girls drink until morning, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen years old. This committee can investigate whether I am telling the truth or not. Q. What is the name of this man that is employed by the welfare workers at that hall? A. I don’t know the gentleman’s name. Q. You don’t know anything about him? A. No, sir, I have been told many times that he is afraid of the crowd up there, afraid of his life; he is sitting in the corner, just merely that he is there. SENATOR TOSSEY; Who is that? REPRESENTATIVE ZOLA; The welfare officer. THE WITNESS: They are afraid to do anything with them on account of the backing. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What kind of backing? A. The Chicago Com- mons is back of them, and these Juvenile Officers which pays for this man to be there, and he is protected. Q. That is Roti’s? A. Yes, Erank Roti’s hall. CHAIRMAN O’HARA ; Mr. Coan, I wish you would serve a forthwith subpoena on the welfare workers interested in that place, and the proper police officers of the West Chicago station and bring them in here this afternoon, if possible, and also the janitor of that place and other persons who may' have knowledge of the facts. EXAMINATION BY REPRESENTATIVE ZOLA. REPRESENTATIVE ZOLA: Mr. Shemberg, how long since you were last over at Frank Roti’s place? A. I haven’t been there for the last probably a year and a half. Q. How do you know that these things take place? M. Aly man goes over there after he closes, and he comes back and reports. Q. What is your man’s name? A. Field. Q. Do you know Frank Roti? A. I do. I have met him several times. Q. Did you and Frank Roti ever have any’ quarrel between you? A. No, sir. Q. You never had any misunderstanding of any kind? A. No, sir, not a bit. Q. Did you ever see this man employed by the welfare society over there? A. No, sir, 1 never have seen him. Q. You never have seen him? A. No, only he used to have a floor manager there and he come and told me exactly the whole scenes. Q. Do you know the name of the floor manager? A. No, sir, we can find it out from Roti ; he is not working there any more. Q. When was this floor manager employed there? A. A year or a year and a half ago; since the night they pretty near killed him; one night they blackened his eyes and pretty near murdered him. Q. How do you know that Roti pays the welfare workers? A. From this man that was working for them. Q. That is how long ago? A. Probably six months ago he come and told me. Q. He was still working for him six months ago? A. No, he was not. Public Meetings and Testimony 519 Q. How long after he left Frank Roti’s employment was that? A. About six months. Q. Have you seen him any between this six months, at any time between this conversation and now? A. No. Q. Had he ever told you before that? A. No, I never had seen him before. * Q. How did he happen to say that at that time? A. He just came over and wanted to see my hall, and I took and showed him the hall, and he com- menced to tell me about the things that was going on there. Q. What did he tell you? A. He told me he was paying five dollars a night for each dance. Q. Paying whom? A. To the Juvenile officers, to the Juvenile association, or the Chicago Commons, I don’t know which. Q. Did he say that he paid the money himself? A. No, he didn’t. Q. Did you ask him whether he ever paid the money himself? A. I never asked him that. Q. Did he tell you that he ever saw the money paid? A. No. Q. Did you ask him whether he saw the money paid? A. No, I never did ask him. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : I don’t understand. Senator Beall and Repre- sentative Zola, that this witness means to imply that the welfare workers or Juvenile association people were bribed. It was merely the payment of a salary to a worker furnished by the association as part of its system of regulation. SENATOR BEALL; It it the worker who was bribed? THE WITNESS ; No, he was not bribed. He was paid a certain salary, but the Welfare people, they furnished a man for him, and they protected him, and often he used to go to sleep there. SENATOR BEALL ; Do you mean to say that the man that keeps his house pays a certain sum of money to the Welfare workers? A. Yes, sir. Q. They pay a man to go there and watch it and this man goes to sleep? A. Yes, sometimes he does. Q. And don’t tend to his business? A. Yes, sir. REPRESENTATIVE ZOLA; And you mean to say that as the result of paying the w'elfare workers Frank Roti’s hall is protected? A. It is pro- tected, yes. representative ZOLA; Well, that’s practically what it amounts to. Q. All you know about the whole transaction is what you heard? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; You are excused now temporarily. You will return this afternoon when Mr. Roti is brought here, and you bring with you this man Eield. MR. SHEMBERG; The man is off this afternoon; he goes to sleep; he works tonight. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Can’t you get his telephone number? MR. SHEMBERG ; He has no telephone. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; I want you to try to get him. We want every man, woman or child in the state of Illinois to feel free to come and give us any information they desire. We haven’t any more desire to protect the welfare workers, if they are wrong in their work, then we have to protect saloonkeepers when they are wrong ; but when you make the charge which you have j'ou must in justice come before the committee and face the man you make it against. I want you to have him here this afternoon. MR. SHEMBERG; I don’t know that I can get him. CHAIRMAN O’HARA ; Q. By the way, did you ever let your hall for political purposes? A. I haven’t in the last year. Q. Did you- ever at any time let it free of charge to any political party? A. No. 520 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Did you ever get less than regular price for it? A. No, sir. Dr. Elmer Williams’ Testimony. DR. ELMER WILLIAMS, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows; EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Elmer Williams. I am pastor of Christ Methodist Episcopal Church. Q. Where is that located? A. La Salle Avenue and Locust Street. Q. In the city of Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been pastor of that church there? A. Three years ago last October I was appointed there to serve as pastor. Q. How large a congregation have you? A. The membership is between five and six hundred ; it varies, then we have a changing population. Q. Some of your parishioners are quite well-to-do? A. Yes, a few of them are ; the bulk of my congregation is made up of young men and young women who are just beginning life in the city. Q. You have done work in the field of vice? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have done much investigating? A. I have. Q. Did you ever look into the cause of vice? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do you consider the leading cause? A. One of the leading causes is the male prostitute. Q. The male prostitute? A. Yes. Q. Do low wages ever have anything to do with a girl’s downfall? A. It is a contributing cause. Q. How large a contributing cause? A. Very large I think in many cases, yes, sir. Q. In your work you have met and known fallen women? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever met any fallen women who wanted to reform? A. I met one last week ; she came to my home and said she had been in the business for six or seven years. I would like to request that her name be not asked, for she came in confidence to me as a minister. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : The Committee desires to protect all such wo- men. REV. MR. WILLIAMS : She said she wanted me either to let her alone to follow her vocation as a woman of the street, or to show her how to make a living. She said I had broken up the business on the north side and she said she had not eaten since the day before. I asked her the beginning of her career. She said she was ruined by a business man in an Eastern city six or seven years ago. She began then as a high-class woman of the street, or pros- titute. That a man — I don’t know just how far I ought to go. Governor, in stating this. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; To the full extent of the truth. REV. MR. WILLIAMS : She said that a man told her in Philadelphia, he said, “Now you are a five-dollar prostitute: I am going to tell you that the time will come when you will solicit for a dollar.’’ She said to him, “If that time ever comes I will jump into the Delaware River.’’ She said to me, “Now, I am very glad to get -a dollar ; my room rent is paid, but I haven’t had any food since yesterday.” I said, “Here is a dollar, go out and get something to eat.” She said, “I don’t want charity; I want a chance.” I called one of our deaconnesses into the case and we took her to a home where she could be cared for. But she had become addicted to the use of cigarettes and liquor, and was quite nervous and unable to take emplo^Tnent at once. She came back again. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : Pardon me, you took her to a home wherein she might do domestic service? A. No, where she could be cared for. Q. A charitable home? A. Yes, sir, a private charity provided for just Public Meetings and Testimony 521 ;uch cases as that. She, however, has since that gotten herself together, and think is employed. Q. Where, in what kind of work? A. I think she is working as a wait- ■ess down-town somewhere. Q. You have heard that the red-light district in Chicago has been closed? A. Yes. Q. And that these women are scattered throughout the City of Chicago? I have heard that. Q. Now, we have called you here. Dr. Williams, together with other lead- ing divines in the city, to ask you what the ministers and the church people of Chicago are doing to take care of these girls and women, five or six thousand of them who are driven out of the closed segregated district? A. I would like to preface my answer by saying that there is a very mistaken notion as to the scatteration of vice. In my district, which has not been known as a red- light district as much as that on the south side, vice has been allowed to run rampant for during all of my experience, and citizens tell me ten or fifteen years would perhaps not more than cover the period when vice has had loose reign there. The situation over there now is not so bad as it was when the red-light district was open. I said to this girl the other day, “How many are there of you in this neighborhood?” She said, “There are about two hundred of us.” In reply to her statement in which she says, “Show us how to make a living, or let us alone,” I said, “You can put it down in red ink that I am not going to tolerate the business that you are in, in this part of the city.” And in answer to the other statement I will say, “let all of the women in your vocation come along, and just as fast as they come we will undertake ||to take care of them, will help them to secure employment and restore them fto a place in society.” There are many of those women who are not able to go to work at once. They all have to have medical treatment; many of them will have to be treated for cigarettes and dope. ^ Q. Is it your understanding that the ministers and the church people gen- erally, without regard to creeds, are sort of banding together to take care of these women? A. I am not certain that there is any movement to what you call band together. Q. There is a movement, however, toward taking care of these women? A. Yes, sir, certainly; the Christian men and women of this city have all sympathy for the fallen woman, and are going to go to the limit of their ability to care for her and restore her, but we can’t for a moment tolerate the business that she is in. , Q. Your church is a large church, isn’t it? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have services there Sunday morning? A. Yes, sir. r Q. And Sunday evening? A. Yes, sir. Q. And have prayer meeting? A. Yes, sir, Wednesday prayer meeting. Q. What other services do you have during the week? A. We have a boys’ meeting and we have a ladies’ aid ; we run a free lecture bureau, give stereopticon lectures and others, and I put in a moving picture machine. We hold a great many social functions for the young people in the community. Q. Now on an average, Doctor, how many evenings a week are the doors of your church open? A. Well, this time of the year, as it begins to warm up, they are not open ordinarily more than for the regular services, as there is no demand for indoor socials, except on extraordinary occasions. Q. Does your church, have any leaning against dancing? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are opposed to dancing, as a church? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then you could not very well open your church for dances? A. No. Q. If properly regulated? A. No. Q. Some of the welfare workers have defended dance halls, when prop- erly regulated, but have criticized the special bar permit and the more or less operation of white slavers among the patrons of the public halls. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that the church might do a great service in opening up the church doors generally during the week, so the boys and girls can have access, and say to them, “You come here ; you don’t have to belong to this church ; you won’t be preached to or at; just come here and have a good time, only we 522 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee are going to regulate it, we are going to see that the white slaver and the masher and the strong drink are kept out?” A. We invite all classes, and conditions, to come into our church and make themselves at home; when our social functions are given, we send out invitations to as many young peo- ple as we can reach, but we feel that the dance is essentially evil, and particu- larly so among young people, if I may state my personal reasons. In our church we are not controlled so that we cannot speak frankly; we can ex- press ourselves; we are democratic. While we have an Episcopal form of government, we are allowed to have our personal opinions about matters of this kind. But to open the church and give dances, of course, that would be a violation of the rules. My own personal views, as a minister, are that you awaken the passions of the young people in the dance in a way that is not liable to be done in any other social gathering. It leads to indecencies of a grosser kind. It is not only based upon my own observation, but upon the statement of men who have been more intimate with the dance than myself. Q. Have you ever seen the turkey trot? A. No, my education has been neglected in that respect. Q. The tango? A. Only in the newspapers. Q. Either in your work or investigation? A. No, I haven’t visited the dance halls very much. I have paid more attention to the saloons, the cafes, immoral flats and hotels. Q. In your investigation. Doctor, have you ever learned of a place where girls are lured from fashionable restaurants and hairdressing parlors and sold to men at so much a head? A. I never have had anything exactly of that nature that I could prove. I had a woman give me an affidavit this morning, concerning a certain saloon that says that the saloon is frequented by women a great deal ; that one of the saloonkeepers went with her downtown through the stores, soliciting the girls to come over there and have a good time; that he wanted to make a contract with her to run a flat upstairs, which is an im- moral flat that I had a number arrested from a couple of weeks ago ; wanted her to come up there and rent the place ; he said they would put out the “old hags that were hanging around there” and get a lot of fresh material; she said he went with her downtown and went to two stores that she named, and talked with girls and invited them over ; and from one of these stores I know that two girls have come and talked with one of my men in the place and said that they wanted to make some easy money. There is one other matter that you might be interested in, and that is, the core of our vice district, the system I wanted to bring that before you when I have an opportunity. Q. Tell us about it? A. I was trying to discover why it was that vice seemed to flourish in our section of the city, and 1 tried to find the center of the system. I discovered that a certain man, who runs a gambling den and a saloon and a house of prostitution all in one building, went through the neighborhood and asked other people to run the business, saying that he could get protection. He had thirty women in his place. This is on a street car line, where hundreds of young men pass bj- every day. One of the young men in the gambling den told me that he lost a hundred and fifty dollars in a single night there, and his wife came to me to help recover the money. Q. Did he recover it? A. No, the young man got “cold feet,” as the boys say on the street, and he would not stand by his guns. Then this keeper of the place, who was a precinct committeeman, want through the neighborhood and offered protection, according to testimony that I could produce. He is now- working in the Assessor’s office as a deputy for five dollars a day. I was called before the Mayor. I charged this before the City Council. I was asked to come in and make good. I went in before his Honor, the IMayor, and sug- gested to him that the best way was to check up on my statement. I then went before the Civil Service Commission and had them bring in certain individ- uals, whose names I do not care to give here, if you please, for this can be verified in other w'avs, and this was the testimony; “Why, yes. I paid a hun- dred dollars a month ; Mrs. So and So paid two hundred ; Mrs. So and So paid three hundred; hotels on Clark street paid a hundred and fifty.” And this woman, whose affidavit I got this morning, said that the saloonkeeper who wantdd her to go in business said, “Why I will fix it all up, we will not get into Public Meetings and Testimony 525 . : trouble.” I had him and his partner and some of the women arrested. One party said, “I am not going to pay another dollar ; these fellows promised pro- tection and they didn’t deliver it.” I didn’t produce the proof of this, but I was told that the bartender in this place brought his wife from a down- town restaurant and put her on the street to hustle from this place. I have quite a bit of data as to that. Q. Doctor, I have heard gossip all my life that there is a connection between politics and vice, and I would like to know whether there actually is any connection. Can you get us any witnesses, any men or any women who have been in the business of prostitution, who will swear or produce the absolute proof, that they paid any public official or any politician, or any precinct com- mitteeman, or any ward committeeman, or any official, or any police officer, any money; now, not rumor. Doctor, but evidence? A. Now, I don’t know whether I can produce the affidavit here, I shall try. I know where it is on file. I don’t want to embarrass any gentleman in public office. I don’t know whether those persons who made the affidavit will come and make a new one. T think if this committee would go into executive session I could bring some 'I people here that can talk. You understand that I have been dealing with a ' lot of people confidentially. I don’t know whether they would come out into the open and talk before this Committee or not. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : The Committee is hearing all testimony in public. I It is easy for one to misrepresent in a closed room, but it is difficult for a per- son to give inaccurate and unreliable testimony in an open meeting before the public. REV. MR. Williams : I have had a woman from the street tell me: “My life would not be worth living if my name should be known in this ; I would ' be hounded and abused as long as I stayed here.” CHAIRMAN O’HARA : The most cowardly fellow in the world is the vicious fellow. I REV. MR. WILLIAMS: The woman of the street don’t always believe I that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : I wish you would try to bring to this committee some definite evidence, not rumors, but facts, so that we can prove up these facts in open session. REV. MR. WILLIAMS: How long will you be sitting? i CHAIRMAN O’HARA : For two years. ' REV. MR. WILLIAMS: I can produce in that time. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I assure you. Doctor, if you will bring evidence, the testimony of any man or any woman, and can show to this committee these facts, this committee wilt not protect any official, or any policeman, or any citizen, regardless of his position. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. I SENATOR BEALL : What method have you of securing girls employment i that you take out of these houses? A. What methods? (I SENATOR BEALL: You speak about girls coming to you and wanting j to reform and many would reform, and there are thousands of them here ; •I what would you do with them? A. There are several institutions, and there ; are a number of philanthropic people, who are willing to supply funds for i those girls until they can get their health and on their feet ; and then I i would send them out, just as I would any other girl to such employment as ? they would be capable of taking, if I were confident that they were right and i not intending to lead a Ife of shame. SENATOR BEALL: I believe. Doctor, that you are right, but I have had some experience along these lines. While I was Mayor of Alton I was called upon by some ministers in regard to some girls they had picked up there on the street. They had picked up three girls, the night pefore, about sixteen years old and had them in custody, and I went over there with them. I said, “Gen- tlemen, what are you going to do with them,” they didn’t know. I made a proposition that I would give one hundred dollars towards a home for taking care of these unfortunate girls.;. no, they, could not do it; I said, “I will tell 524 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee you what^ I will do ; I will take one of these girls home to work in my house if you will take the other no, they couldn’t do that either, on account of their boys. I said, “What do you want me to do with the girls ; do you want me to take them down the river and put a rock around their necks and throw them in?’’ I says, “they have fallen, but for all that they are human beings just like you are and like I am ; now talk is cheap, what are you going to do with them?” I says to them, “You will preach on Sunday morning and then go home and have a good dinner and preach tonight and tell the people what they ought to do, and the people that will hear you are all right, but you don’t go to the people you ought to help, now what are you going to do with them?” They have got a fine Y. M. C. A. building there, costing $150,000, and I gave them $150 towards building it ; I was mayor of the city at the time. One night a poor man came into the station to sleep ; they had no place for him to sleep. I asked them to put up bunks and we would furnish coffee and soup for them. I says, “Let’s do it no, they would not do that. It was merely a clubhouse for rich men’s sons, that’s all it was. Now, if you ministers, you good men, will just get out and help on this thing we can do something. REV. MR. WILLIAMS; I want to tell you that when I came here one of the first things I did was to put out a sign high in front of my curch, saying, “If you are in trouble come on, I will help you; if you are in need of employment, we will get it for you ; if you are in need of clothing or of food, we will furnish you.” We are a church that serves the people. Anybody can come, and they have been coming. SENATOR BEALL: What means have you to take care of them? Do the good, rich people of your church, do they help you financially? You can’t, out of your salary, spare sufficient to take care of all those people? A. I can’t take care of all of them out of that. I have used my own private resources, and the resources furnished me by others. I have taken girls directly out of jail and into my home, and I have said to them, “Won’t you take one in yours, and yours, and yours, and you can help us.” SENATOR BEALL ; They are not all like you. REV. MR. WILLIAMS: I can only answer for myself. Gentlemen, if you can break up commercialized vice and make it unprofiitable to get girls and exploit them, then you have more than half solved the problem. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We hope to go deeper; we hope also to go into a study of the low wage problem. REV. MR. WILLIAMS: I am absolutely with you. SENATOR BEALL; Do you know that we have found that four out of five girls, or three out of four girls that we have talked to at these private meetings that we have had, that four out of five say that they never would have fallen if it were not that they were hungry, and were working for from three and a half to five dollars a week; now, we don’t say that that is all of the causes, and we do not say that the girls working for low wages are immoral, but we do say that it has a tendency towards prostitution, star^'a- tion wages has. REV. MR. WILLIAMS; You are absolutely right. SENATOR BEALL: You think then we are on the right road? REV. MR. WILLIAMS; Yes, sir, I do, I preach it right from my pulpit. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Doctor, can you furnish the committee, or the investigators for the committee, the names of any men or women, who, accord- ing to their statements to you, have paid to politicians, police officers, or any public officer any money for protection. REV. MR. 'williams : Yes. Q. Will you do so now? A. Privately? A. Ye.s, so that subpoenaes can be served upon them and have them brought here. A. Yes, sir, I will do so. E. J. Howse’s Testimony. E. J. HOWSE, called as a witness before the committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : Public MEEtiNCS and Testimony EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. 525 CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. E. J. Howse. Q. And your business? A. Special investigator. Q. Located where? A. In St. Louis. Q. You have been investigating into the matter of white slavery? A. Not so much into the matter of white slavery itself as to the causes of vice. I Q. What do you find the principle causes of vice to be? A. There are three causes. , Q. Give us one? A. Poverty. ' Q. Give us another? A. Wealth. Q. Give us cause three? A. Ultra-religion. Q. Cause one is poverty; cause two is wealth, and cause three is ultra- religion. Now let us analyse those three: poverty, what does that consist of? I A. That consists of the low wage paid to working girls, so low that when they are working they are able possibly to get by ; but let that girl be sick for a week or ten days, and she has no money accumulated, so that she can do for herself, and she has absolutely no one to do anything for her. Q. Go ahead. A. Now, I can perhaps make that plain. Any gentleman in here during the noon hour any day can go down to the large saloon with- out a cent in his pocket, can go in and mingle with the crowd, go over to the free lunch counter, get a couple of pretty fair sandwiches, and walk out without being asked for any money, or without being asked for a cent. Now, where is the girl going to get hers? She has absolutely no chance to get anything without asking for it. And the low wages that are paid pre- vents her from accummulating anything that she may lay by for a rainy day. Another thing, another vast cause due to low wages is the young widow, the ! young widow with a baby, an infant, maybe two, maybe three, absolutely moral. I Her husband leaves her without any funds. She has no relatives. Nobody wants to take the baby. The girl may be perfectly willing to work, but she does not care to place the child in a home. No mother cares to place her child in a home if she can prevent it. She has to spend a couple of dollars a week for board for the baby; she has to spend fifty cents a week for washing for the baby; she has to spend fifty or seventy-five cents a week possibly for clothes, some medical attention ; if she cares to go and visit I the child on the street car after the day’s work is done that costs her some- thing, and if she is not making twelve or thirteen dollars a week she can’t get by, to use a street expression, unless she goes out and hustles for the difference. Sometimes^ she does. Very often she says, if she has to hustle some, she might as well make a living out of it, and therefore she begins the life. Q. Have any cases come under your personal observation, to your posi- tive knowledge, where good girls have been forced to go wrong merely because they could not live on the wages paid them? A. Absolutely. Q. How many of such cases have come under your observation the last year, or two years? A. It would be hard for me to say that I was positive of ; some fifteen or twenty. Q. What can cure that condition, Mr. Howse? A. Education and an economic regulation, an economic system of regulation of salaries. Q. How about a minimum wage law? A. It has its good points and its bad points. All human beings are not equipped with the same amount of gray matter, male as well as female, and female as well as male. If you make a minimum wage law and place the inimum wage at a reasonable figure, what is the girl of low mentality going to do? They would not employ her at all, because she can’t deliver the amount of energy that will be demanded of a girl under the minimum wage law. Q. Don’t you think that any girl or any woman who has to work, regard- less of her ability, is entitled to a living wage? A. I do absolutely, but who is going to employ her; that is the question? You can’t force men to employ this girl. 526 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: Well, he has got to get a supply some place. A. That is true. Q. He can’t get along, he can’t get high-class girls all at once? A. That is true, but I don’t want you gentlemen to misunderstand me when I say in a way that the minimum wage law is not a good thing. It will be a good thing for the vast majority. It will be a step in the right direction, but some- thing will have to be done for the girl who cannot earn the minimum which is established by legislation. Q. And your answer to that is, that the girl who under the present system gets five dollars a week, she would not be employed if she was not worth eight or nine dollars to her employer? A. That is true. Q. In other words, they won’t employ a girl at any price unless she is capable of earning a living? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you any other statements or recommendations or suggestions to make to this committee? A. I simply wanted to speak of the ultra wealthy, or overly weathly man. Q. Yes? A. There is no girl that ever went wrong without some man having something to do with her, and you can take a girl, a moral girl who has never been in a house of prostitution, dress her up in the clothes of a prostitute, and give her a hand-bag, and start her down the line, and I will gamble that she can’t get in one house in twenty-five to become a prostitute. They don’t want her. In the first place, they are afraid she is employed by some investigating body, and they want to know who she is, where she came from and what her experience has been, before they are going to take her into a house of prostitution. Consequently she has got to apply to a friend; you have got the “pimp” and the “procuress,” so-called. The “pimp” and the “procuress” don’t make their living primarily on what a girl picks up on the street, but the most of it is what they can procure from very wealthy men, who have them go out and procure the services of an innocent girl for them. Once a girl is fallen it is up to the “pimp” and “procuress” to keep her down. Then when they get her into a house of prostitution they take her clothes away so she can’t get outside, and she is practically a prisoner, and these organizations don’t want to have anything to do with her. It is a question of supply and demand as long, as you don’t detect the male and eliminate him. As fast as you get one girl out of a house of prostitution, it is merely creating a demand for the “pimp” and the “procuress” to put another one in her place. It is properly a question of education. You have got to educate the male and the female up to the standpoint of morality, which is based upon a simple code of ethics and not upon nature. You take your Young Women’s Christian Association, and as long as a girl is able to pay five dollars a week they will keep her, but how long will they keep her out of a job? It is the same with many of your other institutions. You take a girl that has fallen; suppose she goes to a minister or is picked up, I am not speaking of individuals, but as a class, they try to put her in a home. Mrs. Brown says, “My conscience! I don’t want her in my house where she can associate with Mabel,” and Mr. Smith says, “No, I don’t want her around my son John.” Now, what are you going to do with her? As long as they don’t show charity thernselves for these girls and do what they can for them, all of your vice legislation is not going to do a bit of good. These people have got to have the welfare of the girls at heart. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: You said you were an investigator; where are you from or who are you investigating for? A. I have been connected for over two years with the city of St. Louis. SENx\TOR BE-ALL : I live at Alton, just twenty-five miles from St. Louis, and I know something of your city. A. We have a woman living down there at St. Louis by the name of AI W’ ; perhaps you have heard of her. I refer to that case because it is a specific instance. She came to St. Louis in the year of the World’s Fair, and she is said to have been one of the most beautiful women that ever came to St. Louis. She was brought Public Meetings and Testimony 527 there by a “pimp” and she became a panel worker, ultimately a street walker, and it was on her testimony that over one hundred police officers and other individuals were either removed from office or sent to penitentiary, and today she is selling “coke” or “snow,” as it is called, morphine in what is termed “Philippine row.” If you want the actual person who can give you informa- tion, that woman can give it to you. Now, in regard to drinking. There is no boy ever becomes a drunkard by seeing a drunk laying in the gutter ; it is from such men as you and I who walk in the front door of a saloon and get a drink and walk out again, we are the men who are responsible. They try to emulate us and think it is smart. So is the young girl, who comes in from the country with no fine clothes. She sees these private prostitutes and street walkers going around the street with fine clothes, and she wants to emulate them. It is not the man or woman in the gutter, or the actual woman in the house of prostitution who makes prostitutes. CHAIRMAN OHARA; Does “coke,” “snow,” ever make prostitutes? A. No, it is largely a result of prostitution ; it is the result of prostitution, it is not one of the causes ; it is one of the effects. The peculiarity of cocaine is that it makes a man who hasn’t got a dollar think that he is a millionaire. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; It is a cheap way of getting a million. MR. HOWSE; Yes, but it is very expensive in the end. Q. Do you think it has any connection with the matter of white slavery? A. Drugs ? Q. Yes. A. No, only it has the effect. I don’t think that there are, oh, over half of the women who are drugged into white slavery, over half of them. In the first place, if a girl has been properly educated by her parents, if her parents have enough interest in her to see where she is going, this girl who has a home, she is not going to go into places where they are going to drug her. Most mothers and fathers refrain from talking to daughters about their condition at a time in life when they should receive all their instruction at home, instead of from girls in high schools or boarding schools. If they are properly educated, the question of drugs is not going to affect them. Whereupon the further hearing of testimony by the Committee was adjourned until 2 o’clock P. M. of the same day, April 14, 1913. SESSION XX 4 Proprietress of resort testifies to “protection” money paid by her. Manager, porter and several guests of the Normandy Hotel explain how it is conducted. Several proprietors of dance halls defend their establishments. Representative of Juvenile Pro- tective Association gives information. Testimony of: Sarah Mueller; Ernest L. McHenry, proprietor Normandy Hotel; Fred H. Hardin, porter, Normandy Hotel; Mrs. W C , guest at Normandy Hotel; Mr. W — C , guest at Normandy Hotel; A — L , guest at Normandy Hotel; E- — J -, guest at Normandy Hotel; John W — -, guest at Normandy Hotel; Marie H , guest at Normandy Hotel; Ed. Field, bartender; R. B. Phelps, dance hall proprietor; Mrs. Margaret Long, connected with the Juvenile Court; Frank Olson, dance hall proprietor. Chicago, April 14, 1913, 2 o’clock P. M. La Salle Hotel. i The Committee met pursuant to adjournment. Chairman O’Hara, Senator Beall and Senator Tossey being present, the following pro- ceedings were had : Sarah Mueller’s Testimony. SARAH MUELLER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CH.\IRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Sarah Mueller. Q. What is your address? A. 517 La Salle avenue. Q. Do you live there? A. Yes. That is my own property. Q. Have you ever conducted a sporting house? A. Yes. Q. Are you conducting one now? A. No. Q. How long ago did you conduct one? A. Until they closed up. Q. Since then you have not been in that business?- A. No. Q. At the time they closed up how many girls had you in your place? A. Sometimes three, sometimes two. Q. Where did you get these girls. Madam? A. They come to the house unasked for. Q. Were some of them young girls? A. Well, no, not real young; one was a Swedish girl, a real young girl ; she looked an innocent good girl ; most of them come in and ask for the place. Q. What did you pay those girls, so much a week, or a certain percentage of what they made? A. Yes. Q. How much of the money did you give them? A. Half of it. Q. This place was where, at 517 La Salle avenue? A. Yes. Q. Did any policeman ever come to your place? A. Yes, they have come in when the place was run. 529 530 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How often would the police come around? A. Oh, once in a while, about every week or so. Q. Did you ever give them any money? A. No, sir. . | Q. Never gave any policeman any money? A. No, sir, no policeman. Q. Did you give money to anybody? A. Yes, they sent a man to me. | Q. Who sent a man to you? A. They sent a man to me for protection money. Q. What is the name of that man? A. This was last year, I didn’t'know | the man whom they sent ; he was a tall man, and he says, “I am here to collect ‘ protection money that is due, two hundred dollars.” Q. Two hundred dollars? A. Yes, but I didn’t give it to him. Q. Did anything happen after you refused to give him two hundred dollars? A. No, we closed up in about four weeks; the first of the month, then we closed up. Q. This was about four w'eeks before the houses w-ere closed up? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were any houses around you permitted to run after that four weeks; at the time they closed you up w'ere any other houses permitted to run? A. Yes, the next door to me, they were running. • Q. Do you know the name of the woman next door who ran the house? A.. Mrs. Matz. Q. Do you know her well? A. Yes. . , Q. Now, did you ever tell her that a man came around to get money from you? A. Yes, sir, I did; I told her and she told me that they had been to her place. Q. She told you that somebody had seen her too? A. Yes. Q. Did she give the person any money? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much did she give the man, did she say? A. Two hundred dollars. Q. And she was permitted to remain open after you were closed? A. Yes, she gave two hundred dollars and in a couple of weeks she gave him again, and then they say she had to close up ; she wouldn’t pay the money and she had to close, and then they came again and says, “Now you have to give another two hundred dollars.” She paid him four hundred dollars in all in five weeks. Q. She was permitted to remain open? A. Yes, sir; finalN they closed her up anyhow. I made complaint against her. Q. Is she closed up now? A. I don’t know. Q. Did you ever have any quarrel with her? A. Well, not to say a real quarrel. Q. There has been some bitter feeling between you? A. I can’t say very much. Q. How long did you run your house at that place as a sporting house? A. Well, I think it is about nine or ten years. Q. Is this the only occasion that you were asked to give any money to anybody? A. Yes, that is the only time. Q. You never before had given any money to anjr police officer? A. No, sir. Q. Or to any politician? A. No, sir. Q. Or to anyone claiming to have influence, politician, police officer or other person? A. No, sir. Q. You run about nine years there without being closed? A. Yes, sir. Q. And this is the only occasion that anybody ever asked for any money? A. Yes, sir. Q. Y'ou don’t know who this man was, this tall man? A. No, sir. Q. If you saw him could you recognize him? A. Y"es, I think I could. Q. Then will you describe to us as best jmu can this man? A. He was a tall, slim man ; he was sent over to collect protection money. Public Meetings and Testimony 531 1: Q. Clean shaven? A. Yes. [f Q. About how old? A. Well, about thirty-five or so. 1 0 Q. What kind of hair? A. Dark hair, about thirty-five years old. p' Q. You don’t know whether he was not bluffing; that is, might he have iij: come to tell you that he was there to collect protection money, and been with- al out authority, merely a swindler? A. I don’t think so. ( ; Q. Why don’t you think so? A. Because. r Q. Let us try to fix definitely the time that this man visited your place; j'l what month was it? A. I guess it was in the end of May. [l! Q. The end of last May? A. Yes, sir. jt Q. Then after he came you continued to run just as you had before for if about four weeks? A. Yes, sir, I continued to run until they come and said If that I must close up. I Q. What police officers came and told you that you must close up? A. fi Why, that was Mr. Koerner, and Mr. Pangborn, they came around and told Ipi me to close; there was so much talk, they wanted me to close up. r Q. What did you say to them? A. I said, “they first made us pay so il much and so much.” i Q. You said you had paid so much? A. Yes, and then they closed ' " me up. j| Q. To whom did you pay this money? A. I paid it to a man, that slim I man ; I paid a hundred dollars. ; Q. He asked you for two hundred and you gave him one hundred? A. I I could not afford to pay two hundred, and I gave him a hundred. Q. It was the same man to whom you had given on preceding months? A. Yes. Q. You had been in the habit of paying one hundred dollars a month? A. One hundred dollars a month. Q. How many months did you pay that one hundred dollars? A. I only paid that one month, in January. ; Q. When you gave the one hundred dollars and said you could not pay !; him two hundred, what did he say? A. He said it was all right. I Q. And went away with your one hundred dollars? A. Yes, sir. I Q. After you paid that one hundred dollars, when the policeman came I around, did he tell you that was all right, that everything was all right? A. I Yes, they told me it was all right, that I could run. ' Q. Then this man came to tell you to close up, that there had been a I lot of talk, and wanted you to close up for a while? A. Yes, but the woman next door was running after that, after they closed me up and I said it was not right. I went after them and told them that. They said, “Let her make ' some money; let her make some money.” j Q. You gradually re-opened? A. Yes, sir, I re-opened; I said “as long I as that woman next door is open I will open too.” I was open about eight or ten days and then they came again. They were not so serious in it ; I didn’t close, and then they come again after, eight weeks after that, and they says, “you must close on account of somebody here kicking.” And then I closed up. Q. Do you know of any houses that are open today in your neighborhood? A. I don’t know, I don’t bother myself about it. Q. What are you doing for a living now. Madam? A. I got money. Q. How much have you got; how much are you worth now. Madam? A hundred thousand dollars? A. Oh, no. Q. Fifty thousand? A. No, I got twenty thousand dollars; when I sell that place I will get out of it. I have got the house for sale. I would like to sell it. Q. Outside of the house you have got about twenty thousand dollars in cash? A. No, with the house. Q. How long have you been in the business? A*. This money didn’t come from that, you know. Q. Haven’t you made any money out of the business? A. Yes. 532 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How much did you make in your business a year? A. Oh, I don’t know, not much. Q. Ten thousand dollars? A. Oh, I don’t know, not much. I didn’t make much; on account of closing up at twelve o’clock, I don’t make so much; 1 only let certain men in. Q. What have you, a flat or a house? A. I got a house. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: When this man came and asked you for this money did he tell you who it was for, this man you have spoken of? A. Yes, for protection. Q. Who was to get this money, did he say? A. Yes, they told me. It was for a man in the City Hall. Q. Do you know his name, this man in the City Hall? A. No. Q. Don’t you know it, really now? A. No. Q. You have been open about nine years? A. Yes, the house was all the time open, but they never bothered me before. Q. Do you know a man named Fries? A. Yes. Q. Did he ever come or send to you for protection money? A. Yes, he came, but I would not give it to him. He collected all around, but I would not give it to him. Q. How long ago is that? A. Last year. Q. How much money did he want you to give him? A. Two hun- dred dollars. Q. Were any of the other houses giving him two hundred dollars to your knowledge? A. Yes, sir. Q. What houses were paying him? A. Well, I know that ^Irs. Matz paid. Q. You know that Mrs. Matz paid? A. Yes, sir, and Dora McVain. Q. They told you so? A. Yes, she said she paid a hundred and fifty dollars. Q. A month? A. Yes, sir. Q. To this same man? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRAIAN O’HARA: Did the police ever break in your door? A. Yes, once. I told them, I says, “I want a man out of the room;” they had a girl there that was working, and they broke in the door. Q. Who broke in the door? A. A police officer. He thought I had a man in there. Q. What did he say when he broke in the door? A. I told them, “What for are you breaking that door?” And he said there was a telephone message that the house was open. Q. How long ago was this? A. Last fall. Q. Did you ever give any presents to police officers? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever give them anything? A. No, sir. Q. You never gave a policeman anything in any way, shape, manner or form? A. No, sir. Q. You never gave anyone any hush money or protection monej', except that one hundred dollars? A. I never did. The place was kept real quiet. The place was closed real early, and nobody bothered me in the eight or nine years, and then they come up and wanted some mone}'. Q. You are going out of business now? A. \’^s. Q. Never going back into it? A. No, sir, I am not. Q. You are going back into a respectable kind of a life? A. Yes, Public Meetings and Testimony 533 Q. Never going to be in fear of the police or politicians or anybody? A. No, sir. Q. That being so, not fearing anybody and being in a position to tell the truth, you say during all those years you gave up only one hun- dred dollars on one lone occasion? A. Yes, I never gave any money to the police, never. Q. All you know is that other woman competitors of yours have told you that they were giving money? A. Well, I know only that time that he said, “Now, the police is going to be around, and I want pay for protection.” That was the last of June, or the end of May. Q. You know what politics are? A. Yes, sir. Q. You know there are campaigns once in a while? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever given any money to a campaign fund? A. No, sir. Q. Were you ever asked for any? A. No, sir. Q. Never heard of anybody collecting money for that purpose? A. No. Q. You never heard of them collecting money among your neigh- bors for a campaign fund? A. No, they come with tickets for a ball. Q. What ball? A. A ball, for a policemen’s ball, and we always took tickets. The policemen come; I always took tickets of them. They had some show in the Auditorium. Q. How many tickets would you take from them? A. Five or ten. SENATOR BEALL: How much apiece? A. One dollar. Q. You would not take more than ten? A. No. Sometimes I would take them and give the tickets back. Q. You would hand them the money? A. Yes. E. L. McHenry’p Testimony. E. L. McHENRY, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Ernest L. McHenry. Q. What is your business? A. Manager of the Normandy hotel. Q. How long have you been manager there? A. A little over four years. Q. Do you have a financial interest in the hotel? A. No. Q. Who owns the Normandy hotel? A. H. M. Newbold. Q. He is still the owner of it? A. It is a lady, Mrs. Newbold. Q. She is the sole owner? A. Yes, so far as I know. Q. That hotel is located where? A. 417 Wabash Avenue, South Wabash Avenue. Q. It consists of how many floors? A. Six floors. Q. The ground floor is devoted to what purpose? A. A restaurant; that is, we don’t serve meals there; it is a bar and cafe. Q. The second floor is used for what purpose? A. The office, parlors and rooms. Q. And on the other floors are rooms? A. Yes, sir. Q. There are how many ways of getting into that hotel? A. From the street, on the main floor. Q. You can get in from Wabash Avenue? A. Yes, sir. Q. You can get in from the rear way? A. Yes. Q. Simply come in from the rear way? A. Yes. Q. This cafe is open to both men and women on the ground floor? A, Yes, sir. 534 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Is it possible for a man and woman to leave the cafe there and go to the second floor without being seen by anyone? A. Well, they can go right from the cafe through the hall to the elevator, and then go to the second floor. Q. Is there any other elevator? A. One elevator. Q. Is there any other way of getting from the cafe on the ground floor to the second floor without going outside of the building? A. Only by coming through the same hall and going to the front stairway or rear stairway. Q. Couples coming to that hotel as guests, are they required to have with them any kind of baggage? A. No. Q. They are not? A. No, nothing at all. Q. As a matter of fact, Mr. McHenry, are the people who go to that hotel married? A. That is something we do not know; they register as man and wife, and that is all we take the trouble to know. Q. You take them at their word whether they are man and wife? A. Yes. Q. They can go there and register as man and wife, and that is all that you would know about it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Every man going there is required to register? A. Yes, sir, absolutely. Q. No one can get a room there without registering? A. No, sir. Q. Do you serve drinks in the room? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you sometimes rent rooms to more than one couple during the night? A. Absolutely not — oh, do you mean the same room over again? Q. Yes, the same room over again? A. We probablj^ do once in a while, yes. Q. It happens quite frequently, doesn’t it? A. Well, I am not the clerk. I don’t know whether he does or not; I can’t say; I imagine they do sometimes. Q. Then a man and a woman sometimes go to that hotel and remain there, we will say, for an hour and then leave; enough to satisfy a man of ordinary intelligence and astutness that they are not there for the purpose of seeking lodging for the night, but you don’t care about that; you don’t go into that: you consider that none of your business? A. They have a room for the day, for twenty-four hours; they may go out and come back, for twenty-four hours; they have it for a daj'. If that room is taken while they are out we give them another room. Q. How much do you charge for your best rooms for one daj^? A. Three dollars. Q. What do you charge for your poorest rooms for one day? A. Two dollars or a dollar and a half. Q. Have you any different rates for a shorter period of time? A. No. Q. Anyone who goes there has to pay for twenty-four hours? A. Just the same, yes, sir. Q. Do they generally stay twenty-four hours? A. No, some stay less, half a day, some stay two or three days and some stay a week. Q. Some stay an hour or so? A. I cannot say anything about that; I am not in the office, and I don’t know if they stay a day or half a day; you see we have others that come there. Q. When a transient couple comes in, are they assigned to certain floors? A. No, not necessarily, no. Q. You haven’t certain floors reserv'ed for people who are living there regularly? A. MYll, not exactly; we have them living on prettj' near every floor in the house, except the first floor, what we call parlor floor. Q. But not on the parlor floor? A. No. Q. You are around a good deal, Mr, McHenry, as manager? A. Mostly downstairs. Public Meetings and Testimony 535 Q. You occasionally have seen men and women downstairs drinking and then go upstairs? A. Yes. Q. That happens frequently, does it? A. Yes. Q. Did you ever see a man come in the cafe downstairs with a woman, take several drinks, get her to take several drinks and then go I upstairs? A. I haven’t just seen it done; it probably has been done, >i- but I haven’t seen them. j Q. You have seen men and women drinking there? A. Yes, sir. I Q. Later you have seen them go upstairs? A. Yes, sir. I! Q. Would you say that it might be possible for a man to take a ii girl into your cafe, as he might into any other cafe, induce her to take a strong drink, and then take her, while under the influence of the drink, I to a room upstairs? A. Yes, sir; if they registered upstairs as man and j wife. Q. That could happen? A. Yes. ■! Q. This book that I have here is your register? A. Yes, sir. Q. There are entered here the names of all of your guests at the dates on which they are registered? A. Understand me, we have theatrical people there by the week; some had been four or five or six weeks there .1 and some regularly by the year. Those that come in for four or five i weeks are not on that book, but they are there every day as they arrive. Q. Can anybody call up by telephone and have the clerk register for him? A. No, sir. Q. Then the handwriting here is all that of the guests themselves? A. Yes, sir. Q. None is in the handwriting of any clerk? A. No, sir. Q. Tell me about that back entrance to your hotel. A. There is an alley coming in from Van Buren Street, it is just a back entrance into the alley. You come up the alleyway, leading up to the front elevator, ( and there is another entrance leading into the bar, where you can come into the bar-room. Q. Would you say it might be possible for a girl to come in that ; back way and a man to come in the front way and meet her upstairs; I that rhight be possible? A. Yes, sir. jj Q. Have you ever known that to happen? A. I don’t know. Q. Haven’t you ever seen it? A. I have seen a girl coming through the back, but I could not see the man coming in the front; I can’t see the two places at once. Q. Do you think this is a respectable place? A. It is as respectable n as any place in the city. I Q. As any hotel in the city? A. Yes, sir, any hotel in the city, jj Q. What do you mean by that? A. I mean that all of the hotels do the same thing that are in business. They don’t any of them run any business more strictly than we do. Q. That is, all the hotels don’t care whether guests have baggage or not? A. To a certain extent. Our house has probably a reputation for guests coming there without baggage, but I think you can go to almost any hotel without baggage, pay for your room and get a room. Q. As a matter of fact, you have given to the man, who wants to go to a place of that sort with a girl, every protection that you can think of; you have a back entrance and you have a cafe here and you can get to ' the cafe and from the cafe go upstairs; you have given him every pro- tection of privacy, haven’t you? A. The house was built there when we took it; I don’t know about giving him protection. Q. As a matter of fact, if you should put an advertisement in the newspaper for new business, you would say that the Normandy is the best place for a man to go, because he can go there and a girl can get there with the least chance of being seen; now, isn’t that the kind of an advertisement you would use, if you were frank and truthful in it? A. I don’t know about that. Q. Did you ever hear of the Arena? A. Yes. 536 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Where is the Arena situated? A. On Michigan avenue. Q. Were you ever there? A. No. Q. What kind of a house is the Arena? A. I don’t know; I was never there; I have seen it from the outside. Q. Is it a competitor of yours? A. I don’t know anything about the house, I tell you. It might be; I don’t know what it is; I never was in the house, don’t know who owns it and don’t know anything about it. Q. How long have you been at the Normandy? A. About four years. Q. During that four years has the Normandy ever been closed by the police? A. I have heard that it was; I wasn’t there at the time. Mrs. Newbold didn’t own it at that time. Q. How long ago was it closed by the police? A. Probably eight or nine years ago; I don’t think it was closed, it was raided. Q. During the four years that you have been there has the Normandy ever been raided? A. No, never. Q. Why? A. I don’t know. Q. Have other houses or hotels, or assignation houses, been raided? A. Yes, sir. Q. In the same neighborhood, some of them? A. No, not in that neighborhood. Q. What is the name of your clerk there, the fellow who is present when the names are signed on the register? A. Olson. Q. What is his first nam? A. I don’t know, he is on the next floor. Q. He is a fellow of ordinary intelligence, is he? A. Yes. Q. A pretty bright fellow? A. Yes. Q. Here I see signed in this register couples from South Bend, from Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, New Orleans, Freeport, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Au- rora, Kansas City, St. Louis, New York, Indianapolis, Streator, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Rockford, New York City; wouldn’t you think that an ordinarily bright, clever fellow would wonder why so many men and women were coming so far away from home without any baggage? A. No. Q. Don’t you think it would strike him as rather peculiar? A. He is there to take them in; he is doing his duty, that is all — that is what he is getting paid for. Q. He is paid to stay there and let the people come in? A. Yes, sir. Q. And get their money from them? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are there any women living at your hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Permanently living there? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many? A. Well, possibly twenty or thirty. Q. They all have rooms? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do they do? A. They are mostly professional people, the- atrical people; all of them are employed. Q. Have you an3" women there who are not employed at the present time? A. I would not allow them in the house. Q. Are women permitted to receive guests in their rooms? A. Well, if there is a party of three or four or six get up there, have a little what you call a visit, why we don’t mind them; outside of that they are not allowed to have visitors. Q. Has it ever been reported to j'ou by any bell boj% clerk or other attache of your house that a man was in a girl’s room, or that a girl was in a man’s room? A. Yes, sir. I have ordered them out. Q. When did that happen? A. I can’t tell you how long ago; I can’t tell you when it was; it has not been within a year. Q. Has there ever been a fight around your place? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever had any secret service men. private detectives, around your place? A. Not that I know of. Q. Did you ever have anj" man go to one of 3'our rooms and insist on Public Meetings and Testimony 537 a woman coming out? A. No, not that I know of. It might happen and I wouldn’t know it; it should be reported to me if it did happen. Q. Has your hotel ever been mentioned in any divorce actions brought in this city? A. I couldn’t say as to that; I don’t know as to that. Q. It never has been called to your attention? A. No, sir. Q. You manage the hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mrs. Newbold merely owns it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever give any money for political purposes? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever contribute to a political campaign fund? A. No, sir. Q. Never bought tickets? A. Yes, I have bought tickets. Q. How many and on what occasions and from whom? A. From the policemen and from the firemen. Q. Anybody else? A. No, that is all. Q. What do you understand the law to be concerning couples who are received by hotels without baggage? A. To come right down to that, I don’t know. I have worked in different hotels and I have always taken people in, respectable looking people. If they wanted a room and would pay for it, they are entitled to a room whether they have baggage or not. Q. Anybody who comes there that you think is respectable and will- ing to pay can get a room? A. Yes, sir. Q. It doesn’t make any difference as to color? A. Do you mean a col- ored person? Q. Yes. Would you receive a colored person? A. No, sir. Q. You would not take him in at all? A. No, sir. Q. You would not take him in if he couldn’t get a bed anywhere else? A. Never, no. Q. Does the law require you to? A. Yes. Q. You would violate the law in that regard? A. Yes, but I don’t sup- pose it ever happened in that house. I would not take them in. I would always find an excuse if it was necessary. Q. Did you ever hear a girl scream in your place at night? A. No, not what you would call scream. I have heard people quarrel and fussing a little bit. Q. That happens frequently? A. Oh, no. Q. Once in a while? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL; Do I understand you to say, to the best of your knowledge and belief, that never any man brought a woman up into the hotel that you knew were not man and wife? A. That I knew were not married? Q. Don’t avoid the question ; did you ever see a man come to your place that you knew had a woman, that went to a room all night, from Chicago here, that you knew was not his wife? A. Yes, I guess that has happened. Q. How often has it happened? A. I don’t know; I don’t just remember how often. Q. How would you do in that case? A. If he would register, I would let him go through with his wife. Q. If you knew she was not his wife? A. I would not know. Q. I asked you if you knew any man in Chicago that came there with a woman and registered as man and wife when you knew it was not his wife? _A. Not that I know of. Q. How man}^ entrances have you got to this house? A. On the first floor? Q. Yes, from the sidewalk, street or alley. A. There is an entrance from Wabash avenue into the hotel. 538 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Go ahead. A. And there is an entrance into the cafe from Wabash avenue. Q. Yes, and you can go from there through the hall to the elevator? A. Yes. Q. Yes? A. And there is a rear entrance into the same hall, and from there to the bar. Q. Can you get to the Fine Arts building from your place? A. Right through across the alley. Q. You therefore have got four entrances? A. Yes, sir. Q. Let me repeat my first question again and tell us the facts. To your knowledge and belief, has any man ever secured a room in your house with a woman that was not in your judgment his wife? A. I might have thought so at the time. Q. But don’t you know it? A. No. Q. You don’t know it? A. If he would register it would be as his wife. Q. Suppose we should prove that somebody had done that, what would you think then? A. I should think I was fooled. Q. Don’t you think you are making a mistake by not telling us and coming out and letting us have it, because we will find out anyhow; we are bound to get it, and it is better for you, because we want to know, and we will know. A. I don’t know where any particular man has done it, no. Q. Can any man come there and secure a room in your house with a woman without any baggage? A. Yes, sir. Q. An entire stranger? A. Yes, sir. Q. No matter how he looks? A. I did not say that. He probably would not get a room unless he looked fairly respectable. Q. Do you try to get the money in advance? A. If they don’t have baggage, yes. Q. It looks strange to me that with the reputation that we have had of that house that you don’t know anything about it and others do on the outside of your house. Now, if you got anything to say, you had better say it now. A. I haven’t anything to say. Q. Nothing further? A. No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What has become of Usner? A. He is in the city now somewhere, I don’t whether he is employed or not. Q. What is he doing now? A. I don’t know. I see him once a week or so. Q. He used to own the Normandy there? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY : If you knew that a woman was not a man’s wife, as they came there to register you would still take his word for it, would you? A. No, I would not. Q. That is what I understood you to say ; you \yould not know but what he was married the daj' before and let it go? A. \es, sir, or the same day. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Is Mrs. Newbold any relative of Usner? A. She is his mother. Fred H. Hardin’s Testimony. FRED H. HARDIN (colored), called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows; EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN 0’H.\RA; What is your name? A. F. H. is my initials. Q. Yes, but we want your name in full. A. I would rather not give it. Q. Why would you rather not give it? A. I notice that in the newspapers they are not giving their names. Q. Those are the girls. A. Is it absolutely necessary? Q. Yes. A. Fred Hardin. Public Meetings and Testimony 539 Q. What do you do, Fred? A. Bell man. Q. Where? A. At the Normandy hotel. Q. That is the hotel of which Mr. McHenry is manager? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been there? A. Well, about five or six years. Q. What time do you go to work in the morning? A. I go to work 7 :30 one morning and 12 o’clock the next morning. Q. How many bell boys have they got there? A. Three on each watch, six altogether. Q. You have taken a good many people up to rooms there? A. Yes, sir. [ Q. You take them from the first floor up to the rooms on the other [ floors? A. Yes, sir. , Q. Do any of these people have baggage with them? A. Yes, sir. Q. How often? A. Well, frequently; most of them. Q. How much money are you being paid there, Fred? A. Twenty dollars a month. Q. Do you get any tips? A. Occasionally. I Q. You get some big tips once in a while? A. Not what you call big I tips. Q. Is it a pretty good job? A. Fair. Q. You wouldn’t want to lose that job? A. Not for the sake of keeping the present one, but for the fact that it is hard to get another one. Q. Now, tell us what do you think about those couples going up there; I are they married or not? A. So far as I know. 1 Q. What do you think about it? A. I have no opinion about the matter; it is in the discharge of my duty to take care of and room such people as I am instructed to room. Q. I want you to tell this committee the truth ; how many times have you seen a man go up with different girls into this hotel? A. What do you mean by that? Q. I mean this ; do you know of any man who might be there Monday with one girl and two or three days later with another girl and a few days later with another girl, not a regular patron, but making it a practice to bring differ- I ent women in there? A. Well — Q. I want you to tell the truth. A. I am telling you the truth ; I haven’t paid any attention to anybody. n Q. You could not say that any man ever did that? A. No, I could not j say that. Q. Have you ever seen any girl come in there with different fellows and go up in your elevator? A. Not that I remember of. Q. You have got a pretty good memory? A. Well, I don’t know. Q. Just how far, to what extent is your memory regulated by that job of [ yours? A. My memory hasn’t anything to do with the job so far as this is concerned. Q. Do you know some of the men and women who come to that place well enough to nod to them, and some of them call you “Fred,” some of them know you and speak to you? A. Yes, there are a few men that come there that speak to me. Q. Some that you know? A. Yes, but not personally. Q. Did you ever see any of those men come in with different girls? A. No. Q. You know you are under oath? A. Yes. Q. Yet you made the statement that you never have seen a man come there with different girls? A. I said not that I remember, men that I know. Q. I want you to exercise that memory, get right down and tell me yes or no whether you have ever seen a man come in there at different times with different girls. A. Well, I can’t recall any occasion. Q. Yes or no? A. (No answer). Q. And the same as regards the girls? A. (No answer). 540 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Did you work last year in that hotel? A. Last year, yes. Q. Did you work last night in that hotel? A. Last night, yes, I did. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Do you know what the consequences would he if it was proven that you have perjured yourself today? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, you know better than that; you know just as well as you know that you are sitting here that you are not telling the truth, don’t you? A. So far as I have stated I have told the truth. Q. You know that men had brought women up there, men from Chicago, men that you know were single men brought their women up in this room, that were not their wives, you know that? A. No, such people as patronize the place, I don’t know them well enough to know anything about their family. Q. How long would they stay up there; did you ever see a man go up and come down in an hour or two, or three hours? A. I don’t see them come up. Q. Have you ever seen any of them come down? A. No, I don’t mean to say I have seen people come down, because the elevator is enclosed, and people that come down, I don’t see them. Q. You see them going up? A. Yes. Q. But you never see them come down? A. No, because whenever they come down they come down on the elevator. Q. Don’t they go up on the elevator? A. Sure, but the elevator is en- closed, and I am on the first floor and I can’t see who goes down. Q. Do you serve drinks in the room to them? A. Occasionally. Q. Did you ever hear them talk in there? A. They talk about things that didn’t concern me. Q. Did you ever carry any baggage up to them? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you never heard any remarks of any kind? A. No, nothing to cause me to suspect that they were not man and wife, if that’s what you mean. Q. All married people that go up there? A. So far as I know. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY; What is your belief about it? A. About what? Q. About their being man and wife; you know as far as you know they are man and wife, but what do you believe about it? A. I don’t suppose my belief amounts to anything. Q. Well, that is what I want to know. A. In case a couple comes in and registers as man and wife, I have no reason to disbelieve they are not. Q. So you think that everybody who goes there and registers as man and wife are man and wife? A. I don’t know. SENATOR BEALL; Young man, you better just tell us; come out with it. THE WITNESS: I have no reason to believe anything but what they arc as they registered. CHAIRMAN O’HARA ; Oh, this boy wants to keep his job. You can’t get anything from him. That is all. Mrs. W C ’s Testimony. MRS. W C , called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Mrs. C . Q. And your residence? A. Normandy Hotel. Q. What is your business? A. Theatrical business. Q. What doing? A. Skate dancing. Q. Where are you performing now? A. At the American Music Hall, with the Gertrude Hoffman company. Public Meetings and Testimony 541 Q. What do you say you do with that company? Roller skate dancing, my husband and myself. Q. Is your husband here now? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you have quarters at the Normandy, you and your husband? A. Yes, sir. , Q. How long have you been there? A. About two weeks last Friday, before that we were living at the Dejonghe. Q. What do you think about that hotel? A. Oh, it is all right. MR. SCOUTEN ; Here is the husband (escorting in Mr. C ). CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Is it a good hotel? A. Surely. Q. What do you call a good hotel? A. Why, one where we get good service and get what we want. Q. Do you know the general reputation of the Normandy Hotel? A. Yes. , Q. Have you seen anything there that leads you to believe that it earns its reputation? A. No, it is a very quiet hotel. Mr. C ’s Testimony. ^ Mr. C , called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly Isworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. , „ CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. C . '5 Q. What is your business? A. Skating. Iji ^ Q- Where do you live? A. At the Normandy. I Q. Is this woman your wife? A. Yes, sir. ! Q. How long have you been married? A. Since 1907. MRS. C — ; Would you like to see the license? (Producing license and handing the same to Gov. O’Hara.) 1 Q. How old are y-ou? A. Twenty, I will be twenty-one in June, ill Q. How do you happen to have this marriage license with you? A. I always carry it with me in a place like this. THE CHAIRMAN : It’s a good thing to have with you when you are stopping at the Normandy. I am willing to give these people a clean bill of health. j| SENATOR BEALL (to Mr. C ) ; You are a man; what do you jjthink about the Normandy Hotel? A. As far as I know, if there is anything done there at all it is done in a quiet manner. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What floor are you on? A. The fifth. ' Q. What is your room ? A. 523. Q. Are there any other theatrical people living at the hotel? A. They are all on the top floor. ■ Q. All on the fifth floor? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who is on the fourth floor? A. I don’t know. Q. You never stop off at any of the other floors? A. No, sir. ij Q. Has it ever come to your knowledge that at the Normandy, under the present system, the top floor and the fourth floor are rented to theatrical people who are legitimately living there during the time they are in Chicago, and that the second and third floors are used for transients? A. I don’t know anything .about the third floor, but I have heard that they generally put theatrical people jOn the fiftli floor. Q. Generally that floor is reserved for theatrical people? A. That is what d have heard them say. ' Q. Let me ask you if this is a quiet place, why did you report, if you did .report, the people next door as being too noisy? A. It happened at night I would not call the hotel a noisy hotel if it happened to be noisy one night. It was stopped; I asked them to have it stopped and the boys stopped it. Q. What were they doing that caused you to make this complaint? A. 542 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Laughing and dancing around about 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning in room 522. In other words, they were having a gay party. Q. What night was that? A. Friday, I think ; Wednesday night or Friday night. A L ’s Testimony. A L , called as a witness efore the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows; CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. A L ■. Q. Where do you live? A. At the Normandy. Q How long have you been living there? A. Four weeks. Q. What is your room number? A. 529. Q. Are you married? A. No; single. Q. What is your business? A. With the Hoffman show. Q. How old are you? A. Sixteen. Q. What do you do in that show'? A. Dance. Q. Do you sing? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do you sing? A. Everything they tell me to. Q. They are the judges of what you shall dance and what you shall sing? A. Yes, .'^ir. 5E.NATOR BEALL: You say you are on the fifth floor? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is that house, a quiet house? A. I don’t know anything about the house at all; I just stay' in my room in the hotel. Q. Do you know anybody in the house? I know just the whole com- pany; part of the company is upon the top floor, that is all I know. I don’t know' anything about the rooms below there. Q. The theatrical people are on the fifth floor? A. A. Yes, sir. Q. But you know nothing at all about what is going on below? A. No. E : J ’s Testimony. E — - — — J , called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. E J . Q. How old are you? A. Eighteen. Q. Where do you live? A. Normandy Hotel. Q. How long have you lived there? Three weeks, this is the fourth week. Q. How long have you been with this organization? A. Seven months. Q. How long have you been in the business? I have dteen here since .A.ugust; this is my first time in the show; I was away the last year. Q. How long have y'ou been out with the show? A. Two years. Q. What did you do before that? A. I didn’t do anything. Q. Did you live with your people? A. With my people entirely, in New York. Q. Are your father and mother both living? Yes, sir. Q. How did you happen to go into the show business? A. Well, I had to do something, and all I could do was to dance. I never v orked at anything else. Q. How much money are you making now? Twenty-two dollars a week. Q. WHiat does it cost you to live? About $12.00. I send home SIO.OO a week to my mother, every week. Q. How much do you have to pay for a room at the Normandy? Three of us girls room together and we pay $4.00 each. Q. Who selected the Normandy Hotel as a place of residence for you? A- Public Meetings and Testimony 543 Well, there is an advance agent who goes around before we go into a town, and they put down the call, at what hotel it is and the rates, and we go to the place ; it was quite reasonable, so we went there. Q. As a matter of fact, you generally follow the advice of these advance men? A. Why, naturally, we don’t know where to go in a strange place. Q. Do you know anything about the general reputation of the Normandy? A. No, sir. Q. How is it looked upon by members of your profession? A. I don’t know, I haven’t asked anybody. The whole top floor of that hotel is people from our show ; there are about fifty of them. Q. You have the entire top floor? A. We have the entire top floor, nobody else but from our show on that top floor. Q. Are you permitted to go in one another’s rooms at night? A. Oh, in the different girls’ rooms, yes. Q. The men are not permitted to come in and join those parties? A. If they wanted to, they could. Q. They could if they wanted to? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is there anybody on that floor to keep order? A. No. Q. They can do about as they please on that, floor? A. Yes. Q. Then it is up to your own judgment and discretion and will power as to what you shall do? A. There are no call-boys or anybody else unless you ring for them; there is nobody up there to stop us from going any place. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Well, I want to say to you that you have made a splendid impression on me. I believe you are a good girl, but I don’t think it is right that a good girl of your age should be stopping at a hotel like the Normandy on a floor where there is absolutely as you say no protection given you except the protection of your own senses of right and wrong and your own will power. I don’t think it is right. Testimony of John W and Marie H . JOHN W and MARIE H , called as witnesses before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, were examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. John W . Q. What is your business? A. , Theatrical business. Q. With what company? A. Gertrude Hoffman company. Q. Where are you living now? A. Normandy Hotel. Q. How long have you lived there? A. Since they came here three weeks ago. Q. Do you have a room there? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have a room alone or do you share it with someone? A. I have a room with Mr. L . Q. What is his business? A. Chorus master. Q. What room were you in at the time you were served with sub- poenaes to appear before this Committee? A. I was not served with a subpoena, he just asked me to come. I was in my own room. Q. Do you ever have any parties on the fifth floor of the Normandy? A. Not that I know of. Q. _ Who was the girl that you put your arms around and begged her not to cry in her room when these papers were served? A. G S . Q. Who is she? A. A chorus girl. Q. You put your arms around her? A. Sure. Q. Do you usually do that? A. No, she is a sick girl; she was hysterical and nervous ; anybody else would do it under the same conditions. Q. On the fifth floor of this hotel there is no supervision, nobody to pre- 544 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee vent anyone from doing whatever he wills, is that true? A. I don’t know, we don’t do anything that we should not be doing. Q. But there is nobody to stop you if you wanted to? A. Xot that I know of. Q (to the woman) ; What is your name? A. Marie H . Q. What do you do? A. Chorus. Q. What chorus? A. Gertrude Hoffman. Q. Where do you live now? A. The Stratford Hotel. Q. How did you happen to be down at the Normandy? A. I came there to call this morning, and I had been in the hotel about fifteen minutes when this happened. Q. Who were you visiting in this hotel? A. I visited the whole bunch on that floor. I called on Mr. and Mrs. C , and w'e went up on the roof and had our pictures taken, and then we w'ent into Mr. R ’s room, and then from there in Mr. R ’s, and then to Mr. S ’s room. Q. Did you have any difficulty in getting into these rooms? A. No, be- cause the doors were open ; they were sitting there, and this gentleman came and started to read this paper to me. I thought he was fooling me and I laughed at him. SENATOR BEALL: What we are trying to find out is the condition of the Normandy Hotel. What do you think about it? MISS H : All of our people are on the fifth floor. Ed. Field’s Testimony. ED. FIELD, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: (WILLIAM SHEMBERG also called to the stand.) EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Edward Field. Q. What do you do, Mr. Field? A. I am bartender. Q. Where? A. At Shemberg’s place. Q. Are you acquainted with any proprietors of dance halls? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you acquainted with the proprietor at Roti’s? A. I go by there every night. Q. Do you know the proprietor of that place? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is his name? A. Roti. Q. You never had any quarrel with him? A. No. Q. Tell this Committee what you know about that place. A. I often go by at that place when I leave the saloon; I go up there for ten or fifteen minutes to see about minors up there. Q. What do you mean by minors, bovs and girls under age? A. Yes. Q. How young? A. Fifteen or sixteen. Q. What do you see them do? A. Dance and drink. Q. Dance indecently? A. I don’t know; I didn’t stay there long enough. I know they run a tough dance there. Q. What do you mean by a tough dance? A. dance that they don’t leave go in a dance hall. The}' claim that a bear dance is a tough dance. Q. What is a bear dance? A. I don’t know; I don’t dance it. SENATOR BEALL: Do you know anything about that house? A. Mr. Shemberg said he had protection up there and paid for it. (To Mr. Shemberg): Is this the place vou alluded to this morning under oath? MR. SHEMBERG: Yes. SENATOR BEALL (To Mr. Shemberg): What did you tell us this morning? Repeat it again. Public Meetings and Testimony 545 MR. SHEMBERG: The man who wa’s working for him before was discharged, or left, I don’t know which, and he came up to my property six months after he was let go, more or less, I don’t know exactly, and he was telling that they were paying $5.00 for each dance to the Juvenile Officers. SENATOR BEALL (To Mr. Field): Do you know anything about this? MR. FIELD: I was there the day it was told. Q. You heard it told? A. Yes, sir. M Q. You don’t know it to be a fact, only what was told you? A. [Only what the man said. Q. Do you know where the man is? A. (By Mr. Shemberg): I could not say where he is. SENATOR BEALL: This is from third hands; we would not do anything with this. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You seem to know something; there is one thing that you seem to have some direct knowledge of: you have dropped into his dance hall? A. Yes, sir. At 1 o’clock at night when we close up I go by there; when we close up the saloon at night I go by there. Q. You dropped in about 1 o’clock, or such a matter, when you got through with your work? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were you in there last week? A. No. Q. Or week before last? A. No. About two months ago I was up there. Q. How long were you there that time? A. I only stayed there about ten or fifteen minutes. Q. How did you happen to drop in? A. I always go by there Saturday nights when there is anything there. * Q. You say you go by there Saturday nights, yet you haven’t been there for two months? A. They haven’t had any dances. They rent the hall out. Q. You stopped ten or fifteen minutes and looked around? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you see any fighting up there? A. No. * Q. Did you see any men or boys unduly embracing any of the girls? A. No. Q. But you did see them dance? A. Yes. ?;■ Q- What were they dancing? A. I don’t know. Q. Were the girls hugging the fellows and the fellows hugging the i^girls indecently in that dance? A. No, sir; not that I seen. SENATOR TOSSEY: You saw girls drinking there, did you? A. |Yes. I Q. How old were they? A. They were under age; they looked that way, anyway. SENATOR BEALL: Mr. Shemberg made the accusation this morn- ing that they had an officer there, paid for watching this place. MR. SHEMBERG: Roti pays, $5.00 to the Juvenile Association Society, and they put a man in there to protect his place. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is a part of their system. But you said this morning that the officer put in there by the Juvenile Society didn’t pay attention to business, but went to sleep; and, as a result, the hall has acquired a bad reputation. You were to bring witnesses to verify this charge; you haven’t done so as yet. , I SENATOR TOSSEY: Yes, and he says they sold liquor to minors. I I MR. SHEMBERG: Fifty per cent are minors. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You have visited other dance halls? I MR. FIELD: That is the only one I have seen; I have worked in dance halls, but that is years ago. 546 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Is that dance hall, in your best judgment, as bad as any dance hall you were ever in? A. Sure, it is. SENATOR BEALL: Do they sell liquors to minors? A. Yes. Q. Girls and boys? A. Yes. Q. You saw them drink there, did you? A. Yes, sir. MR. SHEMBERG: See any of the police officers from the Wesi Chicago Avenue Station, who were there with that Juvenile Officer, anc they will testify that the hall was not run right, and never was, but the\ don’t want to go over the Juvenile Officer’s head, or the Chicago Com- mons, and make complaints. R. B. Phelps’ Testimony. R. B. PHELPS, called as a witness before the Committee, being firsi duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. R. B. Phelps. Q. What is your business? A. Well, I am running a dancine academy on the West Side, and I am also in the cigar business. Q. What dancing academy do you run? A. The Vermont Hall. Q. Where is it located? A. Aladison and Sangamon. Q. Do you own it? A. No, sir. Q. Lease it? A. Yes, sir. Q. What business are they in? A. Well, they leased the whok business, and they also run a saloon on the corner. Q. You lease from people who run the saloon? A. Yes. I hav£ got a part of it; there is two of us running it. Q. You run the dances yourself, do you, or rent the hall out tc different societies? A. No, we just lease certain nights; there is some nights we don’t take; we have it let out to some organizations like the K. P.’s. Q. What nights do you take? A. Wednesday, Saturda3q Sunday and all holiday nights. Q. I ask you if, in j^our opinion, it is not a prettj- bad place? A No, sir; it is not. ’ ’ Q. The best dance hall in the City of Chicago? A. I won’t say a; to that, but I know it is properly conducted. Q. Where is this A^ermont Dance Hall, on what floor? A. On the third floor. Q. What is on the second floor? A. Doctors’ offices and billiarc room. Q. How many doctors’ offices? A. Five or six. Q. Back or front? A. Reaching along on Sangamon Street, reach ing from Madison back nearly to the alley. Q. On the first floor what have you? A. Four stores and the saloon Q. It is possible, is it, without going out of the doors, to get fron the dance hall into the saloon? A. Yes. Q. It is possible for a man to go down there and drink betweer dances? A. It is. Q. That is done? A. It is. Q. It is possible for a man to take his lad.v partner down with him A. Yes, sir. Q. And it is done? A. Yes, sir. Q. Between dances? A. Yes, sir. Q. Drinks are served sometimes on the second floor as well? A No, sir. Q. Don’t ladies go down on the second floor? A. No, sir; the’ have, but not in the last two years. PbBLic Meetings and Testimony 547 Q. Did they Saturday night? A. No, sir. Q. You had no drinks served on the second floor Saturday night? A. I can’t say as to that. Now, we make it a rule we have, that every night either my partner or I are on the floor. There is a time like when a lady friend of mine, she comes down there probably once a week, why, probably twice in the evening I would buy her a drink, and it has got to be sent from downstairs to the billiard room, and we have it there, that is all. We don’t stand there all night long, because it don’t look proper. Q. You have a toilet for the ladies? A. Yes, sir. Q. And a toilet for the men? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are women ever permitted to enter the toilet reserved for gentle- men? A. No, sir; the gentlemen’s toilet is on the second floor, and the ladies’ toilet is on the third floor, off from the ladies’ waiting room or dressing room; there is no way for a man to get near it. Q. Then you have ample precautions in that direction? A. Oh, yes. Q. Have you ever seen anyone in the Vermont Dance Hall, as long as you have been connected with it, intoxicated? A. No, sir. Q. Have you seen anyone almost intoxicated? A. No, sir; we won’t allow them in; that is the reason I stay there on the door, my part- ner or I. We alternate every night; we stay there for that reason, also to keep young girls out. ’ Q. Do you operate this hall under a special bar permit? A. No, sir. Q. Drinks are served by the saloon? A. Yes, sir; we have got nothing to do with liquor. Q. Do most of the people go to the saloon there to take drink be- tween dances? A. No, I should judge 25 per cent, maybe 33 1-3 per cent. We cater to a class of young men not able to buy many drinks. On Wednesday night drinking is so light there is hardly any drinks sold; hardly any drinks are sold in the place. Saturday nights, then the j'^oung fellows are probably a little more flushed than other nights, and they will go probably four or five times a night. There might be a few go down four or five times on Wednesday nights, but on Saturday night I will admit they will go down probably five or six times. But on Wednesday night, or during the week, there is very little of it done. Q. What is your opinion of the advisability of a dance hall running in connection with a saloon? A. Well, I think if they are properly con- ducted like ours, I think they are all right. Q. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that any young woman is perfectly safe at the dances in your hall? A. I think they are just as safe as at any other public place in the City of Chicago where there is a dance hall without liquor or a public show or cafe; I think she is just as safe there, or safer, because we have men on the floor for that purpose, and we will not let any man even sitting around the hall to put his arm around her, not even to rest his arm on the back of her chair; and nights with big crowds we have men gather in where they are crowded for fear there might be gruff talk that it is not fit for the place that we run. Q. Did you ever hear it said that the dance halls contribute 50 per cent of the girls to the undefworld? A. I have heard it said, but I know it is not true. O. How do you know it? A. I have been in business fifteen years and I have seen a good deal. Q. You don’t think that the dance hall contributes anything to white slavery? A. I would not say that, but it is nothing like you read about. Q. What do you think makes girls fall? A. There is various rea- sons, many reasons. Q. What are they? A. I would say the chief reasons are their nassions; another reason is poverty; another reason some girls are too lazy to work. I know more girls that have gone into it that made more than $10.00 a week that have gone into a life of that kind than made under; I think there is attributed to it, to the fact that they are too lazy to work; the_y_ like nice clothes and they are too lazy to get out and get them in legitimate ways. 548 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How much is your dance hall making a year? A. Well, I don’t know; I make a good living, that is all. It was a good business years ago, probably eight or ten years ago. It is not what it was then, 'there is quite a little bit of competition. Q. Competition is hard on the business? A. Yes, you see up to ten years ago the dance halls were leased with bar permits, and were run, say, by organizations composed of four or live or six members. When we started to run along the lines we run it, we didn’t have much competi- tion, only through these special bar affairs. But of late years there is not so much of that. There has been laws enacted to kind of restrict the general public from getting together, unless it be that they might have a little inhuence to get a bar permit, and the result is, there is a loss on those kind of affairs. Every year there is another hall goes up running along on the same lines that ours is run, so there is not as much money in it as there used to be. Q. You don’t believe in the special bar permit system? A. Xo, be- cause it is not handled right; because they allow them to drink too much. You know in the City of Chicago there is a great many girls; their parents are considered as foreigners, they are of foreign birth, or it is not necessary that they are foreigners within one or two generations; and they are, as a rule, taught to drink beer from the time that they are eight or ten years old; and while they come of good families, they are restricted, and at the same time they like a glass of beer. You know the American girl of today, of the better families, she is a worse girl to get along with than some of these poorer girls; 1 don’t say poverty-stricken girls. The American girl, she likes her fine drinks, that fancy' stuff. You take girls like I used to run into, they like to go and have a dance and maybe a glass of beer; and when she gets out, or through dancing, or the exercise that she gets, she is comparatively sober, and there is no trace of drink in her. We have experimented with different lines, and I found out that it is best if they are restricted; that the minute they' get to feeling good to stop right there, why, then, it is all right; but there is very few, 1 suppose, that will do that. Those places are very injurious to places like ours, because they consider our place the same as the hall that gets a special bar permit and runs unrestricted until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morn- ing. We run until 1 o’clock, and there is nothing doing after 1 o’clock for nobody. Q. Your hall is above the saloon? A. On the third floor. In the majority of halls there is a saloon down on the first floor. The hall is on the second or third floor, and there is a barroom off of that; that is what I call the old-style turner halls. The old-style halls were generally halls that were built on those lines, and generally there is a saloon on the first floor. Q. Are there any assignation houses in your neighborhood? A. Xot now. Q. All cleaned up? A. Yes, sir. We were in a very bad district when we started that hall ten years ago; we had the time of our life to get people down there. We never would cater to the resident district of the assignation kind; we had a great deal of trouble along that line, but after people found out what kind of a hall we were running, we haven’t had so much trouble. After they were driven out of there it was so much nicer for us, and we had less trouble in getting people to get down there, but we would never let men or women around there get in if we knew it, but they would get in occasionally', and we would promptly tell them that we did not care for them to come any more. SENATOR BEALL: Were you in what is called the red-light dis- trict, the levee district? A. Yes, it is near there; yes, sir. Q. You think that it is cleaned up all around there? A. Yes, sir; I am satisfied it is on the W est Side. Q. There is not much there to what it was formerly? A. Yes. it has been a good thing for our hall. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: You don’t allow girls there under eighteen? Public Meetings and Testimony 549 A. Under no consideration, unless sometimes we have had cases where they come up with their sisters and we knew they were sisters. Q. It is a nice place? A. Yes, -sir. Q. Then what is the difference? A. Because after you allow young girls to come up the other girls will not come; you have got to cater to girls twenty-two and up. Then you don’t have any trouble and it looks better all around. Q. Your distinction between an American girl and a foreign girl is that the American girl drinks higher-priced liquor? A. What I mean by that is a girl coming of a pretty good family. The idea_ is, because there is liquor in the building is no sign that it is anything like the halls that make a business of using a bar permit. What I want to explain is, that up to two years ago we had a room on the second floor, and that drinks were brought through the elevator. Up to that time girls would go down there and drink; maybe some girls would go down four or five times and some maybe once. They would go down and get beer or soda, or lemonade, and a very few fancy drinks; and by dancing, or through lots of exercise, they would leave the hall about 12 o’clock and go home. Invariably they would go home when that district was closed. They told us we better close up the room on the second floor. This they told the people down- stairs. We tried to not allow girls to leave the dance hall. We put drinking cups up there, and what was the result. The girls would go about 10:30 o’clock, go to a chop suey joint or restaurant, and they were filled with drinks, and were kept out to 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. I know that. Under the old system they would get two or three drinks and leave there, and there would not be a trace of intoxication on them. The chances are they would go home, and the chances are that they did, because there was no other place for them to go. When they would not :[get anything to drink they would come up and dance several dances and then light out for some other place; and that is the reason, if a place is kept under control and the girls not allowed to go out, it is better than to allow them to run out and run down the street and go to restaurants, where you can eet a girl drunk in just one-third of the time it will take to get her drunk in a hall where she is dancing. I think there is more injury done that way than to let them drink in the hall. There is one thing that I would like to do for your benefit. It probably will do you some good. Within a mile of our place we have got a colony of Greeks. These Greeks don’t put up a very fine appearance on week days, but on Sundays they will dress up with a $10.00 suit and a very flashy collar, and a red necktie, and a handkerchief in their coat, and they start out; and they get young girls by flirting or other means. Now, these Greeks know they can’t come into places like ours, because they have tried it. They can’t get into the average cafe that is run orderly, and they have got no means of trying to lure this girl, and what is the result. The result is they buy her a hat or „ shoes to wear. They are poor girls, underpaid, and they accomplish more 1 wrong that I see, that colony of Greeks that I see, than all the dance halls in the City of Chicago, even the dance halls where they allow them to drink at all hours of the night as much as they want. There is not any at our place; we have to keep them out. As a rule, these girls don’t average over sixteen or seventeen years. Q. You have kept them out? A. Yes, we don't let them up. If those Greeks come up there alone we do not let them in. In the first place, they don’t know how to approach a girl. They try to warm up to her and they “brace her” in bold fashion, sometimes, maybe, make a funny remark that you could consider an insult. We have got men in our place to watch for fellows like that. We don’t want them up in our place. If we bar them altogether as a class we are liable, unless we have some excuse, but there is where the thing is wrong, and it is a thing that could stand a great deal of investigation, because that is the starter with a whole lot of girls; more than all your dance halls. This Juvenile Pro- tective Association, they have been in our place, and I have told them I want them to be there, because if they know of anything, we are glad to know it, but those are things they are overlooking. 550 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Is it your opinion that low, wages have anything to do with the vice problem? A. Yes, sure, I think so, but that isn’t all. The trouble is it is the folks at home that ought to keep that girl under supervision until she is at least eighteen years old. But the trouble is nowadays it is the high living that 80 per cent of the people want. They want something that is just a little bit spicy. They don’t probably allow, a lot of them don’t want very much, but they want to see it. A lot of these girls, if they get a new dress, they feel that they can go a little bit further than they have been used to going with their small wages. Q. What can we do to stop that? A. And there is another line; it is a great deal of trouble to cater in a hall to girls that have been brought up in the wrong light. You take today, look at the young girls that associate with boys that are wiser than they were in my time when 1 went to school: the boys know everything, and before the girls are out of school there is propositions made to them. After they have started, a great many of them are hard to control. There is a thing that we ought to do in this country: to have some means of inducing families to take care of children. I have had people come into my place, apparently well-to-do, come up with women, and when they get on the floor they try to pull their dresses up two-thirds to the knees. Our men go out and stop them. We stand only for straight waltzing or two-steps; we won’t stand for that, you know. We don’t allow singing in our place, and these well-to-do people come up there, and when you stop them they will go out, and some of them will say to you, “You ought to try running a church instead of a dance hall.” That is what you get. They go down in one of these swell cafes and have the tango, the Boston dip or the Princess two-step, or something like that, it would be all right; but simply because they go over to our place they want to know why we could not stand for it. We have good reasons. We don’t want to allow them to go too far. We found out that by confining them to waltzes and the two- step we have less trouble in keeping our reputation and have less trouble with our patrons. Q. Good business depends somewhat on the reputation that your place enjoys? A. Altogether, altogether. You take a dance hall, if it has a loose reputation, if it loses its reputation, it is gone forever. It never comes back. I have seen halls of all kinds come and go. I know of one hall, for instance, within a mile of our place, that opened up about six years ago and allowed them to drink as much as they wanted. They made a lot of money. People said, “Wh^^ don’t you allow those things, you get so strict,” when the}^ could not get drinks. We went on the theory that we will be running dances rvhen they are dead and forgotten. That is the case. Today that hall has got a “for rent” sign up for light manufacturing purposes. It cannot be run for dancing purposes. It has lost its reputation. Q. Simply because thej' went too far? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is that, in your judgment, the end to be expected by any dance hall that does not have some respect for its reputation' A. \\'ell, to this hour you can’t rent it out to anj^ society, lodges or anything: like that. Yor could continue to run dances there and let the riff-raff of the street come in. You could continue along that line, provided the police would allows you to, but if you lose 3 'our reputation 3 ’ou are gone. You want to keep your reputation up so that j^ou can rent it to lodges, the K. P.’s or the Knights of Columbus, or an\^ other organization along that line, that’s what I mean by reputation. Also when j'ou conduct ^-our oivn dances when your reputation is gone you can’t get the average working eirl up there. While the averaee -working girl will start out and go to a place where there is some of that rough work, she likes to stick her head in the door and look on for a time. iMa 3 'be some, the 3 ' will get a customer there and she wdll come back, but ordinarily she will take a look and then go away', but she will not come back. Q. Did you ever contribute to any political campaign fund? A Absolutely not. Q. Are you in politics; have you any political influence? A. Well. Public Meetings and Testimony 551 I know a good many leading lights around town, that’s as far as I can ;say, but I never asked nothing from any of them in regards to our place over there. Q. Then you are not dependent, and the Vermont Dance Hall is not dependent, upon political or police protection? A. No, sir; simply be- cause we don’t keep open after hours, and we don’t carry on anything up there. I have often asked the police captain to come up and pay us a visit, and they would come back at me and say, “Whenever you start any- thing or get in trouble we will come up.’’ Q. Why is it that these welfare workers don’t give you a clean bill of health? A. We have talked to them. I have had a woman come there 'and I talked with her and with others. They said, “You have certainly 'some very, very good girls here; you conduct your place all right.” They all told me that on the floor. I saw some over there the other day. What has crept out in your mind is the drinking downstairs. It looks bad to a woman that has never been around to any place to speak of. Now, to an 'average man, he would say it is nothing wrong, but to some of the women, that is what has crept in their mind. They are able to go down and get a drink the same as you would go downstairs here. I have been to dances in this place, and in the Sherman House, and other places, and we went down and had our little drink and came back again, and there wasn’t any- thing thought of it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Don’t you think the fact that girls may go so easily from your dance hall to the barroom directly underneath has much to do with the criticism of the welfare workers? A. It is not directly underneath, it is not directly connected. Q. Do you not think a man desiring to lure a girl would find in the arrangements you have described an ideal opportunity to operate? A. We [would stop him, a man that is going to do that, and we are on the job. ,As Mrs. Britton said about women police, we would want a woman of that kind. We have to hire a couple of women to do that. Mrs. Margaret Long’s Testimony. ' MRS. MARGARET LONG, called as a witness b'efore the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Margaret Long. Q. Are you interested in junior protection work? A. Yes. Q. With what organization? A. I have been with the Juvenile Pro- tective Associatioil three and a half years. Q. Are you connected with that organization at present? A. Not at present, I am with the Juvenile Court. Q. In what capacity? A. I am head of a division of probation officers. Q. Had you a statement to make to the Committee? A. Why, I have in regard to the Juvenile Protective Association paying money. I don’t just like the statement one man made, charging that the Juvenile Protective Association had paid some of the men. A great many of them do volunteer work; others are paid. Q. This association has watchers stationed at dance halls, where the managers of the halls are willing to pay for the watchers? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you visited any of these dance halls? A. Yes, sir. i Q. Tell us about some of them. -A. We visited several dance halls, and we went in and danced whenever we were asked; danced ourselves, land the gentleman went right in; the male escort went in to the bar. I [went in myself where the other women and girls went in so as to get the ! exact facts, the real facts in the case. Q. Do you know anything about the Roti dance hall? A. I don’t; 'I did most of the South Side; I did Freiburg’s and most of the South Side ; dance halls, i; 552 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do you know if this association pays anyone stationed at Roti’s hall? A. I have never known them to do it at any dance hall unless they made some special arrangement. Q. Have you ever visited the Vermont Dance Hall? A. No, I have been to dance halls on the West Side, but I am not clear as to which ones they were; I did the Dearborn Dance Hall. Q. You did Freiburg’s hall, you say? A. Yes. Q. What sort of a hall is that? A. Very bad. Q._ Who owns it? A. Mr. Bloom; Ike Bloom, I think that is the name, if I remember correctly. Q. _ Describe to the Committee Freiburg’s hall as you found it. A. We arrived at the hall at 10 o’clock and we stayed until almost 3 o’clock, and the girls who were in the hall are girls who were formerly in sport- ing houses in Twenty-second Street, they told me; especially one of the girls who had been in one of the well-known houses in this city; she was a girl, she came here because she understood that things were really wide open in Chicago, and when she came here she found, to her disgust, that_ the Twenty-second Street district was closed, and she took a furnished flat and started to soliciting at Freiburg’s very openly. Q. How long ago was this? A. I should say in January'. Q. She had a furnished flat herself? A. I would not say alone; she had a furnished flat she stated to me. Q. She solicited from Freiburg’s? A. Yes, sir; from Freiburg’s. Q. Did she pay any money or any commission to anybody connected with Freiburg’s? A. I believe so. Q. To whom did she say? A. To the management. Q. Did she say she did? A. No, she didn’t say she did, but each girl really contributes in the buying of drinks; they go in there and they talk with the men, and then a certain percentage of all the drinks sold, they get; they have some arrangement in that way. She would not come out and tell me, but she had a commission arrangement. Q. Did you talk with other girls at Freiburg’s? A. Yes, sir; I did. Q. Did any one of those girls mention a certain hotel to which they were accustomed to take men? A. They did not; most of them, I be- lieve, had furnished rooms, furnished flats. Q. Now, this girl who gave you to understand she was working on some sort of a commission, what did she say to you? A. She intimated so without stating positively. She said — I asked her how the girls were getting along now — she did not know in what capacit 3 " I was there — she said, “Well, considering that the Twenty-second Street . district was sub- stantially closed, that the girls were doing very well, most of them.’’ I said, “Well, how do you do?” She said, “We just came in here, j-ou see how it is.” This place was simply crowded. A great many slumming parties, and a great many men there without any escorts at all. “You see how it is here. We simply come in here and talk to fellows, it’s really easy money.” Q. She said it was easy money? A. Yes, sir. Q. You say there were many slumming parties there; did the men in these parties bring their wives and sisters with them? A. Yes, they did; there were people I knew personally. Q. Persons of standing? A. Decidedly so. They may have been going for the same reason that we were going, on a social investigation, as a great many women do, a great many women who are interested from out-of-town, as I would be if I were going to an Eastern ciV- to compare conditions. I think, otherwise, it is very demoralizing to take a girl who is not married, or even one’s wife. Q. Do good girls go to Freiburg’s? A. Yes, I think good girls have gone there; not many. I know of one girl who went there who absolutely did not know the reputation of the place. Q. Tell us about that. A. She was a little girl who came here and got acquainted with a young lawyer. This young man lawyer asked her Public Meetings and Testimony 553 if she would not go to dinner with him, and took her in the vicinity of Twenty-second Street, and took her to Freiburg’s. The girl was after- wards, she said, ruined by this same man. He evidently led her into this sort of a life. She is the only girl I know of, a good girl. Q. You have the name of that girl and all the circumstances? A. I think we have the records of it. Q. And you believe that to be a true and accurate statement? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: You think some girls go bad because of the dance halls? A. I do think that the different dance halls are responsible for a great deal of vice. I think that the Dearborn Dance Hall is one of the worst in the City of Chicago. Q. You think it is one of the worst? A. I think it was one of the worst. I was there some time in February. Q. What did you see there? A. I saw a great many things that I think were immoral. I met one little girl, I think she said she was from a small town in Wisconsin or Iowa, and she pleaded with her escort, a married man, to take her home. I said to her, “Is this your first experi- ence here?” and she said yes. She said, “I came from a small town and it would be a disgrace at home to visit a place like this; don’t you think it is awful?” And one woman said, “You ought to have been here a year ago or two when they sold liquor.” This little girl pleaded with this man to go home, and he absolutely refused to take her, and the man who was with me offered to take her home, but she would not go with him. SENATOR BEALL: What would you suggest? I have talked to Johnson about the 8,000 girls that live in that neighborhood, girls that work at different places around in the city that pay $1.25 or $1.50 for a ' room and no enjoyment for them there; what would you suggest to do with those girls, who have got to have some amusement? A. I would suggest to Mr. Johnson that if he is going to run a dancing school that he run a dancing school and not a place where girls could go and deliberately solicit the people that are there, and make it an immoral dance hall. Q. But what would you suggest? A. I think the liquor question is S the thing, if they must have dances. I Q. Your idea is to cut the liquor out? A. Decidedly. I Q. Do you think that the dance halls would be all right if the liquor [ was cut out? A. Yes, sir; or if the majority of the saloons weren’t open from the dance hall. Q. What would you think of the question of a lady policeman? A. Well, I don’t know, I really would not want to give my idea on that; I think that a woman stationed in a hall would be a splendid thing. Q. Have you ever heard of the Normandy Hotel in your work? A. I have. Q. What reputation does it bear? A. Well, rather questionable, I would say. Q. Is there any question about its having a questionable reputation? A. I think not. Q. Have you ever been in the hotel? A. I have. I went through all those hotels looking for work supposedly; I got entrance to all; the best and the worst. I have been from the Blackstone down to the very lowest hotel in the City of Chicago; been right through them. Q. How long ago was that? A. A year ago last winter. Q. How did you find the Normandy compared with the Blackstone in the matter of morality? A. I hardly think there is any comparison, so far as I can understand. I understand it is rather hard to keep servants there. Q. Where? A. At the Normandy. However, they were very re- luctant to allow me to get into the hotel at all. I could not say as much about that as the rest of the hotels. 554 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Were you ever at the Marlborough Hotel? A. I could not remember. Q. The Superior Hotel? A. On the North Side? No. Q. The Hotel Cecil? A. Is that a Wabash Avenue hotel? Q. Right across from the Normandy. A. Yes, v:e have a record on that. Q. Were you in the LaSalle House, not this one, but the other La- Salle House? A. No, I don’t remember of the other LaSalle; I have been through this. Q. Is there anything wrong with this one? A. Yes, we did find something wrong, but it was corrected. It was something in the laundry, and it was immediately corrected when it was brought to the attention of the hotel people. It was not anything from an immoral standpoint. Q. Do you know anything wrong at the Normandy Hotel? A. From the impression I got, and from seeing girls coming around and sitting in the parlor, I believed them waiting for men to meet them. Frank Olson’s Testimony. FRANK OLSON, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Frank Olson. Q. What is your business? A. I conduct a hall at 459 Thirty -first Street. Q. What kind of a hall? A. Dance hall. Q. How long have you been conducting that hall? A. About seven years. Q What is the name of the hall? A. It is called the Felicity Club. It used to have another name. Q. What floor is that hall on? A. The first one. Q. Is there any saloon or bar connected with it? A. No. Q. Do you ever serve any liquors? A. No, we did for years, but our license was revoked. Q. Why? A. Well, Mr. Harrison told me that it was going to be against the policy of this administration to allow a dance and bar running together. I told him I thought it was a very fine idea: so he says, “You better dispose of your license.” I says, “All right,” and I done so. I didn’t go to any very great trouble to have it restored, even if that could have been done. I think myself it was a very good plan. Q. Does it hurt your business any? A. Well, there is not as much profit by any means in the place as there was, but I don’t believe in a bar dance hall and never did. If you run a dance hall tough, unless you are catering to the sporting element, you soon lose your business. If j-ou run your hall tough, you would be very short of girls; you could not get girls if you gave them free admission; you would have all men; finally, if vou had a lot of men and no girls to dance with, they would soon be stepping on each other’s toes, and there would be fights all the time, and you couldn’t handle them. You have got to keep order to stay in business. Q. Are there any other places that you know of, dance halls that are running with bars attached? A. Why, there are bars in the building, and so forth. I haven’t been around to the dance halls to speak of much, especially halls with bars, since we lost our license out there. I hadn’t any idea, that there was so many as there is until the lady said there was something like 212. Q. Why did 5'ou lose your license if others no worse retained theirs? A. I asked Mr. Harrison if there was anything about the management of my place that caused him to revoke it. He said, no; he said he thought my place was one of the very best conducted places in Chicago. I know I am considered practically the best. Q. Then why did you lose your license? A. V’ell, I don’t know; I Public Meetings and Testimony 555 have suspicions; I never was with Harrison. The local man that is the political czar of that district, that is with Harrison, I figured that he likely had something to do with it, but that is only guesswork on my part. Q. Who is the local czar of that district? A. Our Commissioner of Streets, Frank Solon. Q. You are not on good political terms with him? A. I thought I was, but I was not. I had had a talk with Solon in the spring, they held some political meetings there, and I had a talk with him, and I said, '“Perhaps Harrison will be elected; you are the boss out here; I am giving the hall for political meetings,” which I did, gratis, “but I am not voting for Harrison.” He said, “You and I will get along all right.” So we were going about, they were going to put a free fight bill through the council, and he came down to see me; he wanted the hall for fights, the hall we are using, I simply run regular dances there, and he wanted the hall for nights that the hall was not in use, and I went and seen the owner and arranged for him to have the fights. They didn’t put that bill over. We opened up in the fall and did a nice business. Pretty soon I got my notice to appear before the Mayor, so I appeared before the Mayor, and he told me he was going to close the hall because he said it would be the policy of this administration not to allow bars in connection with dance halls. I said simply, “All right. I believe it is a verv good idea.” I called on Solon twice. He said, “I will take care of that,” but then, of course, I talked to somebody else there and he said that he would not. but I just wanted to see him, just simply to give him a chance if he wanted to. Q. Do you regard it as a good policy to stand in with the political bosses? A. If a man is running a bar dance hall or any amusement business, any business where he requires a license, why. I don’t think that he would be showing very good judgment to fall out with any of the local politicians in any party, because they would soon work on him from some source. Q. How would they go about it? A. Well, usually through the police department; somebody would commence to find fault. They would send to you and tell you that something serious had hapoened, and they would have to suggest to the Mavor that he revoke your license, or some- thing like that, and then it would be time for you to get busy to arrange something. Q. What would you get busy arranging? A. Get busy to ask who to see, or something like that, or somebody would come around. They would make themselves known. Q. Come around with their hands out? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever give any money? A. Oh, yes; certainly. Q. To whom? A. Well, the last time I gave money, we can talk about this freely, because he is fired now. Let us see, I met Lieutenant Plunkett, of Thirty-first and State; he had been after me for several months; he says, “Don’t you want to run a little game here: why don’t you run after 1 o’clock?” I says, “No, my crowd is all working people and they go home before 1 o’clock.” He proposed lots of things to me. I met him one night at Thirty-first and State, I was going over to the hall, I had a lot to do; and he says, “Wait a minute, and take a trip over here to Thirty-ninth with me.” I did, and we stonoed in twenty places, and he asked them how business was. Finally, at Thirty-ninth, he says. “You see, you have got to come across with the twentv-five, or I will make you trouble, Frank.” I said, “I will see about that.” So I didn’t do it. He sent a couple of coppers down there, and they would stand on the edge of the sidewalk, and as the people came out of my nlace, the police were out in front abusing them as they came out. I don’t know just what arrangements I did make, but I gave him the $25.00. He moved from that district, but I got another deal later. He was away out at Grand Cross- ing. He found something out, met somebody in my place and sent for me. He could easily find a newspaper story, but this time I happened to know all about the thing. Q. What year was this in that you say you gave him the twenty- five? A. 1 guess that was in the other administration; it was not during this administration. 556 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How many years ago? A. Maybe three years ago. Q. Did you ever give anybody else money? A. Yes, I will tell you positively that I have never paid any protection money for running after 1 o’clock, or for catering to minors, or for breaking any law, never since I have been in that place, in that one business, but many a frame-up I have been up against similar to that. For instance, at one time, I don’t remem- ber who the captain was, but the captain sent for me and I went over to see him. He says, “There was a fellow shot a girl out at Forty-eighth and Paulina Street, a negro; he is a hold-up man, he is real bad, he had been dealing with girls and peddling them down the line, and he got some girls in your place,” and he said that he guessed I was “up against a bad proposition.” I said to him, “I don’t see why you sent for me to come over to see you; I think this is all nonsense.” I knew during the time that the captain was there before that they had framed up some little deals. I said, “If there is a frame-up on me of any kind I would sooner settle than fight; that is me.” I said, “Send your man over to see me.” He says, “You will have to be in court; I want you to see this fellow.” I said, “All right.” Two fellows approached me near my home, and they said they were friends of the captain, and I was to see them. I gave them $25.00. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Kind of an easy mark? A. I don’t know whether that is so or not. Q. But you gave up the $25.00 and didn’t get into trouble? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: Who did you give it to? A. I don’t know who these fellows was, I don’t know ; I don’t know that they were police- men; they seemed to know the captain and my business, so I suppose that they were the right fellows. Q. Who was the policeman? A. I couldn’t tell you who the captain was, I can’t remember. Q. Is he still on the force? A. I don’t know; I never got acquainted with the captain. That is the only time I have ever seen that man; in fact, I know our captain is at Thirty-fifth and Halsted at the present time, I know his name, but didn’t know this one that come to me. SENATOR BEALL: You mentioned about peddling girls. What do you mean by that? A. I mean fellows that procure girls for places in the levee. Q. You know of persons, or did know of persons doing that? A. No, I didn’t. We once in a while run into something like that; that is to say, if we find that anyone is there, any fellows come there that is not working, that live in the levee district, we bar them on general principles. Q. There is a saloon next door to ypu, isn’t there, Mr. Olson? A. No. When 1 took the place we cut out return checks. It put two saloons out of business.. I will tel! you about that time. That was six j-ears ago, and a man said the place had a bad name and it never could be brought back. This building cost $114,000 to build; the property could be bought, theatre, large hall, dance hall and all for $40,000 seven years ago. After I was there a year and a half we traded for $65,000, my being there increased the value of the property that much. When I took the place it was owned by one of the wealthiest speculating concerns in this city, the Assets Realization Company, and they told me that they wanted that place con- ducted properly, and they told me that I was practically the only man that could put it on its feet and run it right, and I have tried to follow their instructions the best I could. They afterwards sold the place for $65,000, and the building is worth a good deal more than that; it is worth $80,000 now on the income. Q. Are you going to keep giving up monej^ to political czars and men claiming to be policemen or their representatives? A. No, sir. When a man has got a bar proposition it is easy to frame up something on him, but when he has not, that’s another proposition. I think that there is less of it by 80 per cent now than there has been. Public Meetings and Testimony 557 Q. Public sentiment has crystallized against it? A. Yes, sir; there is one thing that I heard you ask questions on, and that is on the profits of the bar the other day. I have been through the mill a little bit on that, and I could tell you that the profits of the bar is not nearly as large as people often think. I think that the dance halls would be actually a lot better off and make a good deal more money if there was not any bar permits. The fact is, there is only about 10 cents a head made on Satur- day night dances on the bar. There is in the middle of the week, perhaps 7 or 8 cents clear. That sounds ridiculous, but it is so. Q. What makes girls go wrong? A. Well, that is your problem; I couldn’t tell you that. THE WITNESS: Now, about singing: we have singing out there, but we don’t have any of the ragtime music or bad singing. I think singing is fine. Q. Do you sing “All Night Long” at your place? A. Oh, no; we close; we close at 1 o’clock. Whereupon the Committee went into executive session, and ad- journed. SESSION XXI 1 1 rl In response to many requests from citizens of Springfield, ! Illinois, the Committee holds a public hearing in that city and calls t L as first witnesses the mayor, the superintendent of police, two [ woman proprietors of houses of ill-fame, the proprietors, also i ! guests and employes of a hotel concerning which one of the Com- mittee’s investigators gives evidence. Owners of property leased for criticised hotels and as assignation houses are questioned. Testimony of: John S. Schnepp, mayor of Springfield; Mr. Olla Forrest; Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Venable, proprietors Victor Hotel; Grace Clyboum, investigator for the Committee; J— M ; H S ; M M ; Florence Patton; Mr. John H. Underwood, superintendent of police; I Mr, Charles G. Wineteer, owner of property occupied by the Park Hotel; Mr. G. J. Little, owner of property occupied by Victor Hotel; Rev. John R. Golden, pastor West Side Christian Church. Springfield, Illinois, April 24, 1913, 8 o’clock P. M. Leland Hotel. THE ILLINOIS SENATE VICE COMMITTEE met, pursuant to notice. ;i Members Present : I Lieutenant-Governor Barratt O’Hara, Chairman ; ( Senators Juul, Beall, Woodard and Tossey. Thereupon the following proceedings were had : CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Before the examination of the witnesses, the Committee desires to make this statement : Tlie Committee is meeting here this week, in response to an invitation from a number of your prominent citizens, in furtherance of its work in investigating vice and wage conditions throughout the entire state. The Committee does not in any sense consider Springfield the worst or the wickedest city in the state, and publications to that effect were with- out the authorization, knowledge or approval of this Committee, v/hich does not hold it as part of its duty to single out any cities of the stale for especial censure or especial praise. » Mr. John S. Schnepp’s Testimony. I JOHN S. SCHNEPP, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, 1 testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. John S. Schnepp. Q. Your official position? A. Mayor of Springfield. Q. How long have you been Mayor of Springfield? A. More than four years. 559 560 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. During that time, Mr. Mayor, you have been fairly well familiar with vice conditions in this city? A. As for the first two years; since that time we have had the commission form of government, and I have paid very little atten- tion to it. Q. That is, during the last two years? A. Yes, sir. Q. During the first two years of your administration you were directly in control of the police? A. Yes, sir. Q. During those first two years, Mr. Mayor, did you have a segregated district in Springfield? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many houses in that district? A. I don’t know. Q. You were never informed? A. No, sir. Q. You never inquired? A. No, sir. Q. Was all of the prostitution in the City of Springfield confined to that segregated district? A. It was my orders to have it so. Q. Did you ever find that prostitution extended outside of the limits of the segregated district? A. Not after the first six months after I took up the duties of Mayor of the city. Q. At the present time has Springfield a segregated district? A. I think so. Q. The same segregated district as when you were first elected Mayor of this city? A. Yes, sir. Q. Can you tell the Committee, Mr. Mayor, about where this district is located? A. In the northeast part of the city; northeast of the Square. Q. What street? A. I think part on Eighth street and part on Jefferson street. Q. On Eighth and Jefferson streets? A. Yes, sir. Q. Beginning at what streets and running to what streets? A. Well, I am sure I don’t know; probably on Jefferson street, beginning half-way between Seventh and Eighth, and running thence east to Ninth street, and probably north to the railroad. I don’t know very much about the district. Q. How could you tell, Mr. Mayor, if you were confining prostitution to that district unless there were well defined territorial lines? A. I leave that up to the Chief. Q. That was left entirely to the Chief? A. Yes, sir. Q. Could any one run a house of prostitution in that district? A. I think so, provided they didn’t violate any other laws. Q. What laws were there to regulate their business? A. We pre- vented their selling drinks of any kind. Q. They were never permitted to sell drinks in any of those houses? A. No, sir. Q. Neither in the daytime nor at night? A. No, sir. Q. Did you permit music? A. I don’t know; I don’t remember about that. Q. Is music permitted now? A. I don’t know. Q. Is the sale of intoxicants permitted at this time? A. I don’t think so. Q. Are the inmates of those houses obliged to undergo a medical examination? A. No, sir. Q. They are not? A. No, sir. Q. Do the proprietors of those houses pay a license to the citj'? A. No, sir. Q. Are they frequently arrested and fined in court? A. No, sir; not in the city court; I think sometimes they are fined by the State’s Attorney in the Circuit or County Court. Q. But there is no such thing as a regular custom here of haling them into court and fining them and making them pay tribute, through fining? A. There was at the time of my first election, but there hasn’t been since. Q. During the four years that you have served as chief executive of this Public Meetings and Testimony 561 city, Mr. Mayor, have complaints ever been made to you regarding hotels? A. No, sir. Q. You never have heard of any hotel in the city of Springfield, outside of the segregated district, being of a shady character? A. I have heard rumors; that is all. Q. But no official report? A. No, sir. Q. Or no protest has ever been made or brought to you by any citizen or number of citizens? A. No, sir. Q. Do you believe that any of the hotels in the city of Springfield outside of that district are of a shady nature? A. I am sure I don’t Imow. Q. You have no opinion on that? A. No, sir. Q. Are you in favor, Mr. Mayor, of the old form of government or the commission form of city government here, or haven’t you ever taken a stand in that matter? A. I have never taken a stand. The commission form has some very good features. There are some things about the old form of government that I like better. Q. At the time the form of government was changed here, w^ere you for or against the change? A. I was for the change. Q. Since the commission form of government was inaugurated, have you heard of any movement toward going back to the old form? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you heard of any money being raised for a campaign fund with that purpose in view? A. No, sir. Q. In your opinion, has immorality and prostitution increased or de- creased in Springfield since the commission form of government came into being? A. Well, from the rumors that I hear I would say that it has in- creased. Q. Mr. Mayor, why do you think girls go wrong? A. I don’t believe I am capable of answering that question. Q. Do you think low wages ever has anything to do with it? A. I don’t know, I am sure; I hardly think so. Q. You don’t think that low wages has very much to do with it? A. It may have. Q. What would you say that it costs a girl to live in the city of Spring- field, the least amount that she can live upon in this city? A. I wouldn’t have very much of an idea on that subject; I have never thought of it. Q. Would you say that she could live on $3.00 or $4.00 a week? A. Why, it would take more than that to pay her board, if she had to pay her board. Q. It would take more than that? A. Very much more, I should think. Q. Could a girl possibly live on 30 cents a day in Springfield, buy her clothing and pay for her room, get three square meals a day, pay for her laundry — could she do it on 30 cents a day? A. No, sir. Q. Do you know of your own knowledge, or have you ever heard of employers paying girls only 30 cents a day? A. No, sir. Q. You have no information to that effect, to your knowledge? A. Not to my knowledge; no, sir. Q. As Mayor of this city, do you believe that an employer who pays girls 30 cents a day for eight hours’ work is a good citizen of Springfield? A. Well, I would hardly think so. Q. Do you believe, Mr. Mayor, if such conditions exist in this city, or other cities in the State of Illinois, that the Legislature should enact legisla- tion prohibiting that sort of thing, that the State has a right to interfere by law? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever heard of a woman known as Olla Forrest? A. I think I have seen her name in the paper. Q. In what connection, Mr. Mayor? A. In connection with the courts. Q. As the proprietress of a house of prostitution? A. Yes, sir. 562 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Have you ever heard of this woman, or any other woman, paying money into any campaign fund for any purpose? A. No, sir. Q. Have you heard o<^ any one soliciting this woman To pay money into any campaign fund? A. No, sir. Q. For any purpose? A. No, sir. Q. Have you ever heard of the Victor Hotel, ^Ir. Mayor? A. Yes, sY. Q. Where is it located? A. It is located on Adams street, between Third and Fourth. Q What would you say the reputation of this hotel is? A. 1 really don’t know. Q. Have you ever had any protest made to you, as Mayor of this city, against this hotel? A. No, sir. Q. No complaint of any kind? A. No, sir. Q. Have you ever heard of a hotel known as the Cliff House? A. No, s'lr; I don’t know where that is located. Q. Have you ever heard of that hotel? A. No, sir. Q. No complaints have ever been made against that hotel? A. No, sir. Q. Mr. Mayor, I think I have but one more question to ask you: Dur- ing your four years, has any complaint or protest ever been made to you against any flat, hotel or house of prostitution in the city of Springfield? A. There were quite a number of protests made some time ago, but I never took them, I just refererd the people to Commissioner Davidson, who had charge of the police force. Q. Now, those protests were against hotels, flats and houses of prosti- tution? A. I don’t remember w'hat places they w-ere. Q. It is quite possible that protests against some of these hotels and flats may have been made? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Mayor, some time ago the segregated district in Chicago was closed. At the time of the closing of that district, did any of the girls come to Springfield? A. I am sure I do not know. Q. You never heard of that? A. No, sir . EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Mr. Mayor, if it should be proved bj' our evidence here which we shall have before us the next two days that there are certain houses in Springfield, over a dozen, probably, being what you might call rooming houses, w'here they send out and bring in girls — if it should be proven to you that such \vas the case, -would you take means to stop it? A. I would do everything in my powder to stop it. Q. If there are houses here in the city, half a dozen of them, that make a regular business of sending out and bringing in girls to those houses, and if the Committee should ask you to see that those houses ceased to do so, w'ould you be willing to do this? A. I would be -willing to do that, but it wouldn’t be under my supervision. Q. You would give your Chief of Police orders, -wouldn’t you, to see tliat they w'ere closed? A. I don’t give the Chief of Police orders; Com- missioner Davidson does that. Q. Who is he? A. He is a Commissioner; -we are under the commis- sion form of government. Q. There are four of you? A. Yes, sir. Q- If you w-ere convinced that certain things were transpiring here, and you had the power to give Commissioner Davidson orders to close up those houses, would you do it? A. I certainly would. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: kir. kfayor, have you ever heard of the Park Hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Has that a good reputation? A. We had a complaint about that, since you call my attention to it, about six or eight months ago, I should judge, and at that time w'e had it up before the Commission. We requested Commissioner Davidson at that time to station a policeman at the door, and Public Meetings and Testimony 563 he did that for a while, but the Chief can tell you the results of that better than I can. Q. That hotel is still running? A. Yes, sir. None of those places are running with my consent. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. (Witness excused.) 011a Forrest’s Testimony. OLLA FORREST was called as a witness, and having first been duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Olla Forrest. Q. What is your business, Mrs. Forrest? A. I keep a house of pros- titution. Q. How long have you conducted that house? A. Nine years the 4th of June. Q. At the same location? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is that location? A. I call it the sporting circle. SENATOR BEALL: He means the number of the street. A. 801 East Jefferson. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You have been there nine years; have you found it a good district for the business of prostitution? A. I don’t know. Q. Has it ever been suggested to' you that there is another part of town in which those houses should be located? A. No. Q. Now, madam, did you state that the tenderloin was about to be moved to a section of Springfield just north of the railroad tracks, did you make that statement? A. Well, I will tell you about that: We were ex- pecting — no one told us that we could have a district at all; we just suggested that ourselves. We supposed that they would give us a dis- trict, but no one told us that. Q. Well, did you say that the district was about to be moved just north of the tracks; did you make that assertion to anyone within the last week or two? A. Well, I may have said it, but I don’t remember it. Q. Did you state at that time that the politicians had agreed to give the women a regular tenderloin in which they could do as they pleased, provided they would get busy at the next election and defeat the commis- sion form of government? A. I did not. Q. You didn’t make that statement? A. I did not.' If I said anything like that I never remember it. SENATOR BEALL: But you said it, didn’t you? A. I said so much I don’t remember it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did you say that all the women .running houses of prostitution were out this time to defeat the commission’ form of government? A. I don’t understand that. Q. And did you say that you yourself were going to give $500, or had pledged yourself to give $500? A. I said I would help build a city hall. I said I would contribute $500 to help build that hall. Q. You said you would donate $500 toward the building of a city hall? A. Not city hall; convention hall. Q. In case they moved the district across the tracks? A. Well, as far as the district was going to be moved, we just suggested that ourselves, you know. Q. How many girls have you at your place? A. Five. Q. Have you ever been arrested? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many times? A. In how long? Q. In the last nine years, since you have been in business down there. A. Yes, I have been arrested; I don’t know how many times. 564 Report op the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. And fined after your arrest? A. Yes. Q. Frequently? A. No, not very much; this man we have now doesn’t allow us to pay a fine. Q. Before that you were fined once in a while? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: How often? A. I don’t remember, it has been so long ago. Q. Three months or six months? A. I couldn’t remember that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; How much did they fine you? A. From $14.00 to $20.00. Q. Did you always pay your fine? A. Yes, sir. Q. You own the house where you are located now? A. I do. Q. You own the property? A. Yes, sir. Q. The real estate and the house? A. Yes. Q. No one else has an interest in that real estate? A. No, sir. Q. Or in the house? A. No, sir. Q. You are the sole owner? A. I own the whole thing. Q. How long ago did you buy it? A. I think I bought it in 1904; 1 am not positive. I may have bought it in 1905, I am not positive about 1904; but it was one or the other year that I bought it. Q. From whom did you buy the property? A. I bought it from my landlady, by the name of Shields. Q. I want to ask you — you have had a good many years’ experience in this business, and maybe you are interested in saving girls just as much as other citizens are — what do you think makes girls go wrong, w^hat is the great cause of it all? A. I don’t know', it is a pretty hard thing to answer that, I guess; I don’t know' anything about anybody but myself; if you ask me about myself, I can tell you. Q. All right; how about yourself? A. Well, when I was young, my folks let me keep company I suppose when I was too j'oung, and I w'ent from good to bad and got in trouble, and I was ashamed to meet my mother, and I left home on account of it. Q. Do you think low wages has anything to do with a girl going wrong? A. Yes, sir; I do. Q. Have many of the girls that you have come in contact with during your nine or ten years in this business told you that low wages had some- thing to do with their downfall? A. That is what they say. I w'as never the instigator of a girl going wrong in my life; I have given them money to go home on; I never forced a girl to come to my place in my life, and I don’t think there is a girl in Springfield that would say that I did so. I wouldn’t do that myself. I have fallen myself, but I don’t believe in pushing any body down; I believe in lifting them up. Some have gone beyond re- demption so they cannot be helped up. Q. Is it your understanding that most of the prostitution in Springfield is confined to the segregated district? A. I cannot answer your question; I don’t know. Q. You don’t know anything that happens in Springfield outside of what happens in your own place of business? A. Well, I don’t mix up much. Q. As a matter of fact, you know that there are some hotels in Spring- field? A. No, I can raise my hand, I was never in a hotel in Springfield. Q. Is it, or is it not, a fact that you get some of j'our girls from certain hotels? A. No, sir. Q. Where did you get L from? A. I got her from Hattie Smith’s, on Jefiferson street. Q. Is that a house of prostitution? A. Well, I suppose so, I don’t know; I never was in there. Q. Did you ever hear of the Victor Hotel? A. Yes Q. Did L ever tell you that she worked at the Victor Hotel? A. She did not. Public Meetings and Testimony 565 Q. So far as you know, there are no shady hotels in Springfield? A. As far as I am concerned, I cannot answer your question because I don’t know; I cannot positively answer the question, for I was never around those places in my life since I kept house. Q. With whom have you talked regarding the testimony to be given before this Committee? A. Well, I don’t know that. Q. Have you talked with any other women in your kind of business regarding what you would say and what they would say before this Com- mittee? A. Not that I know of. Q. Have you talked with any men? A. Not as I know of; I haven’t seen anybody today. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD; Do you pay anything to the police for pro- tection? A. No, sir. Q. You never have? A. No, sir. Q. They don’t bother you? A. No. Q. What do they do if there is a fight there? A. Well, I have had a house there nine years and I never had a fight in it. I take care of my place. I don’t allow anybody in that is unruly or anything like that. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Do you have a government license for the sale of I liquor? A. Yes. ' Q. Do you pay any license to the city of Springfield for the privilege of selling liquor? A. No. Q. Why? A. They don’t ask it. Q. Do you think that the authorities know that you are selling liquor without a license? A. No, I don’t think so. Q. Is there any reason you know of why you should be privileged to sell liquor in your institution when men have to pay from $500 to $1,000 to the city for the same privilege? Let me repeat my question: Do you understand any reason; is there any reason why you should be permitted to sell liquor without any charge at all, in the city of Springfield, when men are paying in the city of Springfield from $500 to $1,000^ — I don’t know what the figure is here, but I expect it is either one of the two figures — do you know of any reason for it? A. No, I do not; I cannot answer it. Q. You simply do not pay a city license? A. What do you mean by a city license? Q. For the sale of liquor. A. No. Q. You told me just a moment ago that you did pay for a government I license. A. A government license is $20.00. Q. Twenty dollars? A. A year; yes. Q. If anyone would take the trouble to find out, they could ascertain that there is a government license issued to you, is that right? The city authorities could learn, if they wished to learn, that you are paying $20.00 annually to the government for the privilege of selling liquor; is that cor- rect? A. I don’t sell any liquor. Q. Well, what do you sell? A. I sell soft drinks; near-beer. Q. Well, you wouldn’t have to pay the United States_ government , $20.00 for selling near-beer, would you? A. No; but we keep it; the reason I got it is on account of argument or trouble, you know. Q. Well, now, how near to beer is it? A, Well, it is near-beer; it is I what they call fizz. Q. What? A. What they call fizz. Q. Well, isn’t it a fact that it is just about as much beer as you can get anywhere? A. I don’t think any one can get drunk on it. Q. What do you charge a bottle for it? A. I charge 50 cents. 566 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You charge 50 cents a bottle? A. Yes. Q. And you mean to say it is only fizz? A. That is what I buy it for, .that is fizz. Q. You buy it for fizz? A. Yes, sir. Q. What I want to get at is this: You are paying $20.00 a year for a government license, and you are paying no license at all to the city of Springfield; you have no liquor license in the city of Springfield, have you? A. No. . Q. Well, you sell liquors, don’t you? I want to remind you of the fact that you are under oath. Now, do you sell beer, or don’t you sell beer? A. Well, I sell drinks, but I don’t sell any whiskey. Q. Don’t let us quibble about it. Do you or do you not sell beer, and I want to remind you that when I am asking the question you are under oath. Do you or do you not? A. Well, I don’t know; I don’t drink it. Q. You dont’ drink it? A. No, sir. Q. You never drank it? A. No, sir. Q. Where do you buy it? A. I buy it over to — Q. You don’t buy it in a church, I suppose; you get it in a brewery, don’t you? A. Yes, in a brewery. Q. Now, whose brewery do you get it in? A. Hansen’s. Q. Hansen’s brewery? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do they make and manufacture any other kind of beer, the good old beer the way that everybody knows it? A. I cannot answer that. Q. You cannot answer, don’t choose to answer, or don’t care to an- swer? A. I don’t know. Q. Now, let me ask you one additional question: Do you pay anything indirectly to anybody in Springfield for the privilege of selling this beer, or near-beer, as you call it? A. I don’t know. Q. You are positively sure you don’t know? A. I don’t know; I do not pay anybody a nickel. (Witness excused.) Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Venable’s Testimony. MR. AND MRS. C. W. VENABLE w'ere called as witnesses, and having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA (addressing Mr. Venable): What is your name? A. C- W. Venable. Q. (addressing Mrs. Venable): What is your name? A. Mrs. C. W. Venable. Q. Are you man and wife? A. Yes, sir. Q. What business are you engaged in? A. Hotel business. ' Q. What hotel? A. Victor Hotel. 0. Where is that hotel located? A. 31114 East Adams street. Q. What is your connection with the hotel? A. Well, I run the place. Q. You own it? A. I am the proprietor. Q. How are you connected with the hotel (addressing Mrs. Venable)? A. Well, just I am his wife. Q. Have you any particular duties in connection with that hotel? A. Nothing only just take care of the hotel. Q. You run it together? A. \ es. MR. VENABLE: She looks after the rooms, and I look after the running of it. She sees that the rooms are kept clean and that there is proper linen there,- and that is about all she sees to. Q. How many rooms have you in the hotel? A. Thirty-four. Q. What 13 the lowest amount that you charge for one of those rooms? Public Meetings and Testimony 567 A. Well, different prices; all the way from $5.00 a week to $2.00 a week. We have got suites of housekeeping rooms; that is, for cooking, for light housekeeping. Q. You have some rooms that you rent out to people by the day? A. Yes; have three or four rooms on the first floor. Q. Have you any girls, single girls, living in that hotel? A. None, only that are working for us. Q. Have you ever had any girls living in that hotel? A. Oh, numbers of times people come to stay a week or two and go away; rent a room by the week and then go, and somebody else comes along. You know how it is in the transient business. Q. Suppose a girl comes there and asks for a room, there is no reason why she shouldn’t have a room, is there? A. Not a bit in the world. Q. Is she permitted to receive gentleman visitors in her room? A. No, sir, not unless they register as man and wife. Q. And you never have informed any girl applying for a room there that she could have all the gentleman friends in the room that she wanted, but that she would have to pay you extra for it, for every one that would come to her room? A. No, sir; I never did. Q. You never said that to any girl? A. No, sir; I never did, and I know the girl you refer to. She was there three days ago. Q. Oh, you know the girl I refer to? A. Yes, I think I do. Q. All right; go on and tell us about it. A. Well, she says, “Have you got rooms here to rent?” and I says, “Yes, ma’am.” I says, “About how long do you want a room for?” and she says “Possibly two or three days,” and she says, “If I get work I will be here longer, and then I will ' want one by the week,” and I says, “I haven’t anything now that I can rent you by the week; possibly by the time you get located I will have some- thing”; and I showed her a room on the top floor for $2.50 a week. She said she didn’t want to be that high up, she said she wanted to be on a II lower floor, so I took her down to the next floor, and she said she didn’t want to be there. She says, “You rent rooms down there on the first floor, don’t you?” and I had three rooms on the next floor, and I says, “Yes, I rent those, but I charge more.” She' says, “How much do you charge for those rooms?” and I said I charged $1.00 a day. She says, “Does that mean for one or two?” and I says, “It is just the same for one or two,” and she says, “I will take this room,” and she registered, and I . took her $1.00, and she stayed over night, and she went out the next day 1 and she said she didn’t know whether she would be back or not. She said she was looking for work, and I told her I didn’t have any work for her We had plenty of girls. So that is about all that was said. I was in the 1 office writing a letter, in the parlor, and she came to the door and asked ' me if there was anyone rooming in the house that took her meals out. I says, “Yes, there is one.” ' Q. She wanted to know if there were any girls in the house that took their meals out? A. Yes; takes her meals out. Q. There is one girl that does take her meals out? A. Yes, takes her meals out while she is in the city. Q. Then you have at least one girl rooming at your place? A. Yes, sir. Q. And a few moments ago you made the statement to the Committee that there were no girls rooming there? A. We have lady roomers. She is having some dental work done. She comes from a little town over here, and she is here a week today, and she is having some sewing done also. ; Q. Let’s get down to it: How many girls have you living at your place now? A. Well, just got them three. I have lots of married folks living there with families. Q. Yes, but the girls, who haven’t any families with^them? A. Two is all. _ Q. (to Mrs. Venable): Madam, you know those two girls staying there? A. Yes, sir. 568 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You have known other girls that stayed there at different times; A. Oh, lots of girls. Q. Of course, they come and talk with you? A. Well, not any more than is necessary. Q. You give them advice, sometimes? A. Well, not any more than I would to a man if he wanted advice. Q. Now, did you ever tell any girl that she had better do some light work during the daytime? A. I did not. Q. You never said that working in the daytime would furnish a good alibi in case the girl got arrested? A. I should say not. Q. You never warned any girl of certain plain-clothesmen? A. I told her that she could not do anything here. Q. You never said to any girl that if she brought a man to the Victor that she should get him to register and that you would assign them to an- other room so that you would make double, the hotel would make double? A. I said you could not take anyone to your room. Q. Do you know a hotel known as the Cliff House? A. Yes; and referred the girl to go there to get work. Q. Is the Cliff House a pretty good place? A. Well, I never worked there myself. Q. Do you know the people who run it? A. I just know her, never saw her but once, and she asked me if I knew if there were any girls ever came to the hotel. She telephoned to the house and said if there was a girl came there looking for employment she would like to have me send her over. Q. That is, the woman at the Cliff House telephoned over to the Victor? A. Why, yes. Q. And her definition of work now, madam, didn’t include hustling on the street? A. It did not. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Do you have a government license at the Victor Hotel? A. I have not; not to my knowledge. Q. (addressing Mr. Venable): Have you? A. No, sir. Q. You haven’t any near-beer over there? A. I haven’t anything to drink over there, only water. If I had anything it would be beer, it wouldn’t be near-beer. I never sold a drink of anything since I have been in the house, and I don’t allow a drink in the house if I know it. If anyone comes there intoxicated, they don’t get a room there. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you know a girl named T ? A. Yes, sir. Q. Does she live at your place? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know a girl named J ? A. \ es, sir. Q. She lives at your place; they work for you? A. T doesn’t v/ork for me; J does. Q. How many girls are working in your place? A. I have two girls employed. Q. What is the nature of their employment? A. Not any more than any other hotel; just general work. I usually do the cooking; they make the beds and wash and sweep and brush. Q. Have you ever employed more than two girls? A. No, we never have. Q. How long has T been with you? A. A week today. Q. How long has J been with you? A. I don’t know just how long; she has been here quite a while. Public Meetings and Testimony 569 Q. Do you require every couple when they come in, to register? A. I . certainly do. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: You don’t allow couples rooms without baggage? A. No — oh, without baggage? Oh, well, we couldn’t require everyone to have baggage. Sometimes you yourself are in town without baggage. Q. I mean couples. A. If they register as man and wife. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: What is the greatest number of times in twenty- four hours that you ever rented one room? A. I couldn’t tell you. Q. Well, what would you estimate it at? A. One room? Q. One room; how many tenants, different tenants, have been in one room of your institution in twenty-four hours? A. Well, now, I couldn’t tell you. Q. One? A. Well, it ought to be. Q. Two? A. Well, I cannot remember. Q. Well, can you remember any case? A. No, I couldn’t. Q. How many rooms have you got? A. We have thirty-four. Q. How many visitors would you say was the highest number in the twenty-four hours in the thirty-four rooms? A. I could not say. Q. Well, would you have two in twenty-four hours; I mean, would one room be occupied twice in twenty-four hours? A. I couldn’t say. Q. Now, madam, it isn’t a question of what you can say, A. Well, I don’t remember. O. Now, you have had more than one couple in one room in one night? A. Well, now, I couldn’t say. Q. Do you think your husband would know? A. I cannot answer that. MR. VENABLE: I can answer that for you. Sometimes in twenty-four hours we will have as many as two couple in one room; lots of times there will be people who come there and register and say they want to get a train, and they would just stay for a little while and possibly we would rent the room before morning again. Q. Do you remember what is the greatest number of occupants of any one room at any one time in twenty-four hours? A. Not over two. Q. I will be perfectly frank with you: I am trying to find out the kind of hotel you are running. A. I am running as near a rooming house as I can run, and a respectable one. 0- I want to assure you that I would be the last person on earth to give the hotel a bad name, and I think it would be well for you to come up here and leave a good name for the hotel, and if any one has wronged the place I would be the first one to come down and apologize, A. When I took the place it had a bad name. I never was in the hotel business before, and I was looking for an investment, and I saw this hotel advertised, and I had some money laid up and I borrowed some money and I got rid of all the questionable people that were in there. O. Do you pay any girls any commission for the sale of any drinks? A. We don’t sell any drinks. Q. That doesn’t exist there? A. No. I don’t sell any drinks. There is’nt a drop in the house now, and hasn’t been. (Witness excused.) Grace Clybourn’s Testimony. GRACE CLYBOLTRN, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: 570 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. Grace Clybourn. Q. How old are you, Miss Clybourn? A. Twenty-six years old. Q. Do you know such a hotel as the Victor House? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever stop at that hotel? A. I did. Q. Where is the hotel located, on what street? A. 311^2 Adams street. Q. What is the proprietor’s name? 'A. klr. Venable, Mr. C. W. Ven- able. Q. Do you know Mr. Venable when you see him? A. I met him at the hotel, yes, sir. Q. On What occasion did you meet him? A. When I went and registered for a room. Q. How long ago was that? A. Last Monday morning. Q. He gave you a room after registering? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you enter into conversation with him? A. I did. Q. What did you say to him? A. Why, he show’ed me the rooms, one room, and the one that I wanted was a room on the first floor, and he told me that I was allowed the privilege of having company in the room, but that each man that was there would have to register and pay extra for the room; that wasn’t included in my having the room. Q. They were going to charge you if you desired to take men to your room? A. Yes, sir. Q. And each man was to pay the hotel so much money? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was to register? A. Yes, sir. Q. And in addition to that, you were pa3-ing rent on that room? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much money were you to pajC .A. One dollar a da3-. Q. What else did Mr. Venable say to 3'ou? A. Well, he warned me if I met men on the street to be careful that the3' weren’t plain-clothesmen. Q. Did he say anything else? A. No, I think not. I don’t think so. I didn’t have much talk with him that time. Q. Then you got a room there, did you? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was the number of that room? A. Number six. Q. On what floor? A. Well, the hotel — the office is on the second floor, and my room was on the office floor. Q. How long did you remain in the room? A. Well, I registered there Monday morning, and I left there kIonda3^ evening about 6 o’clock or a little later. I was in and out of the room. Q. Did you have dinner at the hotel? A. I did not; I don’t think they have a restaurant in connection with it. Q. Did you meet any women there? A. I did. I met Mrs. Venable. Q. How did 3'Ou know that she was Mrs. Venable? A. She told me she was; she came in after I had talked to Mr. Venable, and she said that she had talked to her husband, and I asked if her husband was kir. Venable and she said he was. Q. What did you say to Mrs. Venable? .A.. Wh3', she came in the room. She said she had talked with her husband, her husband had talked to her about me and she had taken an interest in me, and she advised me to get work. She said that if you didn’t have work 3mu couldn’t live in Springfield, and that if 3^ou did light work of some kind then the police wouldn’t bother you, but that if you didn’t have work, that the police would get 3'Ou; they would send you to jail or give you a few hours to leave town. Q. Get you for what, madam? A. Talking to men on the street, and taking them up to the rooms. Q. Did she say anything else to \’ou at that time? A. Well, she also warned me of the plain-clothesmen, told me to be careful, and I asked her if Public Meetings and Testimony 571 you couldn’t tell the plain-clothesmen, and she said that she had been in Springfield for three years and she didn’t know them all. Q. Did she say that she did know any plain-clothesmen? A. Well, she didn’t say any number that she knew, but she led me to believe that she did. ai I Q. How did 'she lead you to that belief? A. Well, by saying that she had lived in Springfield all her life and that she didn’t know them all, as much as to say that she knew some. Q. Now, did you meet any other girls there, or any other women? A. I met L , a girl that works there. Q. What does she do? A. Well, she does chamber work. When I went to the hotel, she was sweeping up the office. She works there, and I understand entertains men that come there. Q. Now, about how old a girl is she? A. Well, I should think she is a girl about my own age. Q. Is she what you would call a good-looking girl? A. A very sweet- faced girl, not particularly beautiful, but a sweet face. I think she has a child. They showed me a picture on the wall of her room, and said it was her child, her baby. Q. Is her husband living with her? A. I don’t think so; I didn’t hear her husband’s name mentioned. I talked with her, talked about her sweet- heart and her baby, but she didn’t talk to me about a husband. Q. Did you meet any other women or girls there? A. Monday even- ing I asked Mr. Venable if there was any girl in the hotel that would go t6 dinner, and he sent me up to room No. 30, I think on the third floor. Room 30 is on the third floor, and he told me to ask for J . — J W , I think is the name, and she went to dinner with me, went to the Illinois for dinner, and I talked with her. Q. What did this girl say to you? A. Yes, she talked a great deal to me and at first she acted kind of shy about talking to me, I being a stranger to her, and then she afterwards talked a great deal to me, and every place we went in, a few places, she seemed to know everyone in the place. When vve went to the Illinois she knew the entertainers there and one or two of the colored waiters spoke to her when we went down the stairs. Q. She was pretty well known? A. Yes, sir; she introduced me to two or three different entertainers, at different places. Q. Did she say anything to you concerning her life at the Victor Hotel? A. Well, she told me she had friends come to the Victor Hotel that went to her room. SENATOR JUUL: Male friends? A. Male friends, and also lady friends, and she told me of one or two different people, friends of hers, that stayed there all night, and she told me about friends she had that were detectives. Q. What did she say about the detectives? A. Well, she told about going out and having good times with them, and she told me about — she didn’t mention any names, any detectives’ names — but she told me about one instance of a detective coming here from Milwaukee to get a prisoner to take back, and that he knew detectives here that were friends of his, and he went and met them and had girls in the party, I don’t know how many — J ^ was one of the party, and they went out and became so intoxicated that the Milwaukee detective couldn’t take his prisoner back to Milwaukee that night. Q. That is, they were out with the girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the prisoner didn’t go back to Milwaukee? A. Not that night. Q. Did she say anything further? A. She said that a friend of hers by the name of T , that lived at the hotel, and her were thinking of getting a flat in the city in a week or two, and I asked if you had to have protection, and she said they would be protected because they knew all the detectives. She told me that when the detectives were going to raid places that the detective would call her up and tell her not to go to 572 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee those places because they were going to be raided that night, to protect her from being raided, and that they were not to go there. Q. Did she say the Victor Hotel had ever been raided? A. No; she told me the Victor hadn’t been raided. She told me she had lived there for three years, and that it hadn’t been raided because the Victor was on a quiet street. But she did tell me that she thought that the people who ran the Victor ran it a little bit straighter than some of the other places. That is what she told me. Q. Did L tell you something of her story? A. She told me she was nineteen years old two weeks ago and that she lived at the Victor for three years, or nearly three years, and she said she came from Detroit, and that she had been running around Springfield for three years. She told me about trips that she had taken, one trip to Atlantic City, and one four weeks ago to Chicago. She said she stopped at the Palmer House. Q. What about that trip to Chicago? A. Well, she told me that was about four weeks ago; she went to Chicago and stopped at the Palmer House, and she told me that some man from Springfield took her to Chicago, and she told me how she spent her time going to theatres and looking around the stores. Q. Did she give you the name of that man? A. No, she did not. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Did you discuss in the presence of Mrs. Venable the conditions upon which you had rented the room over there? A. Why, her husband told me that I could bring men to the room, and I told her that her husband gave me to understand that I could have company in my room, and she advised me not to bring them to my room, to have them come and register, and be assigned to another room, a room that didn’t have my clothes in it. Q. Well, then, you did discuss with Mrs. Venable the condition upon which her rooms were rented? A. Yes, I did. Q. So you now say that Mrs. Venable was aware of the terms and conditions upon which you rented the room? A. I do. Q. You state that? A. I do, because I talked with Mrs. Venable and told her that her husband gave me the privilege of using the room, and she advised me not to use that room, but to have the people register and be assigned to another room. SENATOR WOODARD: Did she say why? A. She said that on account of my clothes being in the room, and that they wouldn’t have to know that I lived in the hotel. They asked me if I knew anj' people in Springfield, and I said I didn’t unless from the telephone book I could find someone that I knew that way, and they understood or thought that anyone I would bring there would be strangers to me. That was why they warned me about the detectives. Q. Where is your home? A. Chicago. SENATOR JUUL: Then you did discuss, both with ilr. and kirs. Venable, the conditions of the renting of the room? A. Yes, sir. Q. You maintain that both man and wife knew all about it? A. Yes. Q. And Mrs. Venable arranged for the additional rooms and an additional price? A. Yes, sir. Q. And knew about it as well as her husband? A. Yes, sir; they told me what would be the price of the room when people registered there. Q. For the additional people? A. Yes; but I supposed they would charge the same as if anyone else had registered there. Q. But they did tell you that an additional charge would be made? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was any liquor sold over there? A. I didn’t see any, and J told me, no. Q. You don’t know of any commission being paid for the sale of it? A. No; I don’t think they have liquor there at all. (Witness temporarily excused.) Public Meetings and Testimony 573 J M ’s Testimony. J M was called as a witness, and having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. J M . Q. How old are you? A. Twenty-two years old. Q. Where are you living now? A. I am living at the Victor Hotel. Q. Where is that hotel located? A. 311^ East Adams Street. Q. And what is the name of the owner and proprietor? A. Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Venable. Q. Do you know the young woman who was just on the stand? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you known her? A. Why, she came up to the hotel Monday afternoon — Monday or Tuesday. Q. Did you go to lunch with her that evening? A. Yes, sir. Q. At the Illinois? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you have quite a talk with her? A. Why, we talked. Q. Did you tell something of your life? A. Why, I told her some- thing; I didn’t tell her all. Q. Did you tell her anything about your life at the Victor Hotel? A. No, sir; I told her, but I didn’t tell her all. Q. Did you tell her that you entertained men at the Victor Hotel? A. No, sir. Q. Did you tell her anything about a trip to Chicago? A. Why, I told her about going to Chicago and stopping at the Palmer House in Chicago with a lady friend of mine from Memphis, Tenn. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: What arrangements have you made over there for the payment of your room? A. I came here with the intention of getting employment downtown, and I put an application in each of the department stores downtown, and when I came here I had some money that I worked in Detroit for. Q. How long have you been at the Victor, about? A. I have been there about four months. Q. As a guest? A. Yes, sir. Q. Well, what is the daily or weekly charge for that room? A. Well, they charge me $3.00 a week. Q. Now, what other arrangement is made for any connecting rooms, or the use of any other rooms? A. Well, I only use the back room, and I sleep with the lady that works there, she and I sleep together. Q. What is your employment in the city? A. Well, I worked in the millinery department, but I haven’t been able to get a position. Q. You haven’t worked at that in Springfield? A. No, sir. Q. Now, you have earned some money in Springfield, haven’t you? A. What I got up to the hotel there. Q. You worked in the hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was there any arrangement between you and the proprietor of that hotel for any privilege whereby you might bring visitors to the hotel? A. No, sir; I never have company up there. I have had in the parlor there, I have had gentlemen friends. Q. What do you earn a week on an average? A. You mean in the millinery department? They pay there $3.00 a week. Q. How much do you pay for your room over there, on an average? A. Well, I don’t pay anything when I work for them. 574 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You pay for the room practically with your services there? A. Well, if I had a position there I would pay for the room. I paid for it when I first came here. Q. Now, you haven’t any position? A. No, sir. Q. And you have to owe for the room? A. No, I work there and I don’t have to pay for the room; they rent my room out. Q. Do you know any plain-clothesmen, detectives? A. Wh 3 '’, I know several of them. Q. Did you discuss the case of the detective who came down from Milwaukee? A. Why, I met him through a friend here, a gentleman friend. Q. Do you remember the party that entertained the detective that night? A. Yes, sir. Q. Had you been a member of other parties? A. No, sir. Q. That was the only one? A. Yes, sir. Q. What kind of work do you do at that hotel? A. Wh^’-, I help at most anything; I help make the beds and sweep. Q. How many hours a day do you work at makine beds? A. Well. I usually eet up about 9 o’clock; we have our breakfast at 9 o’clock and lunch at 12:30 o’clock, and sometimes we don’t have an\^ supper, just a cold lunch, and sometimes us girls go out for just the evening. Q. How many girls are there? A. L and T . Q. What does T do? A. Wh}^ she is just up there visiting. Q. How long have you known T ? A. I have known her, I guess, a year or two. Q. Been up here visiting a j^ear or two? A. Oh, no; she has only been here a week. Q. What did anyone tell you to tell this Committee before 3 'ou came up here? A. Why, nobody told me anything. Q. You do the work of a chambermaid over there? A. Yes, sir. 0- When the guests depart would 30 U be one that would put the room in order again? A. Well, onh' in the mornings; that is the onh- time that I clean up the rooms. Q. Who would put the rooms in order after the departure of the guests any time within twenty-four hours? A. Why, myself and L . Q, Now, the particular floor, if there is any such arrangement over there, that you have charge of, would you have charge of a given number of rooms to put in order after the departing of guests? A. No, sir. Q. Who would be the girl that would have that matter in charge? A. We never had annulling to do with the rooms after 3 o’clock, or something like that. Q. Who had to do that, if you know? A. I don’t know. Q. Then, who would take charge of that? If a guest left about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and the room was vacated, and other guests were expected, who would take charge of the room, who would clean the room and prepare it for the next guest? A. Y’hy. there is nobody in particular who has that work to do. The room is used in the night time. Q. I understand the room is used in the night time; but if the guests departed, who would take charge of the preparation of the room for the next guest? Did you ever perform that work? .\. I have in the morning cleaned up the room^. Q. Now, a guest leaves the room, and the room is disturbed, and other guests are expected; who would put the room in order for the next guest? A. T would if I was over there. Q. Have you ever done it? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL; That is all. That is a much more orderly place than we thought it was. (Witness temporarily excused.) Public Meetings and Testimony 575 H S ’s Testimony. H S was called as a witness, and having been first duly sworn, testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. H S . Q. How old are you? A. Twenty-four, next August. Q. You live at home? A. Yes, sir; at my mother’s, in , Illinois. Q. How long have you been in Springfield? A. Just a week. I have been doing some sewing. Having some sewing and some dental work done. Q. Where have you been stopping? A. At the Victor Hotel. Q. How long ago did you first stop at that hotel? A. A long while ago; about four years ago. Q. Did Mr. Venable own the hotel at that time? A. No; Mrs. Clark owned it at that time. Q. Has the hotel in four years changed much? A. No, sir; just the proprietors. 1 mean it is run altogether ditterent than what it was. Q. Was it a bad hotel four years ago? A. No; it wasn’t bad. Q. Well,- was it a decent hotel? A. I didn’t know much about it then. Q. You stopped there then? A. I lived there with my husband. We are separated now. Q. Your mother supports you? A. Yes; when I am not working. Q. What do you work at? A. Telephone office or waitress; I worked at the Illinois Hotel over here a long time before I was married, and after I was married, and since my husband and I parted. Q. You worked there as a telephone operator? A. No; as a waitress. Q. How much did you make a week? A. Six dollars a week were my wages. Q. That is pretty good wages in Springfield? A. It is about the best there is. Q. You got your board, too? A. Yes. Q. How many girls do you know at the Victor Hotel? A. L and J . Q. What does J do for a living? A. She works over there. Q. Works at the hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you know any plain-do thesmen here in Springfield? A. Yes, sir. y. How many do you know ? A. One. y. How long have you know him? A. About seven years. y. Where did you meet this plain-clothesman? A. I met him at home. y. Did you ever meet a plain-clothesman living at the Victor Hotel? A. No, sir. y. Or at any other hotel? A. No, sir. y. As a matter of fact your mother supports you? A. She does, when I am not working. Q. How long has it been since you have had a regular job? A. About six months. y. During those six months, how much time have you spent in Spring- field? A. I don’t know; not so much. y. Now, you first knew there was such a hotel as the Victor Hotel about four years ago when you went there with your husband? A. Yes, sir. Q. What business was your husband in? A. A waiter. y. How long did you live there at that time? A. About three years, I guess. y. That was up to a year ago? A. About a year ago. y. During the three years that you lived at the Victor Hotel with your 576 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee husband, did you ever see anything out of the way? A. No, sir; I never saw anything wrong, or mixed with them ; I stayed in my own room. Q. Did you ever hear rumors or reports that things were not right? A. He never allowed me to mix with any one around there. Q. You never met any girls or any one living at the Victor Hotel dur- ing those years? A. Just a married lady. Q. Aside from this married lady, there wasn’t a single roomer or a single woman stopping at the Victor Hotel that you met in three years? A. No. Q. During those years, you want this Committee to understand that you didn’t see anything out of the way? A. I didn’t see anything out of the way. Q. What did you mean then when you stated that the hotel is run alto- gether differently under the present management? A. Well, Mr. Venable doesn’t allow any one up there who drinks, and he doesn’t allow any one to come up there that is drunk, and he tries to keep all married people, and he never allows arguments. Q. He tries to keep all married people? A. Yes. Q. You mean by that that the old proprietor didn’t care whether his guests were married or not? A. Well, I don’t know; I never knew Mrs. Clark; I wasn’t mixing in her business and wasn’t familiar with her, like I am with Mrs. Venable. Q. Then you don’t know whether that is an improvement or not? A. Well, I think it is, when he won’t allow people to come there drunk, and won’t allow them to have drinks in^e hotel. Q. Now, did Mrs. Clark allow them to come there drunk? A. Why, I have seen people there. Q. You have seen people there drunk? A. Yes. Q. On several occasions? A. Well, they would come up there; Mrs. Venable won’t let anybody have a room that is drunk. Q. During the reign of Mrs. Clark, did you ever see a man come up there with a woman? A. I have seen them, yes. Q. In what other way has this hotel changed in four years? A. That is all I can say. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: What conversation, if any, did you have with Mr. and Mrs. Venable when you first found out that you were going to testify before this Committee? Tell the Committee just what took place. A. I didn’t know anything about it until this morning. He just told me — said we had to appear here tonight, and I said “M'hy?” Q. What was the discussion? Tell it in your own words and speak out freely. A. Well, that is all he said. I was scared. I went upstairs to my own room. Q. How long have you been in the house now, on your last visit, your last stay there? A. A week. Q. And how long prior to that week since you were there? A. About two months. Q. How was the hotel the last time you were there? A. Just the same as it is now. Q. Was there any transient business there of any kind? A. I don’t know. Q. How many woman roomers were there the last time you were there? A. I don’t know; I never knew any only L . Q. Did you work in the hotel? A. No, sir. Q. Are you working there now? A. No, sir. Q. How many young ladies are living there now, as far as you know? A. I only know J and L . Q. Are you receiving money now from your husband? A. No, sir. Q. Are you employed in the City of Springfield? A. No, sir. Q. How long since you were employed? A. About six months. Public Meetings and Testimony 577 Q. Where were you employed? A. In St. Louis. ! Q. Where is your husband? A. In Peoria. Q. You are receiving regular remittances, of course, from some other city? \. Why, my mother gave me so much when I came here. (Witness excused.) jrace Cly bourn’s Testimony, Continued. GRACE CLYBOURN was recalled as a witness, and further testified ^s follows: ; EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. f CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did Mrs. Venable refer you to any other lotel? A. Mrs. Venable told me about getting work to do, and it seems :hat the girls who room at these hotels work in the hotels, do chamber ivork, or anything they find, and see to the register, and take care of the office; and she sent me — she told me that a lady had called her up a few :ilays before and had asked her if she knew of any girls to come there to five and work, and she sent me to Mrs. Powell at the Cliff House. I went jknd talked to Mrs. Powell; and it seems right now she wanted someone [that was strong, that could do house cleaning, and she said that she didn’t fhink I looked like I could do the house cleaning, hut that after the house fcleaning was done, and her daughter and her man, as she called him, left, khe would like to have me come there and do light housework and enter- tain people that came in. 'I Q. What do you mean by entertaining people? A. Well, the men. • Q. Where did you go from there? A. After I talked with Mrs. Powell I went to see Mrs. Chambers. ’ Q. Where is she located? A. At 111 1-2 South Fourth Street; and ll went and talked with her, and she said I didn’t look like I belonged ‘down there, and she advised me to go to some private place to live, that I |COuld do better; and she said she would like to have me come and live with her. ' Q. She said she would like to have you come and live with her at her home? A. Yes, sir. il Q. What would you have to do there? A. Just stop there and ‘entertain the men friends that come there. Q. Where is her home? A. Ill 1-2 South Fourth Street. Q. That is where she wanted you to stay? A. Yes, sir; that is where she lives. Q. Did she tell you anything about the financial arrangements? A. jWell, she told me as to the prices that the men paid there. Q. What did she say that the men paid? A. She said when the Igirl got $3.00, she took $1.00, and when they paid $5.00, she took $2.00; ;jand she said she had some men that only paid $2.00. She said if the girls were living in the house, she didn’t take anything out. ‘ 0. Did she make any reference to any hotel? A. Well, she advised me not to live in a hotel, or at the Victor, to live in a private place such 'as her place. Q. Why did she advise you not to live at a hotel? A. Why, she thought it was better to live in a private place, where you could make your own friends and hold them better than you could in a hotel, where people were just transient. Q. From there where did you go? A. After I talked with Mrs. Chambers in the afternoon, in the evening, about 5:30 o’clock, I went and ■ talked with Mrs. Adkinson, at the Park Hotel. Q. What did she tell you? A. Well, when I went up the stairs, I opened the door and went up the stairs, and there a little girl came run- ning out to meet me. Q. About how old? A. Well, I really couldn’t say; from three to five years old. She came out and met me and took me to the room where mer mother was, and Mrs. Adkinson talked to me and said she would 578 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee like to have me come there and live; that she had a couple of girls, but they weren’t there right now; that they were in Peoria, I think, or some place she told me, and that she couldn’t depend on them; that they ran around too much and they didn’t stay at home and attend to their busi- ness, and she wanted someone home that she could depend on and place confidence in. If there was any people coming in, one ought to be there to take care of them, she said; those girls that she had were running around cafes and things, and weren’t there when people came in. Q. Did she say that she had all of her rooms filled all of the time? A. She said that she didn’t have only one room, I think, rented to steady roomers with the exception of the rooms that the .girls had; and she said she hadn’t had a room vacant for — well, she said a long time, weeks, I think, until the other night, and she said the other night that she had a room vacant. She said other people were complaining that their rooms weren’t occupied, but that she had been very busy, and she saj^s the reason that room wasn’t occupied was because she couldn’t find any girls, couldn’t get any girl that night. Q. Couldn’t get any girl that night? A. Couldn’t get any girl to call up. She said when she couldn’t get a girl on the phone she went around down to the cafes and got some girls that sat in the cafes. Q. Let’s get that clear. Said that here in Springfield, the capital of Illi- nois, that when a woman couldn’t get girls to serve to men she would go down to cafes and pick them up? A. She said she did. Q. She said she did that? A. She said she did. She didn’t tell me that any one else did it. She said she did. Q. What cafes did she mention? A. She didn’t mention any. Q. Did she say that that w^as a practice? A. She said she did that when girls weren’t home that she called on the phone ; that sometimes when they would leave there they would leave their number so that they could be called up at a certain place. Q. Now, do you mean to say, madam, that this woman had a list of girls here in Springfield that she could call on the telephone and have come to seiwe men? A. Yes, sir. Q. And if she couldn’t find enough girls, she would have to run down to the restaurants and pick them up? A. In the cafes where they sat and drank. Q. Did she say anything about the pay given these girls? A. She didn’t tell me, nor did anyone else. Every place where I went and asked them tc call me, they advised me not to go to the Park Hotel, that it was a cheap place. Q. What do you mean by that? A. W’ell, that the girls didn’t get as much money there as they did other places, and they advised me not to gc there. Q. Do you wish this Committee to understand that at other hotels the> called girls in? A. Yes, sir, that is w’hat I found. Q. When you saw Mrs. Powell at the Cliff House, was anything said about a flat? A. I asked her if I could get a flat here in Springfield, if 1 had to have police protection. She advised me not to. She said if you have police protection that the police wdien they knew about you grafted on you sc that there wasn’t anything left. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL; What did she say. that if you had police protection then what? A. 'Whv, I asked if I got a flat in Springfield if I would have to go to the police station and tell them where I was and that I was going tc run a place, and she said no, that she wouldn’t advise me to do that, that i you went and had police protection that they grafted on you in ever> possible way, you know. Q. The girls that you talked with told j-ou that they entertained men a these hotels? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 579 I Q. That was their business? A. Yes, sir. Q. That any other work was merely a pretext? A. Yes, sir. (Witness excused.) -jM M ’s Testimony. ! M M was called as a witness, and having been first duly ■ sworn, testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. M M . Q. How old are you? A. Twenty- four. Q. Where do you live? A. 214^ North Fourth street. , Q. Is that a hotel? A. Yes, sir. j Q. What is the name of it? A. The Palace. ! Q. Who runs that hotel? A. Mrs. Lewis Moore. E Q. Are you married? A. I am not. I Q. Dependent upon your own efforts for a living? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your employment now? A. I am chambermaid at Mrs. I Moore’s hotel. Q. How long have you worked there? A. Two years. ' Q. What does she pay you for that work? A. She pays me $5.00 a . j week. Q. And board? A. Yes, sir; and room and board. Q. What is the number of your room there? A. Number 25. Q. Are there better rooms in the hotel? A. Yes, there is. Mine is an inside room, that is all, and outside of that it is all right. , Q. What time do you begin working in the morning? A. About half J ; past eight. Q. You work until how late in the evening? A. Well, I usually am 0 - through about 4 o’clock. Q. Then what do you do? A. Well, I just don’t do anything. I stay " • around in the hotel if I want to, and I go in the parlor; I don’t mix with any ■ i of them. Q. When you go down in the parlor what do you do? A. Sit and read, ' I and do anything I care to do. , j Q. Do you know J ? A. Know her by sight, that is all. i Q. Know T- ? A. No; just know her when I see her. i Q. Do you know the girl who was just on the stand here? A. I do. ^ Q. How long have you known her? A. I just met her once; she was up / j to the house. Q. That was the only time you met her? A. Yes, sir. I Q. What did you say to her that day? A. Well, she asked me when she > f came in — she asked me if she could speak to Mrs. Moore, and I told her that r J Mrs. Moore was not at home. K I Q. You told her that Mrs. Moore was not at home? A. I said that Mrs. ! I Moore was not at home. She then asked me if she could talk to some one 1 else, and I said she could talk to me if she cared to talk to anybody, and I sat I ) down in the office and was talking to her, and she wanted to know if Mrs. I Moore called girls, and I stated the facts to her. Q. What were the facts? A. I said we didn’t follow the business of doing it, but if we should ever need her — she gave me her name and address j I at the Victor Hotel — Grace Parker — and I told her that if we ever needed her r ' we would call her. r Q. If you ever needed her? A. That she would be called. ' ' Q. You didn’t need her at that time? A. I certainly did not, and never i i called her. I i Q. Where did you send her? A. I sent her to llll4 South Fourth street. 1 1 She claimed she wanted room and board, and I_ sent her there to get it. I I knew Mrs. Chambers for years, and I roomed with her before. 580 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You sent her there to get what kind of a job? A. I didn’t tell her anything about the job at all. I said— I don’t remember just what I said to her, but I gave her a card, but I don’t just remember what I put on the card I don’t remember what I said, the exact words I used on the card; I do not remember. Q. This is the card, is it? (Handing card to the witness.) A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I will read this into the record: “Lillian : Call this little girl if vou want anv one, for she is all O. K. - . , ( Signed) May. 111)4 South Fourth street.” Q. And this was the card that you sent by this little girl to Lillian Cham- bers? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, what did you mean; did you send this girl to get a job there? A. Now, listen here, she asked me to call her when she came up to the house; she says, “Do you call girls?” I then sent her to 111)4 South Fourth street to get room and board. Q. She asked you if you called girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, what did you understand she meant by that? A. I suppose she meant, did she call a girl to meet men intimately. Q. To meet men? A. Yes. Q. And you told her you didn’t? A. Yes, sir. Q. And said she ought to go to 111)4 South Fourth Street? A. I sent her to 111)4 South Fourth Street. Q. Believing that she intended to go there to call men in? That is what you intended when you gave her this card, was it? A. Yes. Q. Now, how do you know that this place run by Lillian Chambers catered to that kind of trade? A. Well, simply because I have roomed there and I have heard other people say so, that is all I know about the place. I have never been called myself. Q. You never were called there? A. I was not. Q. Now, they don’t do this sort of business at Mrs. Moore’s house, where you are working? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. You have been there how long? A. Two j'ears. Q. How many rooms are there? A. Twenty-eight. Q. And how many girls? A. We have two. Q. Two chambermaids? A. Yes, sir. Q. Any other girls living there and not working? A. No, sir. Q. How did you know this girl was O. K. ? A. W’ell, I didn’t know it only just from what talk I had with her at that time. Q. Now, let’s be honest: By “O. K.” you meant this girl is all right, she won’t squeal and won’t talk, and is that kind of a girl; that is what you meant to imply when you said she was O. K., wasn’t it. A. I don’t know as I exactly meant that. I don’t really know just exactly how to place the words I had in mind. Q. You want to tell this Committee the truth? A. I certainly do. Q. Will you tell this Committee all you know of this entire system in Springfield of calling girls, where you are located at one place, and you give a girl a card to another place and say she is all right and a call girl? What is this call girl’s system? A. All I know is that they are supposed to meet fellows when they are called to the house ; that is all I know about the thing. Q. Now, do some of those girls that are “called,” work during the day time, do you think? A. I think, in fact, that most of them do. Q. Most of them work, you think? A. All that I know; I don’t know anything about them otherwise than that they work up where I am rooming; I don’t know where they room or anything about that. Q. They are girls who work in the daytime and at night are call girls? A. I don’t associate with any girls outside of the girl that works at the house, at the hotel. Public Meetings and Testimony 581 V I Q- Aiid all that you know about these call girls and this call system is that ■jjsome girls are called to meet men at night, and most of those girls that are j called to meet men are girls that work in the daytime? A. Yes, sir. ' ■ Q- Do you know how much they are paid for their night services? A. I I 'do not. II EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. ■ t SENATOR JUUL: Q. Now, I just want to say this to you: There isn’t I 'any desire on the part of this Committee to treat any witness harshly. A. I 9 don’t believe there is. ' Q. But this Committee is clothed with power that enables it to compel >; [Witnesses to testify here, and it possesses the power to punish for perjury. I al I think we have heard a lot of perjury here tonight. Now, tell this Committee what you know, and this Committee will treat you as courteously and as leniently p 'as possible. Tell this Committee what was in your mind when you, being located u I at one place, send a young woman, who was almost unknown to you, to another 0 place, with a card of introduction, sending her into a line of business that no ,1 good woman ought to be sent into — now tell us what you know of the system that made it possible to go to that second place to seek and obtain that kind of 1 i employment ? You are better off by telling us. There isn’t any desire on j the part of this Committee to harm anybody. We are after the system and { not after you. Go ahead and speak up and tell us what you know, and let us j ,get one witness that is willing to state to this Committee what is going on. ^ II A. Well, I don’t know that I exactly can state it. j ' Q. Well, state what is going on in the place where you sent this woman ‘ to? A. Well, really I cannot tell you; honestly I cannot tell you. I Q. To what extent would the keeper of that institution profit by the com- » ; ing of this girl? A. I cannot say. ) > Q. Now, they wouldn’t run a charity institution over here, would they? ' [ A. I wouldn’t think so ; no. I Q. Well, what would you think, then, that they would do? A. Well, if she ■ I was called I presume she would be called — > i Q. On a basis of what? A. Of meeting a man. } I Q. Yes: on what financial basis? A. Well, I don’t know what the financial f ‘ basis would be. I Q. Do you know the landlady of the place you sent this girl to? A. I , know her only by rooming with her about three years ago. [ f Q. And those three years she has been in that line of business? A. She I is running a rooming house, that is all I can say. She has no lady roomers j " that way at all, to my knowledge. Q. But they may come there? A. Well, I don’t know that, because I haven’t been there since I left. As I say, I used to room with her. i Q. At the time you wrote this card, you had in your mind that this girl might go there and brine company to the place; did you or did you not? You had that in mind, didn’t you? (No response.) SENATOR JUUL: I want to compliment you. You would never be a good prevaricator ; you don’t know how to do it. 0- Now, didn’t you tell this girl that you gave the card to that there were two girls that did chamber work there for the sake of respectability, and that when other girls were needed they were called in? A. I did not. Q. You had no conversation of that nature with her? A. No, I did not. Q. You did not tell her that you formerly lived at Lillian Chambers’? A. I ; told her that I did, stating where I worked at the time I lived there. Q. And in telling her that you lived there and found the place perfectly I proper, vou gave her this card? A. I don’t know that I stated anything like (that to her at all; I didn’t say; I don’t think I said any more than I said on 1 that card, and I told her that she could go up there and talk to Mrs. Chambers I herself. 582 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How many girls do you think are “call girls” in Springfield? A. Well, I cannot say. Q. Haven’t any idea? A. No, sir. Q. Have you ever seen any lists of them? A. No, sir. Q. When you lived at Lillian Chambers’ place, did they have a telephone list? A. No, sir; not to my knowledge. Q. But you did hear them call up girls? A. I have heard of it. Q. You haven’t an 5 Thing further to tell us now as to what you know about any of those places? A. No, sir. I have nothing to tell. (Witness temporarily excused.) Florence Patton’s Testimony. FLORENCE PATTON was called as a witness, and having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Florence Patton. Q. And your business, madam? A. I keep a house at 123 North Eighth Street. Q. That is in the segregated district, is it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you sell any intoxicants there? A. No, sir. Q. Do you have any music there? A. Well, not much; not after 12 o’clock. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. Q. Have you any government license? A. There was a government license there when I bought the place and it still hangs there. Q. How long since you bought the place? A. Two years. Q. Have you had your government license renewed? A. Yes, sir. Q. When did you renew it? A. The time I bought out there. Q. How long have you been there? A. A year — a little over a year. Q. If you don’t sell any liquor, why do you renew a government license? A. Just a form, I suppose. Q. It isn’t a form; you renewed the government license? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is that government license for? A. I don’t know. Q. For what are you paying a government license? A. I couldn’t tell that; I just renewed it. Q. Well, what did you have the license to do? A. Well, when 1 bought the place she told me to have it renewed in case that the town would open, but it never has. Q. The town never opened? A. No; never since I bought the place two years ago; it has never been open; it has been closed tighter than ever. I have never been allowed music, and she had music all night. Q. You paid the government license inside of the past 3 ’ear, didn’t you? A. I don’t remember that. Q. Well, you paid $20 for that to the United States government, didn’t you? A. Yes. Q. When you paid that $20 you had an idea that \-ou paid it out for some reaspn? A. Yes. , Q. You have never made use of that license? A. No. Q. You never sell any near-beer? A. No. Q. You haven’t had any fizz or soda water, have 3 'ou? A. Soda water, yes; not soda water — “Doctor Pepper,” and gingerale. Q. What brewery do you buy tbe gingerale from? A. Don’t buy it from a brewery. Q. What firm? A. A city firm. Q. Is that a brewery? A. No, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 583 Q. What is it? A. Just a city concern. Q. And all you get, you get from a city concern? A. Yes, sir. Q. So you are practically making a donation of this money to the United States government in order to help them out; is that it? A. No, isir. I Q. Just donate it? A. No. Q. Just give the government $20? A. Yes. i Q. But you have no use for it? A. No; never had any use; there was one there when I got the place, and we renewed it. ! Q. Nobody ever gets a bottle of beer at your place at all? A. No, sir; we have beer ourselves, of course. Q. You have beer yourselves; you don’t need a government license for what you use yourselves? A. No, sir. ■ Q. What do you charge a bottle for the stuff you sell there? A. Twenty-five cents a small bottle. Q. And fifty cents a big bottle? A. No; we only have small bottles. Q. Now, what is the difference between the beer you have in your ice box for your own consumption and the beer you sell to your cus- tomers? A. They don’t get any of that. Q. Never by any chance do they get any out of the ice box that you keep for yourself? A. Never unless a friend comes. Q. Has got to be a nice fellow, but if he is a nice fellow he can get some of that stuff in the ice box, can’t he? A. No, sir. Q. I thought you just said a minute ago that a friend could get it? A. I said if we had company at our table he could. Q. Then when you have company, do you charge them fifty cents a bottle? A. No. Q. Or twenty-five cents? A. No, sir. Q. I want to give you this free legal advice, madam; you don’t need any United States license if what you say is true. A. All right. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. I Q. You are in the segregated district? A. Yes, sir. ! Q. You are respecting all of the rules that the city has for regulating » that district? A. Yes, sir. )|i Q. And you think that you are running about as well regulated and !;|as decent a place as there is in that district? A. Yes, sir. ’I Q. You want to obey the laws as you find them? A. Yes, sir. j(l Q- You want to respect authority? A. Yes, sir. lii Q. And you believe that prostitution should be confined to certain [|i| districts? A. Yes, sir. jlj Q- And that when prostitution is outside of that district it ought to be stopped? A. Yes, sir. };;; Q. You want to co-operate with this Committee in finding out if i's there are any hotels outside of that district that are shady, don’t you? jj J A. I would if I could, but I don’t ever go out. I just go out to shop. (j j Q. You don’t know anything about the hotels? A. No, sir; I have tl j never been in a hotel in Springfield in my life. This is the first time I i'' have ever been in the Leland. ; :! Q. Ever get any of your girls from the hotels? A. No, sir; all of I j my girls come from the outside. I Q. Have you ever heard of “call girls?” A. No, sir; not in Spring- ) J field. jj _ Q. Have you in other towns? A. I have heard Chicago girls talk of it, but I don’t know. I have heard them say they went out on a call, hi but I didn’t know what they meant. Q. You didn’t know what the system was? A. No, sir. j* i :J 584 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How long have you been in this kind of business? A. A little over two years here in Springfield. Q. You own the place? A. No, sir. Q. Who does own that place? A. I really couldn’t tell you who owns it; I could tell you who I rent it from. Q. Yes? A. From the Herman Pierik Real Estate Company. Q. How much rent do you pay them? A. $200. Q. $200 a month? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is for that one house there? A. Well, it is two, but we don’t use only the one; it is a flat, you know, and the other side I have it for my own premises, but it is closed now and I live in the country; I live in the suburbs here out in the country. Q. How long does your lease run? A. It runs for five years from 1911. Q. How many rooms in that house? A. You mean all told? Q. Yes. A. Sixteen'; that is, with the kitchen, with the kitchen, basement and everything. Q. Is that rent a little higher than they charge in Springfield in other parts of town? A. Well, I wouldn’t know that, to tell the truth. Q. Do they usually charge higher rents in the red-light district than in the other parts of town? A. Well, when I kept house before I owned my own property. I lived in Kentucky and owned my own place. Q. Your place is 123 North Eighth Street? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have knowm many girls in sporting life, have you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you believe that most of those girls would sooner be out of the life than in it? A. I could not say that. Q. Let me put it this way, madam; If you had a daughter, }mu wouldn’t want her to be in the business, would you? A. No, sir. Q. And you say that out of the best of your years of experience in that kind of life? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, this Committee isn’t attacking you or your girls, but this Committee is trying to save girls, like your daughter would be if j'ou had one, going into that kind of life, and we want to find out what causes girls to take the first step leading to prostitution. What do you think is the great big cause of their going wrong? A. I could hardlj' say, unless they wanted to make more money than they could make other- wise; they would want to dress better or something. I have always advised them, when they could do better, to go away. Several girls have married over there, and I have always advised them and helped them to get out of it. Q. You tell these girls that at any time they can find a good job they had better get out of that kind of life? A. Yes, sir; get jobs or get husbands. Q. Sometimes they have gone and got husbands? A. Yes, sir. Q. Good husbands? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then often with a girl down in the red-light district there is a ray of hope that she can get out from there and get a job or get a husband, and in that case you help her to escape? A. Yes. Q. Is there a song of thanksgiving in your soul when a girl does escape? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you think if there were more good jobs and more good hus- bands there would be fewer girls down there? A. Yes, sir. Q. You know that from your experience? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL; Q. What part does want play in driving young girls to houses such as yours, if any? A. I really couldn’t answer. Public Meetings and Testimony 585 Q. Do you think that some of the girls that come to places like that go there because they are in want? A. I have never started a girl in the business. i Q. Do you mean to tell this Committee that you have never started a girl on her downward path in your life? A. 1 never did in my life. I am getting out of it myself right now. Q. You are getting out of it? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR WOODARD: You are going into some other business? A. No, sir; going to live in the country on a farm. Q. Retire to a farm? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where is this farm? A. Southwest of the city three miles. Q. How much of a farm? A. Well, about three acres and a bunga- low. I Q. How far from town? A. Well, I guess it is about three miles from here to the southwest of here. Q. What has been your own experience? A. It has been so long ago, but I had a son and my husband died, and I went into the business to keep him. Of course, I didn’t get any wages — that was years and years ago. SENATOR JUUL: You didn’t get any wages? A. Not enough to keep a child. Q. Let us have your own story, that is what we are trying to get at. A. I had a child to keep, and as he grew older I had to educate him. Q. And you couldn’t maintain him and yourself on the wages you earned? A. Not and send him to college. Q. You weren’t thinking of sending him to college when he was ten years old? A. He went to preparatory school. Q. You saw no future in working at the wages you could get? A. No; I couldn’t keep him as I wanted to keep him. Q. What work did you do? A. Worked in a candy store. Q. What did you get? A. Six or seven dollars a week. Q. And that was big wages then, I suppose? A. Yes. SENATOR WOODARD: Did you give your son a college educa- tion? A. Yes, sir. He lived to be twenty-six years old and he died. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How much money are you worth now, Mrs. Patton? A. Well, in real estate and all, I guess about $18,000 or $ 20 , 000 . Q. How many years have you been accumulating it? A. Oh, I have been in business seventeen or eighteen years, but I lost $40,000 or $50,000 at one time through a friend of mine. Q. You lost $40,000 or $50,000, you say? A. Yes; at one lick. Q. How did you lose that? A. Somebody cut in on me whom I had confidence in. Q. Then in those fifteen or sixteen or seventeen years you have got- ten $60,000 or $70,000 out of the business? A. Yes; and lost it all but what I told you. Q. You heard that the district in Chicago closed, or was closed, some weeks ago? A. Yes; in the papers, yes, sir. Q. Now, after the district closed, did any fresh girls come to Spring- field from Chicago? A. Yes; I think a few. Q. How many would you say? A. Two or three; it was during the Fair, and I didn’t have room, so they didn’t stop with me. One stopped three days. I always comply with the white slave laws and all their rules, and as soon as I get a girl I report it, and when she leaves I report it. Q. You think the national white slave officials are doing pretty good work by that card system, do you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you only report when a girl comes from outside the city? A. No, sir; anywhere she comes from, and I tell just what she tells me, and 586 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee they come immediately and get her testimony, whatever she has got to say, and then when they leave I tell her to send a card in to the local white slave offices, and then he sends me a card back that he received the card. SENATOR WOODARD: Do the police come around and want money? A. No, sir. Q. That has never been your experience? A. No, sir; not in the seventeen years that I have been in the business. Q. Would you say so if that was the fact? A. Yes, sir, I would, because I comply strictly with the rules, you know. Q. They come around and call once in a while, don’t they? A. If they are looking for somebody. Q. You treat them nicely? A. Yes, sir. Q. Set up the drinks? A. No. SENATOR JUUL: Is there any difference in this business under the present commission form of government than what it was under the other government? A. I wasn’t here then. They just went in office when I came here. Q. You don’t know if there is any difference? A. No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Have you ever contributed to any cam- paign fund in the city of Springfield? A. No, sir. Q. Have you given any money to any politicians or office holders in the city of Springfield? A. No, sir. Q. Have you loaned any money to any politician or office holder in the city of Springfield? A. I never did. Q. Have you ever been approached and asked to give money to a campaign fund to change the form of government, from the commission form back to the old form, here in Springfield? A. No, sir; I never have. Q. You know of no such proposition? A. No, sir. Q. Has any one ever mentioned to you the advisability of locating the red-light district north of the tracks? A. Never heard of it. (Witness excused.) Mr. John H. Underwood’s Testimony. JOHN H. UNDERWOOD was called as a witness, and having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. John H. Under- wood. Q. What is your business, Mr. Underwood? A. Superintendent of Police. Q. How long have you held that office? A. A year last November. Q. Since that time you have become well familiar with the vice situa- tion in Springfield? A. Well, as much as I possibly could. Q. You have a segregated district here? A. Well, yes, sir; it is called a segregated district. We aim to keep all of them as near as we can in one locality. Q. That is, you have one locality in which prostitution is permit- ted? A. Yes, sir. Q. Under certain regulations? A. Yes, sir. Q. Outside of that district prostitution is not permitted? A. No, sir. Q. If you find any one practicing prostitution outside of that dis- trict you prosecute them, arrest them? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, how many police officers have you in the red-light district, stationed there? A. Well, they patrol that district, you know; we_ have three shifts of men, and there is about two men that patrol that district about all the time, besides plain-clothes men. Public Meetings and Testimony 587 Q. How many plain-clothes men have you on your force, Chief? A. Eight. Q. How long have they been in the service? Wha,t is their average period of service? A. I couldn’t answer that, because they were there when I came on as Chief of Police. Now, just how long they have been there, I do not know. Q. They are under civil service? A. Yes, sir. Q. You haven’t the right to discharge them? A. No, sir. I simply would bring charges against them before the Civil Service Commissioners. Q. These men were all on the force before you became the head of the force? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who gives them the orders? A. I do. Q. Have you ever during your administration as chief of police in- structed any of those plain-clothes men to investigate the conditions ex- isting at the Victor Hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long ago was that? A. I instructed him then to wait and find out if there was anything going on around there, any girls being taken there. Q. How long ago was that? A. Well, that has been a general in- struction all the time, as to not only the Victor but several other hotels in that locality. Q. What are those hotels, Chief? A. One is the Park Hotel, and the Palace Hotel, and hotels along on Fourth street; all the hotels along on Fourth street. Q. They have general instructions to watch those hotels? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why is that the general instruction? A. Well, they are hotels that are run on the rooming-house order and do light housekeeping, and we have to watch them pretty close. Complaints come in, and we get various complaints from different hotels, and then we station men, not only plain-clothes men but officers in uniform, to go there, and we do not allow anybody to go in there unless they can give a good account of themselves. Frequently we give them instructions to bring them down to the office, to the station. Q. When did you get your last complaint against the Victor Hotel, do you remember? A. No, I do not. Q. You have had several within a few months? A. No, I do not know that I have within the last few months. I get letters, more or less anonymous letters, and such as that. That is the way it comes, stating that certain information — certain conditions exist there along on Fourth street. I investigate them, and the commissioners they get lots of the same character, and they call my attention to it, and then on the letters they get and the reports that come in, I investigate. Q. When did you make the last arrest at the Victor Hotel? A. I don’t know as we ever made an arrest there. Q. Despite the fact that you get complaints, and your officers have watched that hotel, they haven’t reported anything that they have found wrong there and they haven’t made any arrest, still you keep the Victor Hotel on your suspect list? A. Yes, sir. Q. Why? A. We get reports; it is down in that district and there are a great many rooming houses, and we watch them; we watch all of them, all of the rooming houses, not only along there but all there are in town, and there are a great many of them. Q. Do you know where those eight plain-clothes men live, where their homes are? A. Yes, sir; I think I do. Q. Are any of those eight plain-clothes men living at hotels? A. No, sir; there may be one of them boarding at a hotel, but I know where he rooms. Q. You went on the police force and took the force just as you found it? A. Yes, sir. Q, The district lies just as you found it? A. Yes, sir. 588 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. And at the end of this time the police is just the same and the plain- clothesmen are just the same? A. The plain-clothesmen are just the same, but the police force isn’t. The plain-clothesmen are the same, except I dropped two off. I have only eight where there were ten. Q. How many houses of prostitution have you in the district, Chief? A. I couldn’t tell you that ; there is a good many. Q. Twenty? A. I should judge there is more than that. Q. Thirty? A. Just as an estimate, I should think it was between twenty and thirty; there might not be that many, but I think there are about that many. Q. Can any one open a house there, any one go down and open a house for the purpose of prostitution? A. Well, I don’t know that any one could. I generally want to know who they are. Q. How do you look them up. Chief? A. Well, they generally come; I don’t have to look them up ; they generally come and inquire about it before they rent a place. Q. Do you sometimes take the judgment of the real estate man who rents the place? A. Never, sir. Q. A lease could be signed and the woman not given permission to run the place because she wasn’t the right sort of a woman; that could happen? A. That could happen. Q. It hasn’t happened to your knowledge? A. I do not know of any lease being signed. Q. How many new places have been opened in that district since you have been chief? A. Well, I don’t know as there has been any there that have opened up ; there are some changing hands. It was full when I came there, and it is full yet, except they have been moved off of Eighth Street. Q. Do you keep a record of all the girls down there? A. No, sir; I do not. I attempted to and I would about as soon keep tab on a flock of pigeons; you cannot keep track of them. Q. Cannot keep track of them? A. No, sir; you cannot. Q. Would it be possible for an innocent girl to be lured down there and practically kept a captive? A. No, I don’t think it would be possible. Q. It wouldn’t be possible? A. I don’t think there is a landlady — I will say this for the people down there — I don’t think there is a landlady who would do that. Q.- Do you require that in those houses the inmates submit to medical examination at regular periods? A. No, sir. Q. If it should be found that those girls, or the inmates of those houses, had some disease which they were spreading among the men of your town, you think that that is none of your business as Chief of Police? A. Well, I have never made an investigation of that end of the business. Q. You don’t care what goes on down in the district? A. Well, I have regulations there, and whenever they abide by them, why I don’t bother them. Q. You haven’t so far had any reports that would cause you to bother the Victor Hotel, the Cliff House, the Park, or the rest of them? A. Well, I have watched the Park Hotel more than any other. I have stationed men hack and front and see that nobody went up there. It don’t take the police very long to scare those men and women away' from a place, fellows that do that kind of business ; they are pretty careful ; they don’t want to be around where is a chance of being caught. Q. Is it a fact that the Park Hotel is watched more than any other place? A. Yes, sir. Q. The Victor house isn’t looked after so much? A. There hasn’t been so much complaint about the Victor as the Park. Q. You saw the card here that the girl May gave to one of the girl wit- nesses? A. I heard her testify that she wrote that card. Q. Do you think that justifies you in taking any action against those hotels? A. Well, I think it does, yes, sir. Q. What action are you going to take. Chief? A. Well, we yvill be a Public Meetings and Testimony 589 little more careful about this No. Ill; I never heard a complaint so much about 111. I had occasion here about two weeks ago to go up to that woman’s place, and I went up there, and I was all through her place ; she must have eighteen or twenty rooms, and she has them rented out, she told me, to fellows, and she told me who some of the fellows were, and I knew them ; and she told me she had all of her rooms rented out, and I didn’t think that she was putting on any stuff up there. Q. Chief, have you ever heard of the “call system” before tonight? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have known that it existed here in Springfield? A. Well, I have heard it has ; yes sir. Q. That there were girls called from flats and hotels? A. Yes, sir. Q. And some of those girls worked in the daytime? A. Yes, sir; some of them were married women around the home. Q. And they were part of the call system? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many girls and women in Springfield are part of that system. Chief, in your opinion? A. I couldn’t tell you; I have no idea. Q. Several hundred, would you say? A. I wouldn’t be justified in saying several hundred ; it may be that, but I have no idea. Q. It would be just guess work? A. Yes, sir. Q. That, in a way, is a, more vicious form of prostitution in your judg- ment than the segregated district? A. Yes, sir; far more. Q. Why is that form of prostitution permitted? A. You cannot get at it by law ; you cannot regulate it. Q. Is it, or is it not, your opinion that one way of getting at it would be to close shady flats and hotels? A. I am here to find out and to try and find out some way by which you can do that. I am glad I was called here. Now, I don’t understand. Governor, how you can close up a boarding house. We might arrest this woman and convict her of having some girls there, but if she stops that I cannot see how you can stop her from running a boarding house. Q. If she runs a decent place you cannot stop her, but we don’t contend that she runs a decent place. A. If you convict her now on the evidence you have got and she never does the like again, you cannot stop her. Q. Chief, you admit you have this call system here, with a lot of Spring- field women and girls, and these hotels and flats are part of the system? A. We will admit they are part of the system. What I want to get at is how to stop it. If you will just tell me the way to do it, I will. If we stop that system, I cannot understand how we can stop them from running a boarding house right straight along. It is a pretty hard matter. Governor. The testimony you have here tonight when you get before a Circuit Court you could get a conviction once in a while, but there is testimony a hundred times stronger than that, and they turn them loose. Q. Is it your reason for police inactivity that the courts won’t convict alter you arrest them? A. If you go through what we go through and see the cases we fall down on, a man would lose heart after a while. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL; Now, Chief, let me ask you a . question; What is the license fee in the Citv of Springfield for the privilege of running a saloon? A. Yes, $500. Q. As Chief of Police and one of the officers of the City of Springfield, and as a resident of the City of Springfield, I suppose you are interested in the revenue? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, would you be interested in finding out how you could increase the revenue of the city to the tune of several thousand dollars? A. Yes, sir. Q. If you should find out that the City of Springfield was entitled to such additional revenue, you would give it to them, would you not? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, let me ask why the United States government is able to find certain places and compel the owners or proprietors of such places to take a 590 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee government license out, and yet your license officers of the City of Springfield don’t find the same places and compel the same people to pay into the coffers of the City of Springfield the money for a city license? A. They wouldn’t be allowed a license anyhow, a city license, but they have all got strict instructions not to sell any intoxicating liquors, and I don’t think there is but very few of them, if any, that have ever done it. Q. Now let me ask you. Chief, when, if at all, did you communicate wdth the officers of the United States government to find out? A. I never did. Q. Now, let me ask you. Chief, why did you or some one serving you never find out all the government licenses which had been issued here in the City of Springfield and compare them, compare the government licenses with a number of city licenses issued? A. I never had occasion to because one of the rules of the sporting houses is that they are not allowed to sell liquor, and if I catch them I fine them the first time, and the next time I put them out of business. Q. Now, Chief, let me come right back to this; You say you put them out of business? A. Yes, sir. Q. Can you tell me what would be the object of any keeper of any house such as we have been discussing here this evening; what would be the object of the keeper of such an institution donating to the United States Government $20 just for the purpose of being a good fellow? A. 1 couldn’t tell you what the object would be. Q. You couldn’t imagine what the object would be? A. No. Q. You would think if a man or woman paid into the coffers of the United States Government the sum of $20 for a government license that it would be just for the purpose of donating that sum to the govern- ment, or would it be for the purpose of selling something? A. I should think it would be to protect them against the government. Q. And the protection would be when the government officers come in and found that liquor was being sold, the government license would offer the protection, wouldn’t it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, if the government officers can find them and impose a license of that kind, is it any more difficult for the officers of the City of Spring- field to find it? A. I shouldn’t think so; I shouldn’t think that a gov- ernment officer — I never heard of any one going there to find out. This is the first I knew that they had one. Q. We have ascertained that here this evening. There isn’t any doubt about that, and I don’t think you have any. A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, Chief, you haven’t ever checked up to find out how many government licenses were issued in your city? A. No, sir. Q. Then isn’t your city interested in finding out? A. I think they would want to know, something about it, whether they had a license or not. Q. And if they did not have a license and were selling liquor, then we are not playing fair with the people who are paying it? A. Yes, sir. Q. The people who are paying it are entitled to an exclusive privilege? A. Yes, sir. Q. And if some are taking that privilege without paying for it they are not being treated right; I mean the ones who are paying? A. No, sir. Q. In other words, the man who pays $500 is practically a tax col- lector to the tune of $500? A. \es, sir. Q. Now, are you going to check up on this license proposition? A. I will check up and find out who has a government license. I can go over to the government office and find that out very easih-. Q. I think if you follow that lead you will find a lot of things that you evidently don’t know down there. We could help you some if you think you need it. A. We can find out if they have a license, and when they have got it. Of course, they couldn’t get a city license. Q. If they couldn’t get a license, what is the treatment of the man who can get a license and pay $500 for the privilege; do you think if you Public Meetings and Testimony 591 let A sell liquor in the city of Springfield without paying $500, and you tax B $500 for that privilege, that you are playing fair with B? A. No, sir. Q. I don’t think so, either; I think there is a good remedy and that it should result in something down here. I am not criticising the sale of liquor or the granting of licenses, but I think that all men should be treated alike. A. That is right, sir, exactly. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. Chief, you heard some time ago that the district in Chicago was closed, the segregated district? A. Yes, sir. Q. Following the closing of that district, did any girls come to Springfield? A. There were three or four I heard of that came here; four or five. I don’t just remember; not very many. We expected quite a few, but to my knowledge there were only a few. Q. Did you station any officers at the depot to pass them on to the next town when they came to Springfield? A. No, sir; but we found out as quick as they came here and we locked them up, but we didn’t meet any of them at the train. I was just interested in getting them out of town; that is all. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Chief, what does your system of humanity think of driving a woman out of one town and out of another town; where would you and I figure this unfortunate woman would go some evening after the chief of police of each town had driven them out, and driven them some more; what does our present system offer as a solution for that? A. I couldn’t tell you, sir. Q. You haven’t any room in your town for them, have you? A. No, sir. Q. They haven’t any room for them in my town? A. No, sir. Q. So consequently the system as we know it today means simply driving them? A. Yes, sir. Q. From place to place? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is your idea of the wisdom of segregating these women? A. I think that is the best way to control them. Q. You think it is? A. Yes, sir. Q. You think merely closing them up and driving them doesn’t pos- sibly cure the evil? A. No, it makes them just an outcast in the world and they just go from one place to another. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: Q. Have you ever had any complaints against the Majestic Hotel? A. No, sir; not that I know of. Q. You know where it is located? A. Yes. Q. You never have had an investigation of that made? A. No; all of the hotels are run on the boarding house order. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Q. Did you say. Chief, that you watched the Park Hotel more than any other hotel? A. Yes, sir; I have had more complaints about that hotel. Q. Have you ever closed that hotel? A. No, sir. Q. Have you raided it? A. I have taken couples out of there sometimes. Q. Have convictions followed the taking out of those people? A. No; never tried them. They were people that I gave a talking to and told to go and sin no more. SENATOR WOODARD: Wouldn’t it be better to close the place, Chief? A. I didn’t know how we could close it. 592 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR WOODARD: Close it as a nuisance. If y^-i ' o 1 niert like that with those people, they will do it again. Declare it a nuisance and close it. • (Witness excused.) Mr. Charles G. Wineteer’s Testimony. CHARLES G. WINETEER, called as a witness herein, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? .\. Charles G. Vv'inctcer. Q. What is your business? A. Real estate and loans. Q. Are you the owner of the property upon which is located the Park Hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you own the Park Hotel? A. I own the building; ves, sir. Q. To whom do you rent it? A. Rent the dovvnstairs to the Blue Ribbon Brewery, and the upstairs to a man by the name of .\dkin.son. Q. What business is Mr. Adkinson in? A. Adkinson is a sort of con- tractor. Q. Where is this property? A. That is at No. 123 North Fourth Street. Q. Where are the rooms of the hotel? A. L'pstairs. Q. What floor? A. The}- are upstairs over the saloon; eighteen rooms there. Q. And you rent to how many tenants? A. The two tenants? Q. How much a month do you get from the Blue Ribbon people? A. 1 think that lease is $80 now. Q. And how much a month do you get from Adkinson? A. Seventy- five. Q. That is all that you get directly or indirectly for the use of that build- ing? .A.. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever heard that the Park Hotel was on the suspect list in the Chief of Police’s office here in Springfield? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have known that it was rated by the Chief of Police here as a very suspicious place? A. Well, I will give you the story now, it is very short : About six months ago the chief called me up, whom I have known ever since I was a boy, and said he wanted to talk to me. Of course 1 am a very busy man and have a good deal of property, about thirty-six pieces of property here in town, and I don’t keep very close touch on any one piece of property, so I went down and talked to John, and he told me there was a complaint against the upstairs of that building. Well I says, “Now, John, if things ain’t going right there, go after them and close them up,” and he says, ‘‘I think it would be a good idea for you to go up there and talk to those people.” I went up there and got hold of Adkinson and his wife; they have three little children, and I hadn’t been up in that building I don’t think in a year, and I haven’t been up there since ; so I told them there was a complaint against the way the business was being conducted there, and I asked them whether there was anything to it, and I says, “I will tell you, I will not stand for any assignation propositions, and if there is anything like that going on you have got to cut it out.” We had quite a conversation about it, and I went back and reported to the chief what I had done. That is the last I have ever heard of anything. Q. How long ago was that? A. That was along in the winter, about December. Q. Has the place been watched since then by the police? A. Not that I know of. Q. The chief never called you up again? A. No. Q. And that was the first time you had ever been called up in regard to the place? A. Yes. Q. You know that it is still on the suspect list? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 593 Q. That it was still being watched by the police officers? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are a man of considerable means, Mr. Wineteer? A. Well, mod- erately so ; yes, sir. Q. You are not entirely dependent for your bread and butter on this $155? A. I am not worrying about that. If those people are not the right kind of people, I want to know it, and I will get somebody else. Q. How long have those people been in there? A. About three years, as far as I can remember. They had no lease. Q. Have they a lease now? A. No, sir; tenancy by the month. Q. How did that come about, Mr. Wineteer? Is that the rule here of renting property in Springfield? A. That is the way I rent all the flat build- ings. The downstairs is rented to the brewery, and I usually give them a five or a ten year lease, but all the flats are what are called open leases. Q. Then would you say, Mr. Wineteer, that you are surprised tonight to learn that the Park Hotel has this reputation? A. I am very much surprised to learn that the representations are as they appear to be here. Q. What are you going to do about it? A. I will go and talk to them. Q. You talked to them last December? A. Yes, but I don’t believe in throwing people out of any place; but I will promptly get them out of there, if possible. I do not believe in using them any way rough or taking advantage of the situation. I am not absolutely positive as to the situation. If I were I might say some harsh words. Q. Well, about what would it take to convince you, Mr. Wineteer, that the Park Hotel is not a bed of modesty and virtue? A. Well, I haven’t heard any evidence here tonight ; in fact, I haven’t heard your evidence here. I was in the back of the room. If I had positive proof of it, and it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Q. Here is the proof, Mr. Wineteer; The Chief of Police — and citizens in Springfield tell us that he is a fine, honorable, honest man — has testified that there are certain hotels in Springfield that have been on the suspect list, hotels that are commonly known as shady, and that the Park Hotel is on this list. A. I can give you the name of fifty of them, if you want them. Q. You know he has been watching the hotel you own? A. Yes, sir. 2. And the tax-payers are paying those police officers to watch that hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. And yet you are one of the fine, honorable citizens of Springfield, own- ing that place, and renting it for that kind of a tenancy. This Committee is not here to prosecute, least of all to persecute, you or any other citizen. The Com- mittee merely desires to know if you were familiar with the use to which your property is said to have been put? A. I don’t know anything about that; I didn’t know until last winter. Excuse me for a volunteered expression, gentlemen, but I have read your hearings from time to time and I am heartily in sympathy with your movement. I am absolutely against assignation houses; I am against them, and advocated it here in the city for years ; and I believe a sporting house district properly regulated is what is necessary, and I would be one man in this town to take off my coat and close every assignation house in it. That is just how strong I am, and that is an open declaration on that proposition, because I think I can answer the question of the case of a fallen woman in one word. Q. And that is what? A. I have been an observer all my life; I have been in touch with all classes of people and done a great deal of business with them, and I think I can answer that in one word — man. Men are the causes of fallen woman. They decoy them into these places night after night and day after day they get young girls and take them into assignation houses and ruin them. I know what you gentlemen are after, and I am with you. Any- thing I can do I am here to do it. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. Q. Who rents this proposition? A. The Park Hotel? Q. Yes. A. I rent it. 594 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Who collects the rent? A. I collect it there at the office. Q. They come to the office? A. Yes, come to the office and pay it. Q. You haven’t been there in several months? A. I haven’t been in the saloon in two years, and I haven’t been in the hotel over twice in two years. Q. Do you know whether they are taking care of your property? A. Well, I have a man that goes around and looks after that a great deal, a paperer and paper-hanger and general utility man who looks after that. He has been doing some papering and painting there upstairs now in the last two weeks ; I just gave him his orders to go and do it, and he does it. Q. You didn’t go to see whether it was really needed? A. I take his judgment on that. I am a very busy man. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Q. Mr. Wineteer, suppose it were a felony for a man to own property that was being used for purposes of prostitution. Would you take a chance of renting the Park Hotel to its present proprietors? A. That is a pretty hard question to answer. I haven’t quite enough evidence to satisfy me on that point. I have a suspicion. Q. If there were such a law, would you exercise a little more caution in finding out the character of your tenants and the nature of the business they were conducting? A. I believe I wouldn’t put it on that basis. From a moral standpoint I wouldn’t rent it to them. The question of punishment wouldn’t interfere with me. I think more of the moral situation than I do of court punishment. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL; Q. Mr. Wineteer, if I understand your answer to the feovernor correctly, you seem to want the same strong degree of evidence to satisfy you that is necessary to secure a conviction. You stated just a minute ago that you wanted to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt. While that is necessary in order to get a jury to bring in a conviction in a criminal case, it isn’t — A. Yes, sir; that is required in a criminal case. Q. But that isn’t the degree of evidence that a man ought to require to satisfy him that his property is not being used by the proper people? A. I don’t know as it would be necessary to go that far. Q. If it became necessary to satisfy every man and property owner that his tenants were corrupt beyond a reasonable doubt, why we would have still worse tenants than we have now. The average land o^vner, who is a moral land owner, wants the tenant to satisfy him beyond a reasonable doubt that he is moral. A. Well, I want to be fair about this, gentlemen. I shall look into this matter very thoroughly and let you know all about it. Q. You are not satisfied? A. I ain’t worrUng about renting my building. Q. You can rent your property, your building? A. Yes, that building. If these people ain’t the right land of people, I would much rather have the right kind of people. Q. Isn’t it a fact that the wrong kind of people pay more rent than the right kind of people? A. Not in good localities; they do in sporting house districts. Sporting house property rents high as a general rule, because the owner realizes that he is taking chances, because if a person dies, or in the case of a person being killed in a sporting house you know they are liable under the statute, and sporting house property for that reason is high. But that property is not sporting house property. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD; Q. Well, didn’t 3'ou hear the chief testify that there were couple after couple caught and put out? A. That was at the time he notified me ; there was a couple put out. Q. Still you are not satisfied. If they are people of that character, don’t you think that they would do it again? A. They might. Public Meetings and Testimony 595 Q. It is a question of character. All they want is a chance again. ,A. If the State of Illinois would make a law and make it absolute, punish- 'ment in the penitentiary for life, for every man that decoyed or caused, or took a woman unmarried with him into a room for assignation pur- poses, I think you would stop all this stuff. ; EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Q. Don’t you think we could stop it if every lowner of property took care that he didn’t get these people into his property? A. Every owner won’t do it. : Q. Every owner could be made to do it. A. I don’t know of any statute that would make him. I Q. Oh, yes, there is a statute there now. A. Yes, in sporting houses. I Q. Yes, but there is a statute preventing the renting of property for limmoral purposes. A. Yes, sir; that is true. (Witness excused.) G. J. Little’s Testimony. j G. J. LITTLE, called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name, please? A. G. J. Little. Q. And your business, Mr. Little? A. Real estate. Q. Are you the owner of the Victor Hotel? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where is that located, Mr. Little? A. 311 East Adams Street. Q. Do you own the real estate and the building? A. Yes, sir. Q. To whom do you lease that, if anyone? A. C. W. Venable. Q. What does Mr. Venable pay you for it? A. Pays me $150 a month; that includes heat, hot and cold water, and a certain amount of janitor service. Q. Have you ever been told, or have you ever heard, that the Victor Hotel is on the suspect list in the office of the Chief of Police here? A. I have heard in a general way that it was, yes. Q. After hearing the reports that the Victor Hotel was on the ' shady list, did you yourself make any investigation to ascertain if that were true or not? A. I have talked to Mr. Venable about it. Q. You have talked to Mr. Venable about it? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did he say? A. He said he was not running an immoral house in any sense of the word, and I believed him. Q. When did you have this talk with him, Mr. Little? A. I talked with him several times, and I talked with him today. ' Q. On each occasion he assured you that everything was proper there? A. He assured me that everything was running proper. Now, if you will let me explain a little about the Victor Hotel: There are ■ about thirty-four rooms up there. There are a lot of those rooms that are in suites for light house-keeping, -rented to men and ostensibly to their wives. Now, whether the men are married that rent those rooms, it is pretty hard for Mr. Venable or me or anyone else to find out, but my judgment is that people hunting up an assignation house wouldn’t care to run into - a hotel where there was a number of families lived. Some of them have children. They have rented that house; they have run that house on that plan ever since they have been there, pretty nearly I two years now. Mr. Venable came from the south part of the state, mar- ried, and bought this hotel, and I have been in and out of there, and I have never seen anything that would lead me to believe it was any more of an assignation house than any other hotel in the city. S96 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. If you believed that that property was being used for immoral purposes, you would stop it? A. Stop it. Q. That is, you would have nothing more to do with your tenant! A. I would stop it. Q. You never have owned property, Mr. Little, that was used foi immoral purposes? A. Yes, sir; I have owned property that I knew was used for immoral purposes. Q. You have owned property that you knew was used for immoral purposes? A. Yes. Q. You now own property that you know is being used for immoral purposes? A. No. Q. You do not? A. No, sir. Q. Did you once own the property at 711-J4 East Jefferson Street? A. Yes, sir. Q. And at 713-^2 East Jefferson Street? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you now own that property? A. No, sir. Q. Is that property now used for immoral purposes? A. I have every reason to believe it is. Q. How long ago did you sell that property, Mr. Little? A. About the first of January. Q. You owned it up to the first of January? A. Yes, sir. Q. To whom did you sell it? A. Mr. Christian Julliff, of Mexico, Missouri. Q. And do you pay the taxes for him now? A. I paid the taxes for last year; I don’t pay them any more. Q. Then you have no interest in that property now? A. No more than a general overseeing of the property for Mr. Julliff. He rented the farm that I traded for this year, and I rent his property for this 3 'ear, Q. But you do manage his property for him now; that is, oversee it and collect the rents? A. In a general waj'. I do not collect the rents. Q. Last year when you owned this property on Jefferson Street, how much rent did you get for it? A. I had it leased. Q. To whom? A. E. W. Hitt, Elijah Hitt. Q. What did Mr. Hitt do with that property? A. He rents it to somebody. Q. He rented it to whom? A. Why, he rented it to Gertrude Smith, one of the flats; there are two flats there, Gertrude Smith and a iMrs. Hunt. Q. They had sporting houses? A. Yes, sir, I think so. Q. From your lease, doctor, how much money did j'ou get? A. 1 got $75 a month. Q. For each flat? A. For each flat. Q. That is $150 for the two? A. That is, I was getting that when I sold it. Q. Now, that same property located in another part of the city would have rented for about how much, doctor, the same sort of a house or flat and the same kind of real estate? A. WTll, I don’t think it would rent for over $50 apiece. Now, their heat was furnished, steam heat, water and a certain amount of janitor service. Q. During the time you owned property' in the tenderloin district and collected the rents on it, did you feel any share of the moral respon- sibility for the kind of business being conducted on y'our property? A. I said that it was impossible to rent it to moral people. Why'? Because it was the tenderloin district. I also had a piece of property at 130 North Seventh street. Now, three times in the last three y'ears_ the city has ordered all immoral women off of that street. The last time they' gave them about three months to move off. iMy' tenants moved one door south. The building stood idle for months, and I find it impossible to rent it at all, but it is rented now presumably; I think to moral people. The man who rents the saloon on the first floor rents the second floor, he and his Public Meetings and Testimony 597 wife. They rent rooms. I have no special knowledge that he is any- ithing but respectable. On the third floor I rent to two families. The three ! ast rooms I rent to a man, and I don’t think he uses it for any immoral urposes. The five front rooms I rent to another couple and they rent rooms gain. Now, from Madison to Monroe street it is about four blocks, and here are flats all over the business properties, and when you move out ne set of tenants you get another about the same class. It is true that hey cannot have much music and run what is regularly termed a sporting ouse, but the character of the people hasn’t improved but very little ince the first of January, when they moved the immoral people on. SENATOR JUUL: That is between what numbered streets, doctor? _i. Madison and Monroe, four blocks. ' Q. No, I mean the numbered streets. Oh, on Seventh Street; 130 :North Seventh is the property that I did own, and from Madison to .‘Monroe was the order that was issued, passed around. A few years ago they made the same order on Washington Street, from Second to ‘Ninth Street; and they changed tenants, but the people that moved in were just about on a par with the people that moved out, and they have remained so. , 1 CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Would you mind telling the Committee, doctor, how much you paid for the property at 711-54 East Jefferson Street? A. At 711-54, 713 and 715, that was bid up at auction. I had no more idea of buying it than I have of going to Chicago tonight, and I owned the property at that time at 130 North Seventh Street, that is across the street a little bit west of it, and I came along down, and the bidding was started and I bought it. The east part, that is a blacksmith i:shop, and the restaurant with a flat above. I bought that first, and then ,I bought the other. It cost me about $23,000. Q. What year was that, doctor? A. It wasn’t quite five years ago. Q. Five years ago? A. I cannot exactly tell, but about four years, :I would say. Q. Is that district changed any from what it was four or five years ago? A. No, sir; not for the better. Q. Well, for the worse? A. I cannot say that it has changed at all. Q. What I would like to know, doctor, was that at that time in the heart of the red-light district? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the district was open then? A. Yes, sir. Q. Running open and unmolested, as it is today? A. Yes, sir. . Q. Why were you able to get that at a bargain; why was it put up at auction? A. Well, I don’t know that it was a bargain; I wo;uld be glad to believe that it was a bargain. It was rented for $3,000 a year at that time. I thought it was a bargain, but the way the property has been 'since then, it didn’t satisfy me as a bargain, and I traded it off. ! SENATOR JUUL: Old property? A. No, it was comparatively inew property, 52 by 157. Now, we will itemize: The saloon, 71154 East Jefferson street, at that time was running at $75 a month, with a lease on lit, and the upstairs, 71154, the lease was to a brewery company, which was •responsible, and 71154 was rented to the saloonkeeper, paying $65 a month; and then the rest was rented for $20, and then the next flat upstairs was irented for about $40, and the downstairs at $30. That ought to make about $3,000 a year, and I had to put in a furnace and heat the building, have a janitor and buy coal and run the thing, and the class of tenants I had didn’t ’take care of the plumbing, stopped it up, and things of that cind. Q. Well, at the present time, doctor, you don’t own any property that is being used for immoral purposes with the exception, possibly, of the Victor Hotel? A. I don’t consider the Victor Hotel is used for mmoral purposes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: If it were, doctor, you wouldn’t have any ibjection to owning it? A. I am agent for the Smith Hotel, over the .Heidelberg saloon, I don’t own it, but I am agent for it. 598 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. If you knew the Victor Hotel were an immoral place, would you or would you not consider it any of your business? A. I would consider it some of my business. Q. Did you not buy property down in the red-light district knowing it to be that kind of property? A. I knew it and all that, but I didn’t hold onto it. Q. You let go because you didn’t think you had a good bargain? A. I would let go of the Victor Hotel if it didn’t pay me to own it. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: The morality of it, doctor, hasn’t bothered you? The question of morality or immorality hasn’t bothered you? A. I would prefer Q. Answer this question. The moral question involved as to whether the property was used for moral or immoral purposes never bothered you. and if it did it didn’t start to bother you until last January, when you parted with the property? A. It started before that time. Q. It did? A. Yes. Q. But you retained it? A. Because I couldn’t sell it. Q. And you collected the money and deposited it in the bank and it was good money as far as you were concerned? A. Yes. Now, then. I did it because I was compelled to. If I tried to rent it to respectable people, I couldn’t rent it to respectable people. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How long does your lease run to the Victor Hotel, doctor? A. It runs three years. Q. Three years from date? A. No; from the date Mr. Venable bought the furniture. When I built the hotel, about five years ago, six or seven years ago, I rented it to a kirs. Clark, and she ran it down to the time she sold out to Mr. Venable. Q. His lease expires when? A. About a year. Q. About a year from now? A. Yes, sir. Q. From the present indications, you will renew the lease? A. Well, I haven’t passed on that j'et. It is a 3^ear off. I think Mr. Venable is trying to conduct business in the right kind of way. Q. What you have heard here today hasn’t changed your mind? A, I think it is a put-up job; I think they could put up the same job on any other hotel in town. Q. You think the Chief of Police is putting up a job on the \ ictor when he says he has had it on his suspect list? A. He has complaints, and anybody can make complaints. SENATOR JLTLTL: Doctor, was it a “put-un job” on that property you owned in the red-light district? A. What? Q. You say it is a put-up job in the matter of this hotel. Now, this was property that you owned. Was that a put-up job, or was that really shady, the other property we are discussing? You said it was in the red- light district and it wouldn’t rent for moral puposes. A. I took that hotel about five or six years ago. I bought the lot and built the house and put a blacksmith shop on the first floor and two flats on the second floor, and I tried to rent that to moral people, but I couldn’t; they wouldn’t live there. I offered to rent it for any price; they wouldn’t .go there. Q. Yes, there is a situation sometimes where on account of locality or on account of certain people taking possession of a district that that happens. A. Yes. The two buildings south of my property there— they couldn’t rent it — some people went in there and tore out all the pipes and’ everything else and sold it for junk. It stood idle there for about two years. Q. And you couldn’t stand the strain? A. The man who owned it gquldn’t stand it, and they traded it off. SENATOR WOODARD; Do you think this Committee is assisting Public Meetings and Testimony 599 the administration of the city here in putting up a job? A. The Com- mittee is getting a good deal of free advertising; I have my own personal opinion about it. Q. How do you arrive at that conclusion? A. Well, I don’t suppose you are paying for it; they charge 10 cents a line for advertising for us, and you wouldn’t be able to go very far with the amount of money that the state has appropriated. Rev. John R. Golden’s Testimony. JOHN R. GOLDEN, called as a witness herein, having been first duly sworn, testified as follows: ! EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. ’ CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. John R. Golden. Q. And your business, Mr. Golden? A. I am a preacher, minister of the West Side Christian Church. Q. Here in Springfield? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever heard of a hotel known as the Victor Hotel? A. Yes, sir, I have. Q. Where is it located, Dr. Golden? A. Well, I couldn’t give the exact location of it, but I have heard of it, and heard the name. Q. You don’t know what street it is on? A. No, sir, I couldn’t say. Q. In what connection have you heard of the Victor Hotel? A. Well, I have heard of the general reputation of it a number of ways; I over- heard a conversation here in Springfield some few months ago. Q. About how long ago was that, doctor? A. I would say about two months ago, something near that, between two young ladies. Q. Where did this conversation take place? A. In one of the stores. I was in buying a package, and as I was waiting for my purchases, there were two young ladies just standing close where I was at the counter, and I over- heard a conversation between them. Q. What was that conversation, as you remember it? A. One of the young ladies had a letter in her hand, which was the first that I noticed, and said to the other girl, “Here is something for you to see,” and handed the letter over to the other girl ; and I couldn’t hear all the conversation that passed, but one girl said, “I have a date to meet him at the Victor Hotel,” and then she laughed and said to the other girl, “Do you ever go to the Victor Hotel?” and the girl said, “Yes.” Q. How old were those girls, doctor? A. My judgment would be that they were perhaps eighteen or nineteen years old, young ladies. Q. You believed that they were doing something more than jesting? A. '{ My opinion was they were; yes, sir. ' Q. Were they nice-looking girls, well-dressed, well kept up? A. Yes, they were very nice-looking girls ; they wouldn’t have attracted my attention ■ other than the conversation I overheard. Q. Had you ever seen either of those two girls before? A. Not that I know of. Q. Have you seen either of them since? A. No, sir; I have not. i Q. On any other occasions have you heard of the Victor Hotel? A. Ex- cept in some general reports at times that it was a shady hotel. I Q. Have you any other evidence, Dr. Golden, that you desire to give this Committee? A. Well, I could repeat an instance that happened last fall; I had , been interested in some investigations of Springfield. I have been president ; of the local Vigilance Association, and I had understood that there were ! several of the rooming houses or hotels on Fourth Street that were questionable, and one evening just prior to the Woodmen’s Convention I, in company with two other men, walked down along Fourth Street, and just north of the St. j, Nicholas Hotel, in the block just north of Jefferson, two men were accosted by a girl that came out of one of those rooming hotels, and one of the gentle- men talked to her, and then she came up to where the other two were, and GOO Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee stated that there were plenty of girls, she could get as many girls as was wanted. Q. What hotel was it, doctor? A. I couldn’t say as to which one she came out of, because it was at night, and she came out ahead of us, and I am not familiar with the numbers of the doors, and I couldn’t say positively; but it was one of three or four doors that opened on Fourth Street just about half a bock north of Jefferson and just inside of the railroad tracks. Q. Have you ever heard of the “call girl” system? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do you know about that system? A. Well, two men that had done some investigation for our Vigilance Committee were instrumental in investigating the hotel on Monroe Street just opposite the weather bureau — I think it goes by the name of the Normal Hotel — and that case was tried in the Circuit Court recently, and the lady convicted, and our man had visited that place at times and had found a lady with a call list of girls in the com- munity that she called for service. Q. Did you attach that call list or keep it? A. The men who were there got some of the numbers. Q. They didn’t keep the entire list? A. I think not. Q. What were the names of those men ; are they in Springfield now? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are their names? A. Mr. B. L. Gibson, and Mr. Blackford, I cannot just tell you his initials ; I can get him over in a few moments. Q. Will you produce these gentlemen at our meeting tomorrow? A. If they are in town. Mr. Gibson is a life insurance man and out of the citj’ some. Q. If he is in town, bring him here tomorrow. A. Yes, sir. Q. With a copy of this call list. A. Yes, sir. Q. Did these men tell you, or have you knowledge from other sources, how many girls and women are involved in this so-called call system in Springfield? A. No; it would be only just a guess; though my judgment, from the informa- tion I have had from these two or three men that served on my committee, I should judge the list is quite large. Q. In this system are girls of all classes involved? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is it your opinion that the call girl system is the greatest menace to your city? A. I think it is. Q. A greater menace even than the segregated district? A. I think so. Q. In the segregated district in Springfield there seems to be no provision for medical examination ; do j ou consider that that lack of medical attention is responsible for the spread of certain diseases here; has that ever been brought to your attention? A. Yes, I have talked with some of the officials about it numbers of times. Q. What has seemed to be the sentiment among them on that score? A. Well, as near as I could express it, it was a necessary evil and to be let alone largely. Q. Did you ever talk with any physicians regarding that? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did they tell j-ou? A. They all felt there ought to be inspection. Q. Did they make any other statement than that? A. Yes, sir; they have made repeated statements concerning the prevalence of disease among men of the community. Q. Did they, or did they not, say there was a wide prevalence? A. Yes. Q. An unusually wide prevalence? A. Yes, sir; that has been the opinion of the physicians generally. Q. The opinion of all those with whom you have talked? A. Yes, sir; I might say that I overheard a conversation also on an interurban car coming into the city some two or three months ago, between two men, one of them raising the question with the other man as to where he was going to stay. I didn’t hear the name of the place, but the other man says, “It is a rooming house?” and he said, “Yes, about two blocks from the square.” And the man says, “Do you have to be careful about it?” He says, “No, you can bring into the room anything you please.” Public Meetings and Testimony 601 Q. Has an attempt ever been made, doctor, to close the shady hotels and flats that this Committee is informed are a part of this great network of the call girl system? A. So far as I know about, the only attempt last fall, the ‘vigilance committee took up the investigation of the vice commission to try to bring it to the attention of the people. We gathered some facts concerning the number of houses of prostitution, the number of names, and had an abstract made of the people who had titles to this property, as far as was possible, and also made some investigation of the rooming houses, but we never could get sufficient sentiment aroused to try to launch a campaign, and never , could get sufficient sentiment in the official circles to carry an investigation very , far. Q. What do you think of your present Chief of Police, doctor? A. I like : him very much as a man, but I think he could do a great more as an official , than he is doing. Q. The Chief said tonight that he was willing to do something. Are you willing to co-operate with him ? A. Certainly. I shall be pleased to do all I I can. I think he understands that. SENATOR JUUL ; Mr. Chairman, if there isn’t anything pressing before us, it is 12 o’clock, and I move that we adjourn until tomorrow at 10 o’clock. Whereupon the Committee adjourned until 10 o’clock A. M., Fri- day, April 25, 1913. SESSION XXII Springfield inquiry continued. Victor Hotel proprietor re- called for further examination. Owner of property used for im- moral purposes explains that his lease runs to a brewing company, which sublets it. Girl workers testify to wages and working con- ditions in shoe factory, watch-parts factory, retail stores, and do- mestic service. Factory superintendent for International Shoe Co. disputes testimony given by his employes. Employers examined. Testimony of: C. W. Venable, lessee and proprietor Victor Hotel; I David L. Phillips, property owner; Mary Barnes, employe of the Boston Store; Sylvia Kane, employe of the Boston Store; Agnes McGill, former employe of the Boston Store and the International Shoe Co.; Pearl Briggs, former employe of Dr. Monroe, D.D.S., and of International Shoe Co.; Mr. Charles W. Derby, factory superintendent International ! Shoe Co.; li Mr. Fred R. Coates, manufacturer of watch material. i Springfield, Illinois, April 25, 1913, 10 o’clock A. M. Leland Hotel. Ij The Committee met pursuant to notice. All members being pres- lient, the following proceedings were had : ;C. W. Venable’s Testimony Resumed. ' C. W. VENABLE, recalled as a witness before the Committee, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You were sworn last night, weren’t you, Mr. Venable? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you lived in Springfield, Mr. Venable? A. About eighteen months. Q. From what part of the state do you come? A. From the State of Illinois, Flora. Q. What had been your business up to the time of your coming to Springfield? A. I was in the fruit business, evaporating business and selling apples. Q. You came to Springfield to engage in what kind of business? A. Well, there wasn’t any kind in particular, just something, that I thought I could make money in. Q. You are interested in the Victor Hotel? A. Yes. Q. How did you come to be interested in that hotel? A. Well, I saw it advertised and I went to see what the lady held it at and asked her what she wanted for it and she told me. I was looking at the Angel restaurant on Adams Street and figured on buying that, but I thought it was too much money to put in the place, because I would have to borrow so much money if I bought it, and this place could be bought, she asked twenty-five hundred dollars for the Victor Hotel. Q. Did she tell you that she had been making some money there? A. Yes, the lowest she said she had ever made was a hundred and forty dollars a month clear. 603 604 Report op the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. She said she had made a hundred and forty dollars a month clear? A. Yes. Q. How long had she had the Victor Hotel? A. About six years she said. Q. During that period how much had she made? A. From her statements and others, nearly thirteen thousand dollars clear. Q. That statement was the inducement that made you buy it? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you paid twenty-five hundred dollars for it? A. No, I paid two thousand; I told her that I would give her two thousand dollars and she studied over it a while and finally took it. Q. Since purchasing that hotel, have you offered to sell it at any time? A. Yes, I put five hundred dollars in it after I bought it; I have offered to take fifteen hundred dollars and sacrifice a thousand dollars to get rid of it. Q. To whom did you make that offer? A. In fact, I offered to sell it back to this lady. I gave her two thousand dollars and I put five hundred in right after I went in there, and I can show bills for the stuff that I put in there. Q. You offered to sell it to her back? A. Yes, I have offered to sell it for fifteen hundred dollars; I have offered to take almost anything to get out of it. Q. If you can get out of it without an entire loss you want to get out of the Victor Hotel? A. Yes, sir, if anybody will give me fifteen hundred dollars it won’t have to be cash, I will say that for it. Q. Because you want to get out of the business? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all, thank you. Mr. David L. Phillips’ Testimony. DAVID L. PHILLIPS, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRM.\N. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? .A.. David L. Phillips. Q. And your business? A. Printing business. Q. Are you familiar with the property at 716 East Jefferson Street? A. I am part owner of that property, yes, sir. Q. Is that in the so-called red-light district here? A. It is. Q. Is that property^ now used for immoral purposes? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Is there a house on it? A. A house, yes. Q. What is that house being used for? .\. I don’t know; I have never been in it. Q. Who leases that house? A. It is by an agent of the Conrad Seipp Brewing Company that pays the rent on it all the time, but who is in there or what they are doing, from my own knowledge I could not say. Q. It is rented through an agent of what concern? A. The Conrad Seipp Brewing Company of Chicago. Q. They lease that property of you? A. Yes. Q. What is that, a one story or a two story building? A. A two- story. Q. Have you seen that building within the last year? Oh. yes. I was over there fixing a roof on it not long ago. Q. Have you any idea for what purpose it is being used? A. Of course everybody has an idea. Q. What is your idea? .A.. I have an idea it was a fancy house. Public Meetings and Testimony 605 because I don't think that anybody else would live in it; still I don’t ^now that to be a fact, it is simply an idea. Q. How much rent do you get for that property? ■ A. Forty dollars I month. Q. That is, the rent is paid for that property and you own half of :he property? A. It belongs to Phillips Brothers, my brother’s estate ind myself. Q. What is your conception, Mr. Phillips, of the moral responsibility ■esting upon respectable citizens who own and collect rents on property out to disreputable purposes? A. Well, of course in some cases I think ihere’s a responsibility, yes, sir, but I desire to say just one thing, and Tat is that we are trying to get away from the use in connection with ihis house, that was used for that purpose for forty years. Recently we ejected the people that were in there and leased it to the brewery in brder to get away from any connection with those people, and I presumed [here might be some chance to lease it to some saloonkeeper, they had bought so much property there for saloons, and, as I say, I have no knowledge now it is not the case. We were aiming to get away in connection with those people. Q. You got away from that connection by leasing it to a brewery ind the brewery leases it to a sporting woman? A. To whoever it is, ,1 don’t know that to be a fact; I don’t know whether there is any sporting woman in there or not; she may be. We have a saloonkeeper next door. Q. Have you made efforts to sell that property? A. Yes, sir, several times. Q. Have you made any effort to clean up that district? A. Yes, we have tried to get a convention hall in there. I subscribed two hun- dred fifty dollars for that and if that comes in that cleans up the whole place. Q. Suppose that convention hall cleans up that district, to what part :'of town will those sporting houses be removed? A. I could not tell you that, I am sure. Q. Have you ever heard that matter discussed? A. No, I have never heard That matter discussed; some of them will leave town un- questionably. I know one of them, wTen we got out a writ and threw her out of the house, she went to some other place, Beardstown, I believe. Q. Then if that hall goes up it is going to clean up that district? A.. Sure thing; there is nothing to it. Q. You favor that? A. Sure thing, yes, sir. Q. Do you know of any property north of the railroad tracks that is being considered as a site for the new tenderloin? A. No, I don’t; [ don’t know anything up that way. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: Mr. Phillips, do you know of any other houses |that are occupied in that way that are leased or sub-leased by the brewing companies? A. I don’t know anything about it, but I understand they ■go pretty near the entire block. Q. The brewing company? A. Yes. Q. And they lease them as houses of ill-fame? A. I don’t know :hat. Q. Well that is the supposition? A. Yes, it is in the district where 't would be hard to get a decent man and his family to go unless he was connected with a saloon in that neighborhood. Q. It directly connects the breweries with the houses of ill-fame; :hey do that to sell their beer and things of that kind? A. Yes. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: Is there a saloon in the building? A. No. 606 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How did you come by this property? A. That is a long story; it is several years ago; I had a couple of tenants in another place of mine running a livery barn and things like that. They were two brothers, and they proposed to lease the building. We bought this, concluding to put up a storage warehouse and a livery barn on it. About the time we got the property, why they fell out and split up, and went two ways, and our deal was off, and we never had a chance to do anything with it since, and we have simply been holding on to it. Q. Why should the brewery want to rent it? A. I don’t know; I think breweries lease a good deal of property that perhaps they' don’t use, and they just leased that, and that is all that I know about it. Q. They probably had no conscientious scruples about it? A. Well corporations they say have no souls. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: At the time y'ou bought this property', how many years was that? A. A long time ago. Q. At that time was it located in the tenderloin district? A. Yes. O. At that time you knew it was an immoral part of the town? A. Yes, sure, but for a storage w'arehouse it would not hurt it any. Q. For what period of years have you leased it to breweries? A. Not long, I should judge less than a year. Q. How many years does your lease extend? A. Oh, it is really- rented by the agents of the brewery'; I haven’t got any written lease upon it because we could not do that; if this convention hall goes in the thing is dead; that would make the lease dead, and, I would have to cancel it. It has been simmering along for a year or more. Q. Yes? A. And if that goes they have got to get out; there is no chance; the red-light district don’t thrive in the right gas-light. Q. What does the brewery make out of the transaction; does it get the rent from the woman and turn it over to you? A. No, they don’t turn any money over to me, only that they pay me the rent on it. Q. Do you get as much rent from the brewery as you 'did formerly? A. Just about, only we get the rent now. Q. As to amount is it exactly the same? A. I believe it is just about the same: I believe it is still the same. Q. Then the interest of the brewery is something other than financial.-' A. I suppose so, but I don’t know what their interest is, but I know that I am getting my rent now and I w-asn’t getting it before. Q. How many of those houses, if y'ou know, are leased to sporting women? A. No, I don’t know anything about it to my' own knowledge. Q. You have heard? A. I have heard that there was more of them in the block. Q. What is the name of the agent of this brewery? A. Davis, Ensil & Company. Q. Where are they located? A. On Sixth Street. Q. What is Mr. Davis’ first name? A. Samuel Davis. Q. Before you leased to the brewery- what was the name of your tenant? A. I don’t know what her real name was. Q. What name did she give you? A. Myrtle Williams. Q. Did she pay you in currency or by check? A. All in currency, whatever I got; I didn’t get much of it, at least she didn’t seem to have any money. I don’t know, I did not know what to do with the people that were in there; and I didn’t know what to do with the building; I would rather have someone live in it than to have it idle. Q. Does that same woman live in the building yet? A. No. we ejected her. Q. And the brewery found someone else to lease the property? A. Yes, there is someone else in there; they may be decent people for all I know. Public Meetings and Testimony 607 ' Q. Were you told at the time you made the lease to the brewery, ior about that time, that this brewery had leased other property of the 'same character in other cities in Illinois? A. I never heard anything labout it. ! Q. They came to you voluntarily? A. Yes, sir. Q. You didn’t go to them? A. No, sir. Mary Barnes’ Testimony. i MARY BARNES, called as a witness before the Committee, being ifirst duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Mary Barnes. ' Q. Where do you live? A. 1855 South Second Street. Q. How old are you, Miss Barnes? A. Sixteen. Q. You live with your father and mother? A. Yes. ' Q. Are you going to school now? A. No. Q. Have you been working? A. Yes. Q. How long have you been working, how many years? A. I started ,the 21st of December. Q. The 21st of December last year? A. Yes, sir. Q. At what place? A. At the Boston Store. Q. Here at Springfield? A. Yes, sir. Q. At what? A. Cash girl. Q. How much were you getting? A. Two dollars and seventy-five cents. Q. Two dollars and seventy-five cents a week? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL; And board, did you get board? A. I worked at the store. I Q. Did they pay your board? A. No. Q. How much did you get? A. Two dollars and seventy-five cents r a week. SENATOR WOODARD: Did you get that at the start? A. Yes. Q. And you haven’t been raised? A. No, sir. j SENATOR JUUL: I would like to get the name of that concern. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Boston Store. Q. What time did you go to work in the morning there? A. At I eight o’clock. Q. How much time did you have at noon for lunch? A. One hour. Q. ■ From twelve to one? A. Yes. Q. Then what time did you finish your work in the evening? A. Six o’clock. Q. Nine hours’ work? A. Yes, sir. Q. Practically the same number of hours on Saturday? A. No, I work until nine on Saturdays. I Q. Until nine o’clock at night? A. Yes. Q. Do you go to work at the same hour? A. No, I work from I nine until nine. Q. And you get for all of that work two dollars and seventy-five cents? A. Yes, sir. • Q. How long did you work there? A. Just during the Christmas week. Q. Then where did you go? A. To the Coates factory. Q. Where is that located? A. On 11th street. Q. What did you do there? A. Worked on a machine. 608 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. On what? A. On a machine; I forget the name of it. Q. Doing what? A. Doing different kinds of work, making parts of watches. Q. What time did you go to work in the morning there? A. At seven o’clock. Q. At what time did you get lunch? A. From twelve to one. Q. And at what time did you finish in the evening? A. Six o’clock. Q. You worked the same number of hours on Saturday? A. No, I got off at five o’clock on Saturday. Q. Now, for this work how much did you get? A. The first week I got three dollars, and then the next week I started on piece work. Q. You made three dollars the first week and the second week they put you on piece work? A. Yes. Q. How much did you make the second week? A. About thirty cents a day. Q. Working from six o’clock in the morning until six o’clock in the evening? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was that hard work? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many girls were employed there? A. About thirteen. Q. Were most of them making any more than you were making? A. About fourteen cents a hundred. Q. What do you mean by a hundred? A. Well, the little screws, they got fourteen cents a hundred. Q. How big are those screws? A. Well, different kinds; the ones I worked on, they are real small, about half an inch. SENATOR JUUL: You were feeding the machine with metal, is that the idea? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: And you got fourteen cents a hundred for that? A. No, that was the highest. Q. How much did you get? A. Four cents and four and a half. Q. Four and four and a half cents a hundred? A. Yes. Q. Did any of the girls make more money than thirty cents any' day? A. Yes. Q. Much more than thirty cents a day'? A. Well, I don’t know. Q. Did any of them talk to you about their earnings? A. No, they never said anything to me. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: When you got the transfer to piece work. Miss Barnes, what was the reason for that? A. I don’t know. Q. Before that they were pay'ing y'ou three dollars a week? A. Yes. Q. Now, they put you on piece work after that with the result that you averaged about thirty cents a day; that was about a dollar and eighty cents a week, wasn’t it? A. Yes. Q. What was the reason for them paying you less than they paid you before; did they think that they had been overpaying you when they paid you the three dollars a week? A. I don’t know; they put everyone on piece work. Q. Put everyone on piece work? A. Yes, after they had worked there a week. Q.' After they had worked there a week they put them on piece work? A. Yes, sir. Q. And that resulted in an average reduction of about a dollar and twenty cents a week for you? A. Yes. Q. Do you know' how it resulted for the other girls working there? A. No, I don’t. Public Meetings and Testimony 609 Q. You don’t know how much or how little they could earn? A. No, sir. Q. Have you any idea as to whether they earned five, or six, or ten dollars; didn’t you girls talk together about that? A. No, sir, they Inever talked to me about their wages. When I started first they gave me three dollars a week, and they only pay once a month. I saw one little girl get twenty-three dollars one month, and that is the only one I knew what she was getting. Q. If you had stayed on wage work, you could have made twelve dollars a month? A. Yes. j Q. Now, would that work require any degree of skill so that you could by a little practice turn out a greater number of screws? A. It did not need very much practice. Q. It was simply a matter of feeding a machine? A. Yes. Q. All that you had to learn was to get up speed, is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you have to stand up at that work? A. No. Q. You sat down? A. Yes. Q. You sat steadily at the machine all day long? A. Oh, not steadily, if there is a break for five minutes, they might have to fix the machine. Q.» What do you mean? A. Like the dog, that will break. You have to put it in the dogs, and sometimes these dogs Avill break, and then it has to ' be fixed, and you would have to wait five or ten minutes to have them fixed, and then we could not turn out as much work. I Q. While this machine was broken, and was being fixed, then you put in your time there or elsewhere and get nothing for it? A. We don’t get anything for it, for the time when the machine breaks, and we have to wait. Q. So the firm was not at a loss at the time when the machine was broken? I A. No. Q. Did you get docked any for coming late? A. No. ' Q. While you were on weekly wages? A. No. Q. What happens to a girl coming late? A. Nothing. Q. Are those gentlemen that are running that factory as you can see, are they pretty poor? A. Oh, my, no. Q. Do they look very poor? A. No. ' Q. What kind of looking gentlemen are they? A. Mr. Coates is a very nice man ; I never talked with him. Q. Do you know if he has got a home here in Springfield? A. No. Q. Do you know if it is a very prosperous concern, so far as you can see? A. No, I don’t know. Q. But you make as much as a dollar and eighty cents a week? A. Yes. Q. How much did you have to pay for board? A. Well, I gave my mother everything. Q. You gave your mother a dollar and eighty cents? A. We haven’t had our pay yet; he won’t give it to us. Q. You worked for a dollar and eighty cents a week and you haven’t got that yet? A. No. Q. How long have you been, without your pay, how many weeks did you work and you didn’t get your pay? A. I have been there about three weeks. Q. How long is it since you started? A. About three weeks ago. Q. They agreed first to give you three dollars? A. Yes. Q. And they paid you that? A. No. Q. They haven’t paid you that? A. No, we have to wait until May 15th Q. Then after that they put you on piece work? A. Yes. Q. And then you began making a dollar and eighty cents a week? A. Yes. Q. How often did you collect that dollar and eighty cents a week? A. ^ haven’t collected it. : 610 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. So to start with they promised to pay you three dollars a week and they kept you one week at three dollars a week and they didn’t pay you for that week; then they put you on piece work because you were making too much at three dollars a week, and at that you succeeded in earning a dollar and eighty cents a week, and they haven’t paid you that yet?- A. No, sir. Q. And that is in the city of Springfield, in the state of Illinois? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever seen Lincoln’s Tomb? A. Yes, sir. Q. And this is in the city that Mr. Lincoln was buried in? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL; That is all; that beats anything that I ever run across. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL; When you were working for two dollars and sev- enty-five cents did you pay any street car fare out of that? A. No. Q. How far did you work away from your home? A. A little over ten blocks. I walked down in the morning and rode home at night. Q. You didn’t have very much money to spare; you couldn’t go to picture shows very often, could you? A. No, sir. Q. Did you pay your board? A. I didn’t have any money t^ pay it with. Q. Is your father working? A. Yes, sir. Q. What does he do? A. My father is a miner. Q. And your mother does the house work? A. Yes, sir. Q. You help your mother? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL; That is the worst we ever struck. SENATOR JUUL; That is worse than Washington, D. C. Q. I want to see your hands. I don’t want to offend you, but let me see your hands. (Miss Barnes exhibits hands to members of the Com- mittee.) Did you ever get injured at any time while you were working at the machine? A. Yes, sir, I have got blisters on my hands. Q. Did you get cut? A. No, I just got blisters on them. SENATOR JUUL ; You got blistered for a dollar and eighty cents a week God bless them. Some of these fellows will die with heart disease yet. Thank you. Sylvia Kane’s Testimony. SYLVIA KANE, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duh sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows ; EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Q. What is your name? Sylvia Kane. Q. Where do you live? A. 1743 South Sangamon. Q. How old are you? A. Seventeen. Q. You live at home with your father and mother? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you go to school? A. No, sir. Q. Have you been working? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been working? A. For the last year off and on Q. Where did you first find emploj-ment? A. At the Boston ^tore. Q. What did you do there? A. I was cash girl. Q. And how long ago was that? A. A year ago, or a little over, a ago in March. Q. How much were you paid? A. Two dollars and seventy -n\e cents. Q. You were paid two dollars and seventy-five cents as cash girl? Yes sir. 'q. What time did you go to work in the morning? A. Eight o’clock. I I' Public Meetings and Testimony 611 I Q. How much time did you have at noon for lunch? A. One hour. • Q. And you quit what time in the evening? A. Six o’clock. Q. On Saturday were your hours longer or shorter? A. Saturday I went to work at nine o’clock, had an hour for dinner and an hour for supper, and ^ then went to work and worked to nine o’clock. Q. You worked on until nine o’clock in the evening on Saturday? A. ' Yes, sir. Q. And for all this work you got two dollars and seventy-five cents a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many other cash girls were there? A. About eight. Q. Were they all getting the same amount of money? A. Yes, sir. Q. All getting two dollars and seventy-five cents a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. After you left the Boston Store where did you go then? A. McCourtney’s. Q. Where is that located? A. On the south side of the square. Q. What kind of a place is that? A. A dry goods store. ' Q. What do you do there? A. I am clerk at the pattern counter. Q. How much do you get there? A. Two dollars. SENATOR BEALL; Two dollars? A. Yes, sir, two dollars. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What time do you go to work in the morning? A. Eight o’clock. Q. How much time do you have at noon? A. An hour and a quarter. Q. What time did you quit in the evening? A. Six o’clock. Q. Did you ever come back at night to work? A. No, sir. Q. They let you off at night? A. Yes. Q. Did you go to work and work the same hours on Saturday? A. No, we began at half-past eight and then had an hour and a quarter for dinner i and an hour and a quarter for supper and quit at nine o’clock. Q. You were a clerk? A. Yes, sir. Q. And worked all of these hours and got two dollars a week for it? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL ; Did you get that in cash? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did you have to pay any of this two dollars I out for street car fare? A. I had to ride in bad weather. ( Q. But otherwise you walked? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long a walk did you have? A. From the seventeen hundred ' block south. Q. How many blocks is that? A. About seventeen blocks. Q. Then every day you had to walk those seventeen blocks from your home to this store except on bad days that you had to use the street car? A. Yes. Q. Your noonday lunch, where did you get that? A. I took it with me. Q. From your home? A. Yes. Q. When you had supper down town in the evening, that is on Saturdays, you brought that with you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then on Saturday morning you had to leave home with two lunches, one for noon and one for supper? A. Sometimes my mother would bring it to me. j Q. Did your mother have to pay car fare to bring it to you? A. Yes. j Q. What is the name of the proprietor of that place? A. McCourtney. ' SENATOR JUUL: Where is it located on the square? A. It is on the I south side of the square. Q. That is towards the Alton railroad, isn’t it? A. No, it is towards the i Leland. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Q. How long did you work there? A. About a month. 612 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Then where did you work? A. Then I worked, on Christmas week I was at the 5 and 10 cent store. Q. How much did you get there at the 5 and 10 cent store? A. A dollar a day. SENATOR JUUL : A dollar a day? A. Yes. Q. That was big pay, wasn’t it? A. Yes, we had to work there every night. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I think the Christmas spirit had lodged in their hearts. That was on Christmas day, the week of Christmas? A. Christmas week. SENATOR JUUL: No, that wasn’t the Christmas spirit; that was be- cause they could not get girls at two dollars a week, that is whj-. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Then where did 30 U go? A. To Coates V'atch Factory. Q. What did you do there? A. Ground staffs. Q. How did you do that? A. Put it in a concern called a dog, and put it in a machine and pressed a pedal. Q. Did that require a great deal of skill? A. No, not so very much. Q. You could do it about as well on the first day as you could at the end of the first or second week? A. It took about half a day to get used to it. SENATOR JUUL: Q. It took a half a day to learn it? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL: Gentlemen, in view of some of the things that we have run across here lately, I am of the opinion that it possibly won’t do, in any minimum wage bill, to give any half year or three-quarters of a year or any one year for apprenticeship. It is so clear to me now that in nine cases out of ten that have come before us there has been no degree of skill required where a machine is a part of the system of manufacture. These girls apparently can do the first day what they can do at the end of the first year, and the whole thing then that they have got to learn is speed. When they have learned speed, they- don’t leave them on wages any more, they put them on piece work. Then if they make too much, then they' increase the number of articles that they have got to make. It seems to me that all the testimony runs that way'. That is one of the things that we have drawn out of this entire investigation. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : Q. How long did you work at the Coates M’atch Factory? A. About three weeks. Q. How much did y'ou make the first week? A. Three dollars. Q. They' started you on three dollars a week and they' gave that to you for a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the second week? A. Then they took me on piece work. Q. How much did you make the second week on piece work? A. Well, the machine that I had, that I was put onto, I had to make these little screws, I got four cents a hundred for making these little screws, and its was a new machine. Sometimes the machines are in bad order, and they' don’t run, and you have to wait for them to fix them, and the best you can make is thirty, or forty', or fifty cents a day. Q. Do you remember how much you made the second week all told? A. We haven’t got paid yet ; they only pay once a month. We quit, and they won’t pay us until the 15th of next month, so that we don’t know what they will pay us. Q. Who keeps the records? A. They' keep them up in the office. Q. After you have worked all day long and you have blistered your hands working, you don’t even know how much you have made? A. M'e have a pretty good idea if we stop to count them. Q. Is there any' counter on these machines? A. No, sir, we have to count them by hand. Q. You can make them first and then you can count them? A. \es. sir. Q. And you got four cents a hundred for making them? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 613 EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: I would like to get at this system of payment over there; you got three dollars a week and you hadn’t got that either? A. No. Q. The first week they thought you made too much? A. I don’t know. I was there about three weeks, and the first week I made about three dollars and the next two I made about three, almost. Q. You think you made almost three? A. Yes, or a little more. Q. You think that you made a little more than three? A. I am not sure about that. Q. But you didn’t get it, the second or third week? A. No, sir. Q. So they still owe you? A. Yes. SENATOR JULTL : That is a wonderful system. Governor; it beats any- thing that I have ever come across. These girls have got to eat and to live, but they hold their wages back on them for a month; if they got all there was coming to them there wouldn’t be a week’s board in it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Q. You are not working there now, are? A. No. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Are your father and mother living? A. Yes, sir. Q. What does your father do? A. He is a miner. Q. Coal miner? A. Yes. Q. Have you any brothers and sisters? A. Yes, sir. Q. Any money you get you turn in to your father and mother? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL : They don’t get any. Senator. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How did you happen to go to the Coates Watch Factory? A. I saw an ad in the paper. Q. What paper? A. The Register. Q. Among the want ads? A. Yes. Q. What did that ad say, if you remember? A. They said they wanted girls. Q. When you went down there, whom did you see? A. Mr. Coates. Q. What did he say to you? A. He said he could use me in about a couple of days and then he would call for me. Q. Do you know if that advertisement for girls is inserted every day? A. No. Q. The one that you saw? A. No. Q. You don’t know that? A. No. Q. Do you know if the girls down there stay very long in that employment or constantly change? A. I don’t know. Q. You remained there three weeks and the other girl remained two or three weeks? A. She remained a couple of days longer than I did. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL; The supply seems to be unlimited; they can get them at the start at three dollars a week; that brings them, and to girls that have been working in that charitable place on the square, where they paid them two and a half or two dollars and seventy-five cents, that looks big to them. The moment they get girls in the place they talk weekly wages to them, and as soon as they have worked a week they put them on piece work where they can earn half as much. It is a nice state of affairs. SENATOR TOSSEY : Did this advertisement say how much they Yould pay you? A. No. 614 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATpR JUUL; There are about how many girls over there? A. About sixteen or eighteen. Q. How many men are working there? A. The men are upstairs, I don’t know how many there are. Q. Would you say there are twenty or thirty? A. Oh, no, no. Q. There aren’t so many as that? A. About six or eight. Q. Do you know any young boys over there? A. There is only one young boy working in the factory. Q. You don’t know how the men are paid? A. No, sir. Q. You haven’t any idea as to their earnings? A. No, sir. Q. This firm still owes you? A. Yes, sir. 0- You still hope to get yours? A. They paj^ on the 15th of the month. « Q. If you quit you have to wait until the next month comes around? A. Why, I don’t know. Q. Then if they discharge you? A. They pay us right away. Q. What was your reason for quitting? A. I wanted a better job. Q. You brought your lunch? A. No, I went home to lunch. Q. But you gave your mother the moneys? A. I didn’t get any money. Q. You didn’t give your money to your mother because you didn’t get it? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: Were your fingers blistered? A. Some, my thumbs was cut some. Q. The girls that remained there, their thumbs were cut up? A. Yes. Q. Have you any idea what your weekly sales amounted to at any- time at McCourtney’s? A. Sometimes, we had real good business, and then it wouldn’t be so good. Agnes McGill’s Testimony. AGNES McGILL, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is y-our name? A. Agnes McGill. Q. Where do you live? A. 176 East Carpenter Street. Q. How old are ymu? A. Twenty'-one. Q. How many' years have you been working? A. Altogether about five years. Q. You live with your father and mother? A. My- father is dead, but I live with my mother. Q. Have y'ou any sisters and brothers? A. Two married sisters, and one other sister, and one brother. Q. Are you the support of your mother? A. !My brother and I and my other sister. Q. You do not only support yourself but you help support your mother? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are twenty-one years old now and have been working for five years? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where did you work last? A. I had got sick, I had got sick at the box factory and they' sent me to the hospital. Q. Now, going back five y-ears, what was the first place tiiat you worked at here in Springfield? A. .^t the Boston Store. Q. Five years ago you started working at the Boston Store? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you do there? A. Run checks. Public Meetings and Testimony 615 Q. What were you paid for that? A. Two dollars and seventy-five :ents. Q. A week? A. Yes. Q. Long hours? A. From eight until noon, and then you got time )ff for dinner. Q. How long did you remain there? A. I then clerked; I first •un checks and I then clerked six months. Q. When you clerked there, did you get any more money? A. Just ;he same; he said that he would raise me, but he never raised me. Q. When you were clerking he said he would raise you; you were six months a clerk and never did get a raise? A. No, sir. Q. When you left there, where did you go? A. To the box factory. Q. What is the name of the box factory? A. The name then was Davidson’s. Q. What is it now? A. Now it is Johnson’s. Q. What kind of boxes did you manufacture? A. Boxes for shoes; shoe boxes. ^ Q. Paper and cardboard boxes? A. Paper boxes, yes, sir. ‘ Q. How many years ago did you go there? A. About, let us see, about five years ago when I first started. ■ Q. How much were you paid when you first went there? A. Three 'dollars. i Q. Three dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were you raised after you had been there some time? A. Then !I got four, and then the next time I asked him I almost had to quit before I got another raise, and then he raised me to four and a half. Q. Was that the largest amount of money you ever received there? A. No, then he put me on the machine and gave me four and a half. ;I was still getting four and a half, and in another week he says he will give me five, and then that week came along and I didn’t get the five, and I asked him for the five, and he says that the next week he would 'give it to me sure, and then he gave me five. Q. That is the amount you had when you left? A. No, I stayed there a while and he raised me to five and a half and then to six. There was one girl there that made ten dollars, and I told him I wanted another raise, and he says, “I told you I will give you another raise next week,” and at that time next week I didn’t get it, and I saw him and I says, “I have been waiting for that raise,” and he says, “I will give it to you jsure,” but he didn’t, so I was going to quit. I says to him, “I shan’t stay unless you give me six and a half; the other girls make more than I do.” So he says, ‘'I will give you a dollar raise if you will stay.” So he gave it to me and then I stayed, and then I was getting seven dollars. Q. You got this seven dollars after you had been working there about five years? A. I got it two weeks before I quit. Q. What time did you go to work in the morning? A. Seven o’clock. Q. And what time did you go to lunch? A. We got it at twelve, we would have to be back at a quarter to one, and then at night we got off at a quarter of six. Q. Did you ever do any night work? A. Oh, I come home and helped my mother. Q. I mean at the factory. A. I used to help him out nights to seven o’clock. ; Q. On Saturdays did you get off any earlier? A. At five o’clock. Q. Did they treat you nicely there? A. Whenever he would get mad at you, he would curse at you. Q. When who got mad at you? A. Bill Alexander. Q. Who is he? A. The boss. Q. When he got mad at the girls he would curse at them? A. Sure. 616 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do you mean he was profane? A. Yes. EXAMINATION BY SENATORS JUUL AND WOODARD. SENATOR JUUL: Swear at them? A. Yes. Q. How often did he do that? A. Pretty near every day; some weeks he would be all right a couple of days and then he would get mad at you and pull you around. Q. Pull you around? A. Yes, sir. Q. Jerk you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Maybe he wasjust doing that in a sort of jocular way? A. There was no joking about it. Q. What did he do, take you by the arm and jerk you around? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did you ever complain about that kind of treatment? A. There was one girl that he treated better than all the rest, she was the one that is making ten dollars a week. SENATOR WOODARD: Were you ever injured while working there? A. Yes, sir, my side hurt me all the time. I was operated on for appendicitis, and then when I went to working on the machine it got worse. Q. From sitting in a cramped position? A. I was at the machine all the time. The machine it semed to be so hard. Q. Hard to run? A. Yes. Q. Did you ever ask him to fix it? A. I did ask him to fix it. Q. Was it foot or steam power? A. It was steam power. Q. This foreman was a sort of a driver, when the girls wouldn’t work fast enough he would come out and swear at them to make them go? A. Yes. Q. He kept you going on this work as fast as he could? A. Yes, sir. Q. You could not afford to lose your job? A. No, sir. Q. You did evertyhing that he told you to in the way of work? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever faint under that treatment? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How many times did you faint? A. Some- times once in about two or three months. Q. Once in about two or three months you would reel ever? A. Yes. Q. That would happen partly as a result of the treatment j'ou were receiving under that speeding-up system? A. Yes, sir, and then he would make me go back on the machine again. I was working on samples, and he would say that he had to have that work. I said to him that I didn’t feel like working, and he says I must. I was so sick that I couldn’t hardly hold my head up. Q. You worked at times under that sj-stem until jmu reeled over? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you want this Committee to understand that before you got better, got straightened up, they would put you back at the machine and order you to go to it some more? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you ever cut your finger? A. The day I fainted; it was the machine. It cut me; it made me faint. Q. How long after this injury to your finger were a'ou put back to work? A. Half an hour afterwards. SENATOR WOODARD: Did the}^ send for a doctor for you? A. This time, no. Q. What did they do? A. This last time they sent me to a hospital. Q. Did they pay your hospital bill? A. No, the}' sent them the bill, but they refused to pay it. Public Meetings and Testimony 617 Q. The hospital sent them the bill and they refused to pay it? A. Yes. Q. The last time that you fainted they could see that you were all in and then they sent you to a hospital and told you to pay your own bill? A. Yes. Q. They didn’t pay you for your time, either, did they? A. They didn’t pay me for my time or anything. Q. Who owns that factory? A. It is Johnson’s Box Factory; it is in the shoe factory. Q. Is this a part of the International Shoe Company? A. Yes. Q. It belongs to the International Shoe Company? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL: That is the same company that we had in the vice investigation in the La Salle Hotel, if I am not mistaken, where a girl testified that their treatment of her had driven her to her downfall. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; That is the same company; she came from St. Louis. SENATOR JUUL: She testified under oath that her maximum earn- ing was three dollars and a half a week and that she simply could not stand it any more. Q. Are any of these owners, so far as you know, living in Springfield? A. That own the factory? Q. I don’t mean the managers, I mean the men that are actual owners — do any of them live here? A. I couldn’t tell you that. Q. What men are there outside of this man who used to jerk you? A. Mr. McDermott. Q. Did Mr. McDermott see the treatment that this man accorded to the girls? A. No, he didn’t. Q. This foreman was supreme — I mean he was in absolute charge? A. Yes, sir. Q. You never saw any boss above him? A. Mr. McDermott was above Bill Alexander, but he didn’t see how Bill Alexander treated us. Q. Is he here? A. Yes, he is down there. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Who, Bill Alexander? A. No, sir; Mr. Mc- Dermott. SENATOR JUUL; Is he in the room? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is Bill Alexander here? A. No. SENATOR JUUL: I think that Bill Alexander ought to be here. I would suggest that Bill Alexander be brought before this Committee either at today’s meeting or at some other meeting. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Scouten, issue a summons for Bill Alexander. SENATOR BEALL: How often did you faint? A. I went home one time and I was not able to come back. He says that he had got to get those lots off, because they were short, and I had to work awful hard to get caught up. Q. How often did you faint altogether while you were working there? A. Altogether? Q. Yes, while you were at the factory over there? A. Quite a few times. Q. Half a dozen times? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: When you finished your work at the fac- tory you went home and helped your mother with the household duties? A. Yes. Q. That is all the life you had outside of the factory? A. Yes, sir. Q. From morning to night it was a succession of work, work, work? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Did you have any amusements at all? A. I went to picture shows sometimes. 618 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR JUUL: Who had the power over there to raise wages? A. Mr. Bill Alexander. Q. And he was the man you negotiated with from time to time for those half-dollar raises or dollar raises? A. I always had to quit to get it. If he saw you was going to quit, he would give it to you, but Miss got it whether she quit or not. Q. There was a difference between other girls and this girl of how much? A. She made about three dollars more than us; she made ten dollars a week. Q. Was she better looking than the other girls? A. She was, sure; she was better looking in the face. Pearl Briggs’ Testimony. PEARL BRIGGS, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Pearl Briggs. Q. Where do you live? A. 800 North 11th street. Q. With your father and m other? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old are you? A. Twenty-one. Q. How many years have you been working? A. Since I was sixteen. 1 Q. Here in Springfield? A. Yes. P- What is the first place you worked at? A. Dr. Monroe’s, a dentist. Q. What did you do? A. Cash girl. Q. How much did the doctor pay you? A. Three dollars a week. Q. How long did you remain there? A. About eight months. Q. And then where did you go? A. I was staying at home for a while then. . Q- When you next went to work where did you go? A. I went to a private family. Q. Doing what? A. Housekeeping. Q. How long did you remain there? A. Just a short w'hile. Q. Why did you quit? A. The}' wanted to cut my wages and was not giving me enough. Q. How much w'ere they giving you? A. Two dollars and a half a week. Q. And board, and a room to sleep in? A. Yes. Q. Was it a nice room that they gave you to sleep in? A. Not very. It was just a small room. Q. When you were working in this house, what time did you go to work in the morning? A. From six o’clock; I had to get up and get breakfast. Q. You had to have breakfast ready at what time? A. About seven. Q. What time did you get through in the evening? A. It would depend; I would do my dishes up; we never had supper until about half- past six or seven o’clock, and it would be about eight o’clock when I got my dishes done. Q. Then what did you do? A. Put the children to bed and then I W'as through. Q. About what time was that when you got through? A. About half-past eight or a quarter to nine. Q. You started in at six o’clock in the morning? A. Yes, sir. Q. And when it was pretty near nine in the evening you were through work? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 619 Q. Then 1 suppose you went right to bed? A. Yes, sir. Q. And that was your life? A. Yes, sir. Q. You didn’t remain there very long? A. No, sir, just a short while. Q. Then where did you go? A. I went back home and then I went over to the shoe factory. Q. What shoe factory? A. The International. Q. How long ago did you go there? A. It was not the International then; there was another company before this company started up. * Q. How long ago did you go to work in that factory? A. A short time after I quit the house work. Then I worked there a short while, and there wasn’t work enough and mother said I had better be at home, because I was working my head off for nothing. Q. At the shoe factory? A. Yes. Q. How much were they giving you? A. Three dollars a week. Q. Did you always get it? A. Yes. Q. They offered you three dollars and paid you three dollars? A. Yes. Q. Did they ever fine you? A. No, sir. Q. Did they ever “dock” you? A. Yes, sir. Q. How often did they dock you? A. If I was late they would dock me. ’ Q. Suppose you were five minutes late, how much were you docked? A. Ten cents. Q. At the time they were docking you ten cents for being five min- utes late, how much were you being paid a week? A. Three dollars a week. Q. Were you docked very often? A. No, I was not late very often; I always tried to get there on time. Q. How much is the greatest that you were docked in one week? A. No more than twenty cents. Q. How long ago did you leave this shoe factory? A. I worked there several different times, but I never done any better. Q. When was the last time you were there? A. About a week ago. Q. At that time, how long had you been there? A. I started in November. Q. Last November? A. Yes, sir. Q. And worked until a week ago? A. Worked until a week ago. Q. When you started work last November what did they pay you? A. Six dollars a week. Q. What time did you go to work in the morning? A. Seven o’clock. Q. What time did you get through at night? A. A quarter of six. Q. And the same hours on Saturday? A. No, we quit a quarter to five on Saturday. Q. Who was your boss there? A. Mr. Hollis. Q. That was not in Bill Alexander’s department? A. No, sir; that was in the stitching room. Q. You were working in the stitching room? A. Yes, sir. Q. And Bill Alexander was in some other room? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you do, stitch shoes? A. Yes, sir, just stitch. Q. How long did they pay you six dollars a week? A. About two months. Q. And then what happened? A. They put me on piece work; I sewed seventy-two tips for five cents. Q. Sewed seventy-two tips for five cents? A, Yes, sir. 620 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. That is, just the front of the tip, the front of the tip you had to sew on? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: And you sewed seventy-two tips for five cents? A. Yes, sir, and if you spoiled the tips you were charged five cents for each tip. Q. You were charged five cents for each tip that you spoiled? A. Yes, sir. Q. Regardless of whether it was your fault or the fault of the ma- chine? A. Yes, sir. Q. So that you had to sew on seventy-two more tips to paj’^ for the tip that you spoiled? A. Yes, sir. Q. So that if you spoiled a tip in sewing them on, you would be charged back by that concern the price that you got for sewing six dozen shoes? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is the truth? A. That is the truth. Q. You are stating that under oath? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; How much did you make a week when they put you on the piece work system? A. Some weeks I would make more than others, but the highest we ever made was five dollars. Q. And what is the lowest? A. Two dollars and seventy-five cents. SENATOR JUUL: It would seem. Governor, that whenever these girls got a wage that they .could live on, that they immediatel 3 '- changed to the piece system. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Q. When they put j-ou on the piece sj^stem, how did they go about it? A. They would tell us that we would have to go on piece work. Q. You were getting six dollars a week? A. Yes. Q. And they came around and told you that you would have to go on piece work? A. Yes, sir. Q. You didn’t have any way of protesting? A. I could not say nothing; I had to go on piece work or quit. Q. You had to go on piece work or quit? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: And this piece work sj'stem invariably resulted in your getting less than you got b^' weekU' wage? A. That is right. Q. Do you know if that was the same case with other girls? A. So far as I know. Q. The general run of girls when being put on piece work would earn less when doing piece work than at salarjU A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you know what thej" sell these shoes for? A. I do not. 0- Are the^' expensive shoes? A. Some of them are cheap shoes. Q. When you were working for a wage of six dollars a week there was a foreman over you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Suppose you didn’t work as hard as this foreman thought you should work, then what happened? A. He would come around and tell us to work harder. It was not exactly mj- fault, mj- machine would not go as fast as the others, and I would ask him to fix it and he would answer and say yes, but he never did. Q. Did your foreman swear at j'ou? A. No, sir, but I have seen 't done. Q. By your foreman? A. Yes, sir. Q. Often? A. Yes. Public Meetings and Testimony 621 Q. What was the name of your foreman? A. Mr. Hollis. Q. What is his first name? A. I could not tell you. Q. What department was that in? A. In the stitching department. Q. Did you ever hear him swear at any of the girls? A. I have not heard it, no, sir, I never heard him curse. I saw him grab them and shove them. Q. When they put you on piece work did they still fine you for being late? A. Yes, sir. Q. They still fined you ten cents for being five minutes late? A. They never fined me, but I have heard girls say they were docked. Q. While they were on piece work? A. Yes. Q. Docked for being late? A. Yes, sir. Q. When you were on piece work had you any way of checkin? up the amount of work you had done? A. Yes, sir. Q. You kept track of it? A. Yes, sir, sure. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all. Thank you. Charles W. Derby’s Testimony. CHARLES W. DERBY, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Charles W. Derby. Q. What is your business? A. Superintendent of the shoe factory of the International Shoe Company. Q. How long have you been so employed? A. A year and a half. Q. Before that time, Mr. Derby, what was your business? A. The same business. Q. At the same place? A. No, I was in Massachusetts before I came here; I came out here a year ago last November. Q. Were you working for the same people? A. No. Q. Then you have only been connected with the International Shoe Com- pany during the last year and a half? A. Yes, sir. Q. As superintendent there you had the power both to hire and discharge girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many girls and women are employed in the Springfield factory of the International Shoe Company? A. There are 258 girls, I believe. Q. All those girls are on piece work? A. Not all, nearly all piece work; not all but nearly so. Q. What was the smallest amount paid to any girl in your employ last week? A. I don’t know, probably four dollars; we start a woman in at four and four and a half. But some of the girls in working piece work, they work only half time. I don’t know what the price is, what the pay-roll is. They are liable to come in and only work half of the time and the roll will only show a small amount, like for some of those girls that testified, and there is no more truth in what they said. Q. Then, to begin with, you desire to enter a denial of everything that has been said? A. No, not everything, but largely so. Q. During the year and a half that you have been there what is the least amount paid to any girl who worked a full week there? A. Well, I can’t sav. Q. You don’t know? A. I don’t know. Q. Then you don’t know whether these girls told the truth or not? A. Well, I don’t know, some girl might work by piece work and do only a small amount of work and the pay roll would show a small amount, but whether she worked the full week or not, I don’t know. Q. What do you call a full week? A. Fifty-nine hours. 622 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. That is a full week? A. Yes, sir. If they run full time, Saturday is dne hours ; we run full time, and if they are not there full time then they lose the benefit of that hour on Saturday, that is just given as an incentive for full time. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL; Q. I didn’t get your name. A. Derby. Q. What position do you occupy in the shoe company? A. Superintendent. Q. You are a superintendent of the local factory or a general superin- tendent of all the enterprises? A. Just this factory; they have about twenty factories. Q. They are located, as far as you know, where? A. In St. Louis, their headquarters are in St. Louis. Q. Will you state to this Committee where the financial interests of the International Shoe Company are; what I mean by that is, where the men are that are the real bone and sinew of this company? A. Mr. Jackson Johnson is the president of the concern. Q. Is Mr. Jackson Johnson a citizen of the State of Illinois? A. Of St. Louis, Missouri. Q. He is a citizen of St. Louis, Missouri? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is it, so far as you know, a family corporation or are there a number of stockholders? A. There are a reat number of stockholders. The Inter- national company is made up of different concerns, the Peter’s Shoe Compan}', and since that time there has been other shoe companies consolidated. Q. If I undrstand the situation correctly the capital stock of your concern is twenty-five million dollars, is that correct? ’A. Something like that. Q. And so far as you know it is a concern that is doing a fairly profitable business? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you it in your power to make the condition more or less bear- able or unbearable than it seems to be for these girls at the present time? A. To a certain extent, but not wholly, no, sir. Q. To what extent have you it in your power to make the wage condi- tion of the girls in Illinois bearable, or to what extent have you it in 3'our power to make it possible for girls who give you their time from Monday morning to Saturday night, to become self-supporting; to what extent can you help them? A. We make a class wage of different prices in factories. Q. Yes? A. And it ranges from six to thirteen dollars a week. Q. Do you mean to state now to this committee that jmu have a class wage ranging from six dollars a week minimum? A. Yes, sir. Q. To thirteen dollars maximum? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then you have none in your factory to whom j-ou pay less than six dollars a week? A. No, that is possibly the lowest price. Q. That means that if a girl can grind out a certain amount of work as you think would justify you in paying six dollars a week, then j-ou paj- that six dollars? A. You can state it as you see fit. It is a day’s work. Q. But you base it on what is a day’s work? A. Yes. We have a man that makes fit his. business to compare it with the work in other factories in making up these wages. Anything that we state is done, the amount we ask for is done in other factories. Q. Now, to come up to that class w'age it is necessarj- to make — the lowest class which you state is six dollars a week- — it is necessarj^ to sew shoe tips at the rate of six dozen for five cents in order to get that six dollars a week? A No, we don’t charge six dozen for five cents. Q. One of these girls has stated that she was paid five cents for sewing on seventy-two shoe tips, that is three dozen pairs? A. Three dozen pairs. Q. That is seventy-two shoes? A. Yes, but I know that is what is done all over the United States ; I have been in the shoe business all my life, and any girl that is in any ways experienced at all can make from eight to ten dollars a week on it. Q. It is the one that falls below' that that w'e are interested in; what can Public Meetings and Testimony 623 she make in your factory doing that work? A. That is something that I ian’t say. It is according to the ability of the girl and what she can do. We hire girls when we need them, but we don’t hire them for less than four or )ive dollars a week. Q. You mean to say that you do not hire girls for less than four dollars? No, sir. Q. On a wage basis? A. No, sir. Q. But when you hire them you reserve the right to put them on a piece oasis whenever you feel like it? A. We surely do. ! Q. Well, what does that change result in? A. We work them up until iwe are able, on a piece basis, on a piece to earn more than what they are doing (by the week. When they get into that stage, we change them over to go by the (piece. It is to their interest that we do it. Q. Do you mean to tell this committee that whenever you change a girl [from the wage system, where you are paying her as much as six dollars a week, ito the piece system, that it is done in order to better the condition of the girls? ilA. Yes, sir, but there might be exceptions in this way: we might have a girl jithat worked along a month or two months at that wage, and she could not do any more at the end of the time than she did when she began, and when she is put onto a piece basis she might not be able to earn as much as on the weekly wage system, but on the other hand you can go in and see girls who are working under the piece system and are earning six, eight or ten dollars a week. She might not be able to earn that at any time. I SENATOR JUUL: Won’t you speak a little bit louder, please; the stenog- (raphers here cannot here what you say. THE WITNESS; I don’t care anything about them. I don’t care whether (they hear or not. SENATOR JUUL: Well, I do. You say you don’t care about them? A. No. Q. Your firm doesn’t seem to care about anybody, does it? A. I think we do. SENATOR JUUL: We have sat here this morning and’ listened to state- ments under oath by young women that are employed by your concern. A. Yes, sir. Q. And one of them says that your firm makes them sew tips on seventy- two shoes for a nickel. A. Yes, sir. Q. And one of them has stated it under oath THE WITNESS; But she has not told all SENATOR JUUL: I am talking now; listen to me. THE WITNESS ; All right. SENATOR JUUL: One of them stated that they had to sew the tips on j seventy-two shoes for which they got a nickel, and if they unfortunately spoiled one, no matter whether it was the fault of your machine or her fault, you ' docked them the entire price of the seventy-two shoes, lopped that off of their wages ; that is what has been stated here under oath this morning, and I want to ask you a direct question right here and now, and I want you to give me a direct answer to it: is that the truth or isn’t it the truth? THE WITNESS: Yes, we have charged them for spoiling tips. SENATOR JUUL: I want to tell you here and now while you have made , your statement as to what you care about these gentlemen sitting here, I want to tell you right now that I wish for one that I had the power to drive concerns like yours out of the State of Illinois, that’s what I wish; you are a dis- grace to the State. CHAIRMAN O’HARA : Let me add to that by saying the conditions testi- fied to here constitute, if true, the greatest disgrace to this State that this Com- mittee has found in all its investigations. SENATOR JUUL: I want to tell you another thing: that one of the causes that drove this Committee into the wage inquiry in the State of Illinois, instead of a vice inquiry, was a girl that had worked for you in the city of St. Louis, and she became a prostitute because your concern only paid her $3.50 a 624 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee week; that is what made this inquiry a wage inquiry for the time being instead of a vice inquiry. It was up to that minute a vice inquiry, and we went into executive session because the story that poor girl told this Committee was so horrible that it could not be printed. THE WITNESS : Don’t you think it would be well to get some of these statements thqt are characterizing us and have them looked up? SENATOR JUUL: We are trying to get the facts, and if you will take the trouble to speak up so that the reporter here will hear you I will be obliged to you. Now then, you stated a minute ago that your concern was a twenty-five million dollar concern, is that right? A. I don’t know. Q. Now, ! want to ask you, have you the power while representing this concern in the State of Illinois, to stop the robbing of these girls of this five cents per seventy-two shoes when they make a mistake; do you possess that power or don’t you? A. Well, I think I do. Q. Will you see, as a preliminary proposition, as the outcome of this investigation that it is stopped? A. Nowq that is a custom that is, as far as I know, all over the United States. Q. It is an outrageous custom, that is all I have got to say for it, and it should not be tolerated. A. What are you going to do when girls persist in doing things wrong? Q. Do you mean to tell this Committee that the girls persist in breaking or tearing the shoe tips when she has got to sew seventy-two shoes in order to make up the nickel that you take away from her every time she spoils a shoe tip; do you mean to tell this Committee that any girl does that wilfully? A. Well, carelessly. Q. She does it because in sewing the tips on those shoes certain numbers of accidents will happen, frequently due to the fault in your machines, isn’t that the fact? A. There might be cases of that kind. Q. I will tell you what, I say that no human being in the State of Illinois should work for j'^our concern, which you say is a twentj'-five million dollar concern, without being paid what it takes to feed her. not only to give her good food but to properly clothe her and give her a good, decent bed for her to stay in nights: what does it take to do that, do you know? I will give you a sheet of paper. Now give us the figures. A. With work that we give them any man can earn nine and ten dollars a week, and they do it right along. Q. What becomes of the girls who, like some of the girls that have been before this Committee, instead of getting eight or ten dollars a week, are only paid three and three and a half and four dollars a week? A. Well, I don’t know. Q. How do you propose that the female is to make up the deficit between that which you pay her and that which is necessary- to feed and clothe and house her, or don’t you consider that there is a moral or a legal obligation on the part of ymur firm or company- to set aside enough for each girl to live on before you set aside moneys for profit on your twenty-five million dollar investment, if it ever was an investment? A. Well, of course that part of the business would be up to the people who own the business rather than me. Q. Yes, but you are the superintendent; we haven’t got them here, and we have got to do business with men that we have before us. A. To some extent you can remedy these faults. I presume. As I say, this is class wage that we lay out for certain work; one of my duties is to see that conditions are made so that the girls can earn these wages, and if they don’t, if we find that the wages should be raised, see that they can; but this amount we claim is right. Q. What do you claim is right for a young woman who gives you her time from Monday morning to Saturday night? A. It makes a difference what she does. Q. It doesn’t make any difference as to her wants? A. It certainly does. Q. In order to come down to you she must be fed in order to stand the grind, and she should be fed? A. Yes, sir; certainly-'. Public Meetings and Testimony 625 j Q. Now, do you feel a moral obligation to feed that girl? A. Why, tertainly she has got to be fed. i Q. Do you feel that a girl should be clothed in some sort of a lalf decent way; do you feel a moral obligation to clothe her in some sort of a half decent way: do you feel that obligation resting on your irm? A. Well, I suppose that wbuld be. ] Q. Don’t you think that is the way that you ought to look at it? Yes. Q. Have you any horses in your business? A. What? Q. Horses; do you do your own hauling? A. No, sir. Q. If you had a horse would you feed it? A. I thmk I would. I Q. And you would house it? A. Surely. ' Q. And you would have a blanket in the winter time for it so it [would not catch cold; now, do you feel that your firm ought to do that Imuch for your girls? A. I do, but we could not pay the same -wages for all operations in all different parts of the work, because there is so ^uch difference in the scale of work, and in the skill required. Some .work you can do a great deal more of than you can do others, j Q. Yes? A. And that is the way that we have tried to do it. SENATOR JUUL: You are doing entirely too much dodging. I ,wish you would bring here to this Committee a list of the number of women that you have employed about your institution in the various groups, from the lowest group, starting with the lowest wages, and run- ning to the highest group being paid the highest wages, and put on that list the number of girls and the number of days each week and dollars earned each week for each group of girls, and I wish you would be pre- pared to swear to it. THE WITNESS: Now, see if I get you straight; you want what? 1 SENATOR JUUL: I want your pay roll, j THE WITNESS: For each operation? I SENATOR JUUL: Yes, beginning with the lowest paid girl, and we want to ge at the percentage or average; we want to get at the minimum. ;We are going to try to make the people humane in the State of Illinois by law if we can’t do it by argument. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Derby, I want to ask you a few ques- tions. Do you employ any men there? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many do you have? A. We have two hundred and forty- eight men. Q. Are those men members of a labor union? A. I don’t know. Q. Are those girls members of any labor union? A. They don’t Ineed any; if they belong to any we don’t know of any. ' Q. Is the International Shoe Company known as a non-union labor concern? A. I don’t know. I Q. Do your shoes carry the union label? A. No, sir, they don’t. Q. What do your shoes sell at? A. Oh, they make all grades, shoes That are retailed at six dollars down to the little soft-soled shoes that children use; grades of each kind. We will take the men’s shoes; they run from a cheap shoe up to a good one, and ladies’ shoes the same. Q. This twenty-five million dollar concern is known as a non-union concern? A. Yes. Q. This concern that grinds these little girls is one of the enemies of [organized labor? A. I don’t know whether it is or not; they don’t deal with union labor. Q. Did Senator Juul ask you concerning your profits last year? A. No, I don’t know anything about it. This is just one branch of the busi- ness; the principal office of this business is in St. Louis. SENATOR JUUL: He stated, Governor, that he had nothing to do 626 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee with the financial end of it; nothing to do with the financial marageinent of the concern. Q. You are just a salaried man? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you a profit sharer in the business? A. No, sir; just simply a salaried man. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did you ever give instructions to Bill Alex- ander or any of the other foremen in there to drive these girls? A. No. sir, never. Q. Did you ever give instructions to any of your foremen to swear at them? A. Never; I gave them instructions not to. Q. Did you ever tell Bill Alexander that he would have to get out cf the girls in his department a certain amount of work? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever tell Bill Alexander that his salary depended on the amount of work that he got out of the girls? A. No, sir. Q. Has any girl ever complained to you about swearing at her by Bill Alexander or any other foreman in your employ? A. No, sir. Q. No complaints have been made? A. No, sir. Q. Can any girl so complain to you? A. They can if they' see fit. Q. Where is your office? A. In the building there. Q. Can any girl go into your office without being stopped? A. Oh. no. Q. Then if a foreman were swearing at a girl, she could not get into your office to complain about it? A. Yes, she could. Q. If this foreman should grab her by the arm and shove her around because she could not work fast enough for him, could that girl get into your office to tell you about it? A. She can come right to the office, so far as that is concerned. Q. Could she come directly^ into your office and directly to you? A. No, she could not; I am through the factory most all the time; I spend most of the time in my factory. Q. No girl ever got up courage enough to complain to y'ou, did she? A. I never had anybody come to complain to me; they could if they saw fit. Q. That is, she could come to you if she were ready^ to quit her job? A. Oh, I don’t know. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Let us get the names and localities of other factories belonging to your concern in the state of Illinois, so far as you know. A. In Illinois there is one at Jerseyville and one at Belleville; the others are located in Missouri. Q. Are there any other corporations in Illinois not in this main cor- poration that are tributary to or affiliated with y'our company in anv wav? A. No. Q. Any subsidiary companies? A. No. O. Any underlying companies? A. No, they are all in this one corporation. Q. What was y^our objection to our investigator when he called at your place the other day; didn’t you know that he was clothed with the power of the State to make investigations, and didn’t he intorm you that he was there for the purpose of furnishing information to us? A. No, he asked permission to look in; he said he was never in a shoe factory be- fore and would like to look around. Q. Did he give you a card? A. He gave me a card, and asked if there was any objection to his talking to a few of the girls, and I told him no. It was noontime and I left him in the factory- to do what he pleased. He gave me his card but I didn’t know by his card what that really meant. Q. The next time that an investigator or representative of this Com- mittee will come to your factory, will he be shown the courtesy- due him? Public Meetings and Testimony 627 i V. We have nothing to conceal at all, nothing to conceal at all. Every- thing that is over there you can see. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Derby, have you a daughter? A. Yes, ir. . Q. Would you like her — let us make it a personal matter with you — Vould you like to have your own daughter treated as these girls say your ;ompany treats its girl employes? A. Well, I — Q. Yes or no, Mr. Derby. A. Just as you would in any factory; 'hey are treated just the same as they are in any other factory, but so far Is my daughter goes, I would rather she would not go to any factory to work. They are used as well there as in any other factory. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: This man that went to the different fac- '.ories and investigated what was done at the various factories and came oack and reported; that information was used as a basis for paying the jirls at your factory? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. He visited the different factories? A. Yes, and makes up these class wages from what he can gather from those factories, and all put to- gether. i Q. There is a national association of shoe manufacturers, isn’t there? A.. There are three concerns consolidated together that make this concern. ' Q. Isn’t there a general association? A. Well, I don’t know, there is a Manufacturers’ Association, but I don’t know what it amounts to. ’ Q. So this man visits around and ascertains the different prices in the different factories? A. No, only in our own factory; I don’t think that he 'goes into other factories; I don’t think that the other people would allow him to. ’ Q. Who employs him? A. The International Shoe Company. Q. There is a national association of shoe manufacturers? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are a union and yet you don’t care to deal with union labor; you won’t deal with them as a union, and how are they going to stand and hold their own against a big corporation of $25,000,000? They have got to stand quiet while you organize. A. I don’t know what a manufacturing association means. ' EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you manufacture here in Springfield a ^complete shoe or only certain parts of a shoe? A. Oh, a complete shoe. 'Parts of the shoe come cut for the shoe, but we manufacture the complete shoe. Q. What is the best shoe that you manufacture in Springfield, what does that retail for? A. About $3.00, or possibly more; some places it might retail at $3.25 or $3.50, it depends on circumstances. Some places they sell for more than they do at other places. I Q. What does it cost you actually to manufacture here that $3.00 shoe? 'A. There is a lot of difference in the shoes. Some of the shoes cost the manufacturer more than we get for them; there are others that we make a little on; it averages, I should say it won’t average over five cents a pair profit. ’ ‘ Q. I don’t care about the profit right now. I want to know what it .costs you to manufacture a shoe that sells for $2.00, that retails for $2.00. A. Yes, that $2.00 shoe costs us to manufacture about $1.90 or $1.95. Q. What part of that $1.95 goes for leather and materials? A. I could not say offhand now. I think there is about 26 cents of labor in each pair. Q. When you bring your payroll in, will you also bring a list showing 628 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee how that 26 cents is distributed among the laborers? A. I could probablj do that if I had the payroll and the prices of each part as paid. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Have you any idea in your mind when a girl i; sixteen or eighteen years old at what wage she can live comfortably, have decent, respectable clothes and pay for her board; say a girl sixteen oi eighteen years of age? A. Well, that is a pretty hard question to answer Q. To pay for her board, have a bed to sleep in nights and clothe her- self and have a few cents or a dollar extra occasionally? A. I should sa> that the least she could do it with is around $7.00. Q. Now, what would you think of a minimum w’age scale; we have three or four bills pending over there, and it is a question of what is the right bill; can you give us any suggestion of what you think would be a fair thing to do; for instance, some say, in Chicago and Peoria and wherever we have been, that a girl can live right on $8.00 a week sc that she can keep straight and do right; what would you think of grading that scale and taking a girl say for the first six months at such a rate and then the next six months at so much; what would you think would be a fair minimum scale to make a law in this state? The time is going to come, and you are manufacturing in this State, and you will understand it has got tc come one way or another; what do you think would be the best plan, as a suggestion from you? A. I would not want to make a statement on that because I can’t give you a statement. Q. Well, offhand? A. I don’t know, possibly around $7.00, is that what you have had in mind? Q. We haven’t arrived at any conclusion as yet, we are just trying tc find out what will be the best. A. There are plenty of girls that can make the minimum wage of $6.00 or $5.00 and they never will try to get ahead Q. You would have the power to hire or discharge; it would not be compulsory on your part to keep these girls; suppose it was $7.00 or $8.0C a week, this legal minimum wage? A. There would be about half that we could not keep. Q. That would not fill the bill? A. No, sir. There are some of them that don’t ever try to work, don’t care to work. Q Why? A. They don’t seem to want to work. We have girls that had one position where some of the girls could earn about $9.00 a week. There is work right along, and they will work a time and then they will be off a day or two. Places where they can earn up to $9.00 a week, and they would not try. So it looks to me that even with a minimum wage of $6.0C they would not try. Even in these cases you will find some of them go to work, but don’t really care to work. There are so many different girls, I would not know what to say. SENATOR BEALL: Well, think it over and tell us the next time you see us. We want the information. That is all for the present. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The first state in the union that responded to the request of this Committee for the creation of similar committees in all the other states that legislation might be uniform was Missouri, which authorized a committee of five identically like this to co-operate with this Committee. I would suggest to the judgment of my colleagues that we submit to the committee in Missouri the evidence brought before this Com- mittee today, inasmuch as the head offices of this concern seem to be in Missouri. SENATOR BEALL: What is the name of that concern? A. The name is the International Shoe Company. Q. Of what concerns is that a consolidation? A. The Roberts, Johnson and Rann Shoe Company, and the Peters Shoe Company. Q. That is one of the biggest concerns in St. Louis? A. Yes, and the Freemont-Sheldon Shoe Company. Public Meetings and Testimony 629 ired R. Coates’ Testimony. FRED R. COATES, called as a witness before the Committee, being rst duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. . CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Fred R. Coates, t Q- What is your business? A. Watch material manufacturer. [ Q. What is the name of your firm? A. It goes under my name, foates. I Q. Is it incorporated? A. No, sir. I Q. Do you own the entire business? A. Yes, sir. i Q. Where is your factory located? A. On 11th and Ash streets. \ Q. How many girls, or women, do you employ in your factory? A. ibout twenty-five. Q. What is the lowest wage that you pay any woman in your employ? \. Well, that all depends. It is all piece work. The system is piece work Irom start to finish, with the exceptions of the beginning, when we pay them lay work in order to encourage them to learn, and the old system has been |fty cents a day in the beginning. That lasts for possibly a week or ten Jays and then we put them on piece work, and if they are adapted for the york they will make from $5.00 a week up, but if they are not adapted they Jon’t develop. It is simply to let them go on. I Q. How often do they quit, Mr. Coates? A. Well, that depends; it Ss simply to let them go on or quit. I Q. They have that alternative? A. Yes, sir. ! Q. What proportion of girls quit and what proportion continue on for it least one month when placed on the piece system? A. I have got quite i number that have been there six or seven years. , Q. What proportion of them last over a month? A. I could not say. ' Q. Or a year? A. I could not say. ’ Q. Half of them? A. Oh, no. Q. Half of them don’t last at all? A. They last for more than that; j5he would probably win out or would quit inside of a week or ten days, i Q. What proportion would that be? A. About one out of ten would juit inside of ten days. , Q. That leaves nine out of ten? A. Yes, sir. ! Q. Now, how many of the nine drop out the first month? A. Well, nost of them have been there for a year or more; it would be impossible ;or me to state or give any idea. Q. You haven’t any idea how many of them do drop out? A. Unless :hey should stay a year or more I could not continue the business. It is difficult work to do. Unless they should stay there the first month or six veeks, during that time they can’t do anything. Q. These girls are on piece work? A. Yes, sir. Q. Take last week; what is the lowest amount of money that you paid my girl working for you last week? A. I don’t know, you see, we don’t Ipay every week. Q. How often do you pay them? A. Once a month. Q. You pay on what day of the month? A. On the ISth. Q. That is for services from the 15th to the I5th? A. No, it is from the 1st to the 1st. SENATOR JUUL: Up to the time you pay you practically have held pack six weeks’ wages of these girls, is that correct? A. From the first !day, yes. Q. From the day they first commence work to the first pay day? A. Yes. Q. You have held back six weeks’ pay from them, is that correct? A. That is correct. Q. And they are paid in April for the month of March? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the lowest amount of money that you gave to any of them I 630 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee that work for you from the first day of March to the last day of March: what is the lowest amount that you paid to any of the girls during that month? A. I could not state that. Q. Where is your pay roll for March? A. I could not say, I should judge they put it in the vault. I think the lowest would be about $17.00 oi $18.00 and running up to $47.00. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will you appear here next Tuesday evening with your pay roll for February and March? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL:_ What is the foundation of the pay roll; is it the foreman’s time sheets or time cards? A. No; it is a card system, and they are added together, and the totals footed up, that is, footed together. Now. the foreman doesn’t have anything to do with it. Q. Have you a weekly resume of the total amount that you pay' these girls for each week? A. No, we haven’t got that. Q. Is your pay roll for last week closed now? A. Yes, sir, it is. We have the footings for the entire month. Q. You have everything for March? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL; You bring that pay roll for March in and be pre- pared to swear to it. Q. Are there any girls who have quit your employ in the last two or three weeks where you are holding back their pay? A. Yes, there were twc quit. Q. Why did you hold back their pay? A. There were two that didn’t come after the pay. They didn’t work while they were there. Q. They stated that you started them in at $3.00 a week, and that after you started them in on the wage basis you switched to the piece system and dropped them down to $1.85 a week and then they quit, and then instead of paying them off you haven’t paid them yet, is that correst? A. I haven’t paid them yet; that is true. If they don’t ask for it, how can I pay it? Do you expect me to go down and hunt them up and pay them? SENATOR JUUL: I would expect you almost to go down to their house and pay them, if that is all that you intend to pay them for what they have done. I want to say right now that you ought to have a machine and go around and pay them off, since you are asking me for my opinion, and I am going to state it to you freely. I don’t think that any emploj'e ouehttobe compelled to come back to you at the prices you have paid them, if such a statement is true, and waste a half a day, besides carfare, in order to get it. If you ask me for my opinion I will state it to you frankly'. You certainly should go to their houses and pay them. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What was j'our pay roll last month? A. About $1,500.00. Q. That was your total pay roll? A. Yes. Q. How many persons on that pay roll did that cover? A. I haven’t figured it up, I really could not say. Q. How many girls and women are there on it? A. About twenty- five. Q. How many men on it? A. I believe there are ten. Q. Do you allow y'ourself a salary'? A. No. Q. Then that $1,500 covered thirty'-five people? A. \es, sir. Q. What was the highest salarv paid to anybodv on that pay roll? A $ 120 . 00 . Q. A month? A. A month. Q. Was that a man or woman? A. A man. Q. How much money have you invested in your business there? A About $75,000.00. Public Meetings and Testimony 631 Q. That is actually invested; that is not what you consider the business iis worth with the good will and all? That is the building and all. Q. The building and real estate and everything? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is money that you have actually put into the business? A. Yes, sir. Q. No watered stock or anything of that kind? A. No, sir. Q. What were your profits last year? A. There wasn’t any. Q. You didn’t make any money last year? A. No. ! Q. How much did you lose? A. That is pretty hard to say. Q. You did lose money last year? A. Yes, sir. Q. How do you know you lost money, then? A. Because I know how my business has run. Q. A thousand dollars? A. It is pretty hard to say just exactly; I haven’t figured it out. Q. The year before that did you make any money? A. Very little. Q. How much did you make? A. Why, possibly $700.00 or $800.00. Q. When you say you lost money last year, are you figuring in the interest on this $75,000.00 and a certain amount for depreciation, your own services and all other items of wear, tear and expense, actual and theoretical? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is that the way you figured you lost money? A. Yes, sir, that is the way I figured it, yes, sir. Q.What interest did you allow on your $75,000.00 under that system of bookkeeping? A. Oh, four per cent. Q. And you figured $75,000.00, four per cent on that? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: Let me ask you to what extent, if to any extent, does the competition of the big combines in the watch manufacturing busi- ness interfere with the successful running of your plant; are you a competi- tor in business? A. I am not a competitor of the watch factories. Q. You are in a line of work that is separate? A. Yes, sir. Q. What line of w^ork do you follow? A. Parts of watches. Q. You don’t attempt to manufacture watches? A. No, we don’t , complete the watch. Q. So your market is practically the other factories; other factories are manufacturing? A. No, I sell to jobbers and they distribute to job- bers for repair work. Q. So the manufacturing of new watches and hammering down of prices don’t interfere with the profitable running of your business? A. No. Q. Have you any competition in your line of business? A. Why, yes, we have some. Q. Coming right down to the humane side of this proposition, Mr. Coates, is it possible to run the kind of business that you are engaged in and yet pay fair living wages to your woman employes? A. I do pay fair living wages. Q. You don’t according to the testimony drawn out here. A. It is not fair to take the testimony of one or two; if you will take the testimony of our girls down there that have been with us some length of time you will find it different. Q. Would we get beyond $5.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: I think w^e had better let Mr. Coates off until we get the rest of these girls in. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I wonder if Mr. Coates has any idea what it costs a girl to live here in Springfield? A. I could not say. It is really out of my line. SENATOR WOODARD: How do you arrive at this system of paying once a month; it is a matter of right or wrong; do you think that is right, do you? A. I don’t see anything wrong with it. A great many people 632 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee favor it, claiming that they have more money together than they would otherwise have. Q. Do you favor it? A. Yes. SENATOR JULL: But they are poor people and they have got to eat, and you are practically putting them to the test of waiting four or five or six weeks for their earnings; don’t you think that is a hardship? A. I don’t know. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: They might be able to live from week to week, but they might not be able to live from month to month. What do you say? A. I don’t believe I am in a position to answer. . Whereupon, on motion duly seconded and put, the Committee adjourned to 8 o’clock P. M., Tuesday, April 29, A. D. 1913, to meet again at the same place. SESSION XXIII Evening session held to hear testimony of several more girl workers at Springfield plant of International Shoe Co. Attempt to interrupt proceedings during hearing of working girls’ testi- mony fails. Foreman of paper box factory hears several witnesses ' charge him with cruelty and mistreatment and denies their accu- sations. Testimony of: Margaret Brennan, employe. International Shoe Co. Viola Patters, employe. International Shoe Co. Della Morris, employe International Shoe Co. Hadia Fromm, former employe. International Shoe Co. Emma Malinski, employe. International Shoe Co. Regina Tacoma, employe. International Shoe Co. Della Morris, employe. International Shoe Co. Mary Casper, employe. International Shoe Co. Marie Troth, former employe. International Shoe Co. Jennie Holtzman, employe. International Shoe Co. Lucille Flynn, employe. International Shoe Co, Margaret Balter, employe. International Shoe Co. Anna Young, employe. International Shoe Co. William Alexander, shop foreman. International Shoe Co. Springfield, 111., April 29, 1913, 8:00 o’clock P. M. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at the Leland Hotel. All imembers being present, the following proceedings were had : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Committee will come to order. The sergeant will call Miss Margaret Brennan. Margaret Brennan’s Testimony. MARGARET BRENNAN, called as a witness before the Committee, reing first duly sworn, was examined by Chairman O’Hara and testified IS follows: CHAIRMAN: What is your name? A. Margaret Brennan. MR. MORTIMER: May I have a word? SENATOR BEALL: This meeting is called merely as an inquiry. Do you want to go on the witness stand for anything? This is merely for these girls to testify. If you wish to testify, come up here and do so under oath. MR. FITZGERALD: May he not say a word? My name is Fitz- gerald. If I may have a word I would like to have it. j CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Not at this time, Mr. Fitzgerald. The wit- mess has been sworn. MR. FITZGERALD: If the Committee please CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Not at this time, Mr. Fitzgerald. MR. FITZGERALD: This is a public hearing, is it not? CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We can’t hear you now, Mr. Fitzgerald. Q. What is your name? A. Margaret Brennan. Q. How old are you? A. Seventeen. MR. FITZGERALD: If the Committee please- CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How old are you? A. Seventeen or ^eighteen. s MR. FITZGERALD: If the Committee please fCat calls and uproar.) , CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Where do you live? A. Springfield. 633 I oM Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do you live with your parents? A. Yes, sir. MR. FITZGERALD: If the Committee please — may we not be heard? CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How long have you been working? A. Three months. Q. At what place? A. At the box factory. Q. That is at the International Shoe Company? A. Yes, sir. Q. What work have you been doing there? A. Well, folding boxes and folding lids and putting lids on boxes and putting shoes in cases. Q. Have you been on the piece system or on a salary? A. Yes, sir; on a salary. Q. How much have they been paying you a week? A. Four dollars and a half. Q. Who was your foreman? A. Mr. Alexander. Q. Did he treat you nicely? A. He treated me all right. Q. Have you ever heard him swear at any of the girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are positive you have heard him swear at them? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many times have you heard him swear at the girls? A. Oh, quite often. Q. You have heard him use profanity? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you seen him put his hands on any of these girls to shake them? A. Oh, I have seen him shake some. Q. You have seen him shake some of the girls? A. Yes. Q. Are you still working there? A. Yes. Q. What is your name? A. Margaret Brennan. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all. (Cat calls, whistling and uproar.) Viola Patters’ Testimony. VIOLA PATTERS, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: MR. FITZGERALD: May I have a word? I don’t desire anything only to state the position that we occupy down here in Springfield. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Miss Viola Patters (Whistling, cat calls and uproar.) MR. FITZGERALD: If the Committee please — ^just a word. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? MR. FITZGERALD: If the Committee please, may we not have a word? CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Viola Patters. MR. FITZGERALD: Is this a public meeting in the interests of the State of Illinois. (Cat calls, whistling and uproar.) CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Viola Patters. Q. How old are you? A. Seventeen. Q. Where are you working now? A. In the box factory. MR. FITZGERALD: May we have a word, if the Committee please? If the Committee please, the citizens of Springfield desire to be heard in this matLer. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Where do you work? A. At the shoe factory. MR. FITZGERALD: If the Committee please, we trust that the citizenship of this city can be heard through their authorized representa- tives in this hearing. SENATOR BEALL (to the Chairman): Go right ahead. Public Meetings and Testimony 635 MR. FITZGERALD: We think it is only right and fair that we should be heard. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You are working at the International Shoe Factory, are you? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long had you been working there? A. A year. Q. How long? A. A 3 'ear. Q. Are you working on the piece system or working on a weekly salary? A. On a weekly salary. Q. How much are you paid? A. Six dollars. Q. In whose department do you work? A. Mr. Alexander’s, in the box factory. Q. Does he treat you right? A. He has “cussed.” Q. He has “cussed” you? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many different times has he “cussed” you? A. Twice. Q. Has he used profane words to you? A. Not lately. Q. Has he ever put his hands upon you to shake you? A. No, sir. Q. But he has cursed you? A. Yes. Q. Have you ever seen him shake any of the other girls? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: What is your name? A. Viola Patters. Q. What is your address? A. 1048 North Fourteenth Street. Q. How old are you? A. Seventeen. SENATOR TOSSEY: That is all. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Call Miss Balter, Sergeant. Margaret Balter’s Testimony. MARGARET BALTER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Margaret Balter. Q. Where do you live? A. 1426 East Randolph Street. Q. You live with your parents, do you? A. I live with my father. Q. Where do you work. Miss Balter? A. At the box factory and the shoe department. Q. Of the International Shoe Factory? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you been working there? A. About three months. Q. You are still employed there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you paid a weekly wage? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much are you paid? A. Four dollars. Q. Four dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours do you work a day? A. Ten hours a day. Q. And the same number of hours on Saturday? A. Well, that is nine hours, from 7 to 4:45 o’clock on Saturday. Q. In whose department do you work? A. Mr. Alexander’s. Q. Mr. Alexander’s department? A. Yes. Q. Did he treat you nicely? A. He “cussed” me all the time and shook me around and threw shoes at me, threw cases at me and every- thing. Q. Throws shoes and cases at you? A. Yes. Q. And swears at you? A. Yes. Q. Does he do that to the other girls, too? A. I don’t know. Q. But he does it to you? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I think that is all. SENATOR TOSSEY: How old are you? A. Sixteen. Ella Ehlert’s Testimony. ELLA EHLERT, called as a witness before the Committee, being 636 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows; CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? MR. FITZGERALD: Now, if the Committee please (Yells and uproar, whistling and cat calls.) MR. MORTIMER: We do not want to cause any disturbance in this meeting. SENATOR BEALL: What do you want to do, my friends; you know what we are here for. We are here for the purpose of taking the testimony of these working girls, and hearing what they have to say. This is not a trial. (Yells, uproar and whistling and cat calls.) SENATOR BEALL (continuing): That is all we want. They are going to be heard, and I wish you would listen to them. Listen to them; we would be glad to have you. MR. MORTIMER: We would like to be heard. MR. FITZGERALD: What is the ruling on this proposition? We would like to be heard in this matter. What is the ruling of the Com- mittee on it? SENATOR BEALL: We will set any night for j^ou if you want to be heard, and will come here and hear you at length, but tonight we are here to take the testimony of these people who have been called here, and j'ou should not interrupt us. MR. FITZGERALD: This is the time we desire to be heard. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Ella Ehlert. MR. MORTIMER: What is your ruling? CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We are here to work: not for the purpose of any public discussion. MR. FITZGERALD: All right, so are we, and we are going to stay until we can be heard. SENATOR BEALL; All right, then, stay, but let us proceed. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How old are you? A. Seventeen. MR. FITZGERALD: Then you will not hear us? SENATOR BEALL: No, we will not. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Where do you live? A. 1426 South Tenth Street. Q. Where do you work? A. At the shoe factor 3 ^ Q. At the International Shoe Company’s factor^'? A. Yes, sir. Q. In whose department do you work; who is j’our foreman? A. Mr. Huntington. Q. In what department is that? A. Packing department. Q. How much are you paid a week? A. Well, I am on piece work now. Q. How long have you been working there? A. Just about three months. Q. You have been working there three months? A. Yes, sir. Q. When you started there how much were jou paid? A. How much ? Q. Were you paid a wage there? A. I was there three days, Tues- day until Saturday, and then I got $2.00; they kept a couple of days back; they kept three days back. Q. How much were you getting a week? A. He started me in, and he says, “I will put you on day work; I will give you $3.50,” and then he raised me to piece work, and last week I got $6.82. Q. How much did you start at? A. Three dollars and a half. SENATOR TOSSEY: What did you sa 3 ' your name was? A. Ella Ehlert. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How many hours a da 3 - do you work? A. Ten hours. Public Meetings and Testimony 637 Q. And the same number of hours on Saturday? A. No, to 4:45 o’clock on Saturday. Q. And that makes how many hours per week? A. Fifty-nine hours. Q. Are you treated nicely there? A. Yes, sir. Q. All the conditions are satisfactory? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have no complaints to make? A. No. Della Morris’ Testimony. DELLA MORRIS, a witness called before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Della Morris. Q. Where do you work? A. At the shoe factory. Q. At the International Shoe Company’s factory? A. Yes. Q. How long have you worked there? A. About seven months. Q. Are you on piece work or salary? A. By the week. Q. How much do you get a week? A. Eight dollars. Q. On a salary? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did you get at first? A. Five dollars. Q. Now you get $8.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours do you work a day? A. Ten hours. Q. Are the conditions there pleasant? A. Well, as far as my boss is concerned, he is a fine gentleman. Q. Who is your boss? A. Mr. Hollis. Q. You have no complaints to make against him? A. No. Q. Have you heard of any complaints made against any of the other bosses there? A. Yes, sir. Q. Against what boss? A. Well, Wallace was one. Q. What have you heard? A. I have heard girls talking about his shaking them, but I don’t know. Q. Do the girls there seem to be well content, or do they complain of their treatment there generally? A. I don’t know; I don’t associate any with them. Q. You are entirely dependent upon your own earnings for your support, are you? A. I was most of the time. Q. Could you tell the Committee about what it costs a girl to support herself in Springfield? A. If she wants to live right, she cannot live right for what I am making at the present time. Q. What would you say was a fair wage for girls? A. I don’t know; I had myself and child to support when I was getting only $5.00 a week. Q. And you supported yourself and child? A. Yes. Q. Was that a hard task? A. Yes, it was almost impossible. Q. How long were you there before you got more money? A. Four weeks. Q. Then they raised you how much? A. To $6.00. Q. How long before you got another raise? A. Four weeks, the next month. Q. What prospects have you of making more money? A. I could not say. Q. Do some of the girls get more money than you do? A. Yes, I have heard of them getting more. Q. You would say that a girl in Springfield could not live very decently on $8.00 a week? A. She might if she had no one but herself; you see, I have two to support; she might do all right. SENATOR BEALL: You think they can live on $8.00 a week and live nicely? A. Yes, but they couldn’t do much on that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you think that this Committee is doing 538 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee you an injustice by asking you to come here? A. It is not; they are do- ng all right. Q. Do you regard the work that this Committee is doing as more o: an injury to the working girls than a service? A. I think they are doing us a service. Q. Is that the way that the working women are looking upon it? A Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all. Thank you. Hadia Fromm’s Testimony. HADIA FROMM, called as a witness before the Committee, beine first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows' CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. Hadia Fromm. Q. How old are you? A. Fifteen. Q. Are you living with your parents? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where do you work? A. I don’t w'ork anywhere now. Q. Did you ever work any place? A. Yes, I worked at the box factory. Q. At the International Shoe Company’s factory? A. Yes. Q. When did you work there? A. I started Fair Week. Q. What were you employed to do there? A. Pasting on lids. Q. What time did you go to -work in the morning? A. Seven in the morning. O. What time did you quit in the evening? A. A quarter to six. O- How much did they pay you for that? A. When I started I got $3.50. Q. You got $3.50 to start with? A. Yes. Q. When you quit how much were you getting? A. Four and a half. Q. In whose department were you employed? A. Bill Johnson’s. Q. Did he treat you nicely? A. No, sir. Q. What did he do? A. He grabbed me bj- the arm and told me to go to work, and he used to “cuss.” Q. Did he do this often? A. Well, not so very often, but he did it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; That is all. Thank you. Emma Malinski’s Testimony. EMMA MALINSKI, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN 0’HA.RA: What is your name? A. Emma Malinski. Q, How old are you? A. Seventeen, Q. Where do you live? A. 924 North Thirteenth Street. Q. With your father and mother? A. Yes, sir. Q. Where do you work? A. Shoe factory. Q. At the International Shoe Company’s factory? A. Yes. sir. Q. How long have you been working there? A. It will be two months now. Q. What do you do? A. Bind the shoes. Q. How much a week are they paying you? A. When I started I didn’t have piece work; they gave me $4.50; then he just gave me that for one week, and then he put me on piece work, and then I got $6.50 and $7.00, and then for three months I made $8.00, and that is the highest I ever made. Q. Working ten hours a day? A. Working from 7 to 12 o’clock and from 12:15 to 6 o’clock. Q. In whose department are you? A. Air. Hollis’. Q. Does he treat you nicely? A. He treated me very well, but I seen’him give it to the rest of them. When he gets excited he treats them Public Meetings and Testimony 639 awful; he just hollers at them, and several times I seen him push them back and forth. Q. You saw that, did you? A. Yes, I seen that twice. SENATOR JUUL; What kind of piece work are you doing? A. Barring shoes. Q. What is that? A. You see, they are all done except at the last I give them a stitching right down by the buttons so they won’t rip; I bar them. Q. That is called barring? A. Yes. Q. How is that paid for? A. For a line of shoes I get 4 cents, for another line 3 cents; thirty-six pairs, 3 cents. Q. You get 4 cents for thirty-six pairs? A. Yes. Q. You get 4 cents for one kind and 3 cents for another for seventy- two shoes? A. Yes, sir; 3 cents. Q. Three cents for seventy-two shoes? A. Three cents for seventy- two shoes. Q. And 4 cents for seventy-two shoes of another kind? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then is there any fine or loss of wages for any accidents to your work? A. Whenever you make a mistake you have to take them back and fix them over. Q. You are not fined? A. Of course, the other girls, I have heard it said, he made them pay, but this is for shoes whenever they are damaged, you know. SENATOR JUUL: I think that is all. (Applause, whistling, uproar.) SENATOR JUUL: Kindly refrain from clapping. This is not a vaudeville, this is not a theatre. (Uproar continued, whistling and jeers.) SENATOR JUUL: You will simply compel this Committee, gentle- men, to hold our hearings in another city and bring our witnesses from this town to that other city. Now, this Committee is here because it has a work to perform and because it is ordered to perform that work by the State of Illinois, and it is going to perform that work whether you like it or not. This Committee ought to be permitted to transact its business in quiet, and you ought to be the first ones to aid in keeping order and not interfere with this Committee in any way, shape or manner while we are calling our witnesses. You will simply compel us to take them to some other town to be heard if you persist in this. MR. FITZGERALD: May we have a word? SENATOR JL^UL: No, sir; not while we are examining these witnesses. (Yells, jeers, whistling, clapping of hands and uproar.) MR. FITZGERALD: May we not be heard? SENATOR JLTUL: Let us go ahead with our work. MR. MORTIMER: If the Committee please, may we not have a moment in order for Mr. Fitzgerald and myself to appeal to this Com- mittee for an opportunity to say a word in behalf of the citizenship of Springfield who desires to be heard? SENATOR JLTLTL: When we want you we will tell you; you will kindly take your seat. We intend to give a hearing to these working girls whether some people like it or not. This time these girls come first. MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Chairman SENATOR JUUL: I move that this meeting be adjourned if this meeting cannot be held in peace without being broken up by rowdies CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will the gentleman take his seat? MR. FITZGERALD: I want to address this Committee. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Dr. Quale, will you please see that the gentlemen are seated? 640 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (At this point Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Mortimer were escorted from the hall by the officers.) SENATOR JUUL: Is there any fine for damages? A. Yes, when- ever they are damaged or anything like that they make you pay $2.00 for the shoe. Q. When they are damaged they make you pay $2.00 for the shoe? A. Yes; not me, but the rest of them. Q. Why not for you? A. If I make a mistake I have got to do it over, fix it up. Q. But if the others damage shoes they have got to pay for it? A. Yes. SENATOR JUUL: She states that if a shoe is damaged in certain cases they have to pay as high as $2.00 for it. Regina Tacoma’s Testimony. REGINA TACOMA, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Regina Tacoma. Q. How old are you? A. I am seventeen. Q. You are living with your parents? A. Y’es. Q. At what place? A. 1503 South Passavant. Q. Where do you work? A. At the International Shoe Company. Q. What do you do there? A. Repair tan shoes. Q. Are you paid a weekly wage? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much are you paid a week? A. He just raised me this week to $6.00. Q. What did you get up to this week? A. Five; when I started I got $4.50. Q. When did you start? A. About four months ago on a Monday afternoon. Q. In whose department are you employed? A. In Air. Hunting- ton’s. Q. Did he treat jmu nicely? A. I haven’t anything against him be- cause I haven’t been there long enough; he alwa 3 's treated me well. Q. Have you ever heard him swear at anj' of the other girls? .Y. No, I never heard it. Q. Have you ever seen him put a hand on them and shake them? A. No. Q. Haven’t seen him do anything out of the way- or harsh? A. No, sir. Q. Mr. Huntington, you think, is a courteous gentleman? A. As far as I know he is. Q. You have heard no complaints against him of an 3 - sort? A. No, sir. Q. Have you heard complaints against the foreman of an 3 - other de- partment^ A. Yes. Q. What foreman? A. Mr. Hollis. Q. What complaints have you heard against him? A. I have heard that he will bawl them out and holler at them. Q. He is harsh with them? A. Y"es. Q. Have you heard any' complaints against an 3 ' of the other fore- men? A. No, sir; I haven’t. Q. You are working on a salar 3 U A. Yes, sir. Q. On a weekly wage? A. Y'es, sir. Q. No piece work? A. No piece work; no, sir. Della Morris’ Testimony. DELLA AIORRIS, recalled, and testified as follows: Public Meetings and Testimony 641 I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You were sworn? A. Yes. t Q. And testified? A. Yes. I Q. What else did you wish to tell us? A. I didn’t want to tell it. - Q. What is it? A. About my getting poisoned out there by the little labels that is put on shoes; instead of having a sponge to wet those with I had put them in my mouth; I should not have done it; I did, but I didn’t think of being poisoned; and I was poisoned by them. SENATOR TOSSEY: You didn’t have a sponge? A. No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: They didn’t furnish a sponge for you and you 1 had to put them in your mouth? A. I did. Q. Did everybody else in your department do the same thing? A. I -don’t know as to that. Q. No one had any sponges? A. No, no one that I seen. Q. And you were poisoned as the result of that? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you have to go to bed? A. Yes, sir, I was in bed for two . weeks. Q. What was the name of your doctor? A. Dr. Meyer. ) Q. What was his first name? A. J. D. Meyer. Q. He treated you? A. Yes, sir. C J Q. He told you that you were poisoned in that manner? A. Yes. I Q. You yere poisoned as the result of that? A. Yes, sir. ; Q. Did the company pay you for those two weeks? A. No, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY: Did you pay your own doctor bill? A. I paid !- my doctor bill myself. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What was that bill? A. I am paying it now *!on weekly installments. ' SENATOR JUUL: You are paying it on the installment plan? A. : Yes; I haven’t quit doctoring since I was poisoned in January. SENATOR WOODARD: Did it poison your blood? A. Yes, the ■ '• -doctor said it’s all through my system. Q. What is the nature of it? A. I don’t know; it is just in the mouth, sores in the mouth. ; Q. How much have you paid the doctor? A. I couldn’t tell you that, f Ijbecause I paid him a dollar every time, that’s all I can do. - CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did you represent to anybody at the factory ' why you were sick? A. Oh, yes, my boss knew it at the time. I Q. Your boss knew that you had been poisoned there? A. Yes, he 'V Iknew'that I got my sore mouth there; he advised me to go to a physician. SENATOR WOODARD: The sores were where? A. In the mouth. I Q. How long before the first sore came? A. I don’t know, it was isorne time in January; I went to a doctor and treated them; they would i I 50 away and then come back again in about two weeks. ) i CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all, Mrs. Morris; thank you. C Mary Casper’s Testimony. MARY CASPER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first / July sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: ) ! CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Mary Casper. Q. How old are you? A. Sixteen, j Q. You live with your parents? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. What is your address? A. 2021 North 17th. Q. Where do you work? A. At the International Shoe Company : factory. Q. How long have you been working there? A. Two months. ! Q. How much have you paid the doctor? A. I couldn’t tell you that, tivhy you were sick? A. Oh, yes, my boss knew it at the time. I 642 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION BY SENATOR JUUL. SENATOR JUUL: Do you work on a salary or do 3 ’ou work at piece- vyork? A. On a salary. Q. What do you get a week? A. $4.00. Q. Do you alwajrs get $4.00? A. Not always, no. I sometimes get $3.67, sometimes $3.87. Q. How is it that when j'ou are working on a salary that j'ou don’t receive the same amount of money each week? A. Sometimes in the afternoon we work onh" two hours and then go home. Q. Then your pay averages about $3.67 a week, does it? A. Yes, it averages about that. Q. Speak up, there won’t anybody hurt \'Ou; we are not as bad as we look. A. It depends on how much y'ou work. Q. But try and tell me; for instance last week, what did 3 'ou get last week? A. I got $3.73. Q. And what was the week before? A. $3.75. Q. The week before that? A. $3.87. Q. So it averages just a few cents below $4.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, for that $4.00, or for that $3.67, 3 ^ou work from what hour in the morning? A. From 7. Q. Until noon? A. Yes, sir. Q. And every day from ]Monda 3 ' morning you go to work at 7 o’clock, is that right? A. Yes, sir. Q. And then you work until 12? A. Yes, sir. Q. And then you have how long a time for lunch? A. Three-quarters of an hour. Q. And then 3 'ou go to work again at a quarter to 1 o’clock? A. Yes, sir. Q. And then you work up to tvhat hour? A. A quarter to 6. Q. And for that vou receive this $3.67, and sometimes almost $4.00? A. Yes. Q. Are you fairh- well skilled in doing the work that 3 'Ou are doing? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the work? A. I button, tie and trim. Q. Can you do that as well as an 3 ' other girl; do 3 'Ou know how to do it? A. I know how to do it. Q. You do it well? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the work is put awa 3 ' the wa 3 ' 3 'ou have done it? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is anything taken out of 3 'our salar 3 ' when 3 -ou spoil a shoe; have you have any deduction so far? A. No, I don’t have an 3 L Q. How do they treat 3 'ou? A. The 3 r treat me all right, but they don’t others. Q. The 3 ' don’t treat ever 3 Tod 3 ' right? A. No. Q. What do 3 'ou know about the treatment that other girls have re- ceived? A. 1 can’t tell 3 'ou, but I hear them holler at them. Q. You hear them holler? A. I hear him holler at them. Q. Who is the man that hollers at them? A. kir. Hollis. Q. What does he holler about? A. Well, he hollers if she don’t do the work right. Q. He talks prett 3 ' loud? A. Yes. Q. Shakes them up, does he? A. \ es. Q. Have you seen that. A. Yes, I have seen that. Q. How man 3 ' times have 3 ‘ou seen that? A. I don’t know; a good main' times. Q. Have you seen it twice? A. . I don’t know how many times. Q. More than five times? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 643 SENATOR JUUL: Well, 1 guess that is all. Marie Troth’s Testimony. MARIE TROTH, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is 3 'our name? A. Marie Troth. Q. How old are you? A. Nineteen. Q. Where do you live? A. 2029 North Leavitt street. Q. Where do you work? A. At the meter company, but 1 did work at the shoe company. Q. At the International Shoe Company’s factory? A. Yes. Q. How long did you work there? A. It has just been a while; 1 quit there in February and I went to the meter company. Q. How long did you work there at the shoe factory? A. Since August, but I had been there before that, from February^ until May, but I took sick and left. Q. When you were working at the International Shoe Company what department were you in? A. In the room under Mr. Hollis. Q. How long did you work there? A. From 7 o’clock until 6 at III night. Q. How many hours a week? A. The foreman I went under, he started me on $5.00 a week, and then I quit work, I took sick, and then when Mr. Hollis came he put me on piece work, and then after that I never made anything; never made $5.00, hardly ever. SENATOR JUUL: After you were on piece work? A. Yes, I re- member once making $6.00; I made $6.17. Q. That is the highest you reached? A. Yes. Q. What was the lowest? A. $2.99 just the week I quit, the last pay I drew. Q. Was this a full week’s -work? A. Yes, sir, $2.99, I think it was a . full week’s work. Q. What did you have to do? A. I folded on the folding table. Q. What did that consist of? A. They put cement on the shoes and then we fold the edges of it. Q. What do you get for each shoe? A. For Bluchers we got four and a half cents for finishing. Q. For finishing how many? A. Sevent}^-two. Q. You got four cents for finishing seventy-two shoes? A. Four and a half cents, yes, sir, after the noses were did on the machine. Q. Yes? A. We onh^ got four and a half for boxings, and they were hard to do. He made me do tips and he would only just O. K. my card for it; whenever he would bring those tips to me I would have to do them. I was folding so that they could be stitched. Q. They paid j'ou how much per seventy^-two items? A. There were seventy-two in one case, and I did three cases for ten cents; he gave me ten cents. Q. That is, there were seventy-two shoe tips in each case, is that cor- rect? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you had to make three cases for the sum of ten cents? A. Yes, sir. Q. You remember all the time that you are sworn? A. Yes, sir; and he said that this was to be done in an hour, to make ten cents an hour, and I did this in an hour. Q. Could \'ou do it? A. No, I could not alway^s do it in an hour, because lots of times I would have to lay them out to dry. Q. But if you could have done it in an hour, you could have made at . that time, by working ten hours a day, a dollar a day? A. Yes, sir, but I never have that to do steady^ Q. Then you left there? A. I quit there on a Thursday night and 644 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee went right away and commenced at the other place, to the meter company. Q. Was that a better place? A. Yes, I liked it much better; it was a whole lot better. Q. Did you ever complain of your treatment at the shoe factor3'? A. Mr. Hollis, I told him several times, twice that I remember well of ; I went to him, never to the other girls, but I went direct to Mr. Hollis and told him that we were not getting enough pay, that we couldn’t make anything by it, and I told him how much we were making. Q. That was the foreman of the shop, was it? A. Yes, of my de- partment. Q. Did you believe that the foreman had the power to give you any more? A. He would have, I guess. Q. What I am trying to find out bj' you is if you know whether that foreman possessed the power to do any better for you? A. Why, 3'es, he could have, he could have did better by us. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did he swear at any of the girls? A. Yes, sir, I remember well of him swearing at a girl that worked next to me on account of the work she didn’t do right. Q. Used profane words? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he ever shake any of the girls? A. Yes, one little girl, I saw him shake her. Q. You saw him shake her? A. Yes, sir, he grabbed hold of her and pulled her around the table, pulled her over the cement box and pushed her over against it and against the end of the table and told her to get over, to get over there and do some work that the forelady told her to do. SENATOR JUUL: Did he pull her over? A. He pulled her over in such a menner that she pulled the table and the box over. Q. You saw that? A. Yes. Q. Who was that foreman? A. Mr. Hollis. Q. About what time did that happen, 3 vhat 3 vas the exact date if you remember? A. I can’t remember. Q. Was it near Christmas? A. It must have been; it was just about Christmas or in Januar3', in December or Januar3'. Q. In December or Januar30 A. Yes, sir, because I know she was not working there ver3f long; it was just a little while before I quit. Q. Was that the little fifteen-year-old girl? A. Her name is Jennie; I can’t think of the other name. Q. You are now giving the name of the girl who tripped over the cement box? Jennie is the first name, I can’t remember the other name. Q. You don’t know her last name? A. No, she is sitting right out in front of me, CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Has she testified before this Committee? A. No, sir. Q. What do 3'ou think about the justice of asking \'ou to come before this Committee to testify? A. Well, I think it is all right, because the girls at the shoe factory, I think it is ridiculous the way Mr. Hollis treats some of the girls. I don’t think an3'one would realize it unless they could see it. Q. This is the first time that these girls who were treated in that way have had an opportunitv' to be heard b3’' a public bod3^? A. Yes, sir, this is the first time. I know that I have often said that I would go and tell my ma about it, tell her the wa3' he treated us girls. I don’t know whether it is my business to say so here now, but the .girls that are picked out are the girls that make good wages; the others are not here at all, the girls that I am speaking of. I read in the News, I read a piece where the girls spoke about it. Those girls are girls that get hi.gher wages than the other girls around the machines. Q. Then you mean that when the reporter went around for the paper, went down to the factory, they picked out the girls that were getting hi,gher pay, and those were the only girls that were interviewed? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: How did you find that out? A. That is from Public Meetings and Testimony 64S $1 1 the girls. Of course I was there, I worked there long enough to know which (f| girls got the best pay. '•I , Q- You know what they were being paid, and you know they were the j I highest paid girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you say that they were interviewed? A. Yes, sir. :|i SENATOR JUUL: That is all. ■I Jennie Holtzman’s Testimony. • i JENNIE HOLTZMAN, called as a witness before the Committee, being f*:: first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Jennie Holtzman. SENATOR JUUL: Where are you employed? A. I was working tj _ for Mr. Hollis. !■ Q. In the shoe factory? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the factory, is it the factory that these other young ladies .•* jj were working at? A. Yes, sir. jl Q. How long have you been working there? A. I was working about -I ! three or four months. j’ Q. Are you working there now? A. Yes, sir, downstairs. ! Q. In what department? A. In the button department. - 1 . Q. How are you paid, by the piece or by the week? A. By the . week’s work. ‘ Q. And that yields you how much a week about? A. $4.50. Q. How much did it yield you when you started. A $4.50. ; Q. You started on a salary or on a commission? A. On a salary. I' Q. And you still have a salary? A. Yes, sir, he told me he would ■i ■ give me a raise, Mr. Hollis. Q. Yes? A. That he would give me a raise, when I started in, and ■ii right after a week, that’s what he promised me. I Q. When did you get the raise? A. I didn’t get it yet, that’s why ■ ; ' I stopped. I! Q. You did stop? A. Yes, because he wouldn’t give me the raise. Q. When did you stop? A. I am working a month downstairs. ■ Q. You got away from Mr. Hollis and went downstairs? A. Yes. Q. Who is your foreman norv? A. Mr. Huntington. ! Q. Mr. Hollis was your foreman? A. Yes. Q. Why. did you leave him? A. Because he wouldn’t give me a raise. . : They took me off the machine and put me on some dirty work. I Q. What do you call dirty work? A. It was cementing, and he ■■ il would not pay enough, and I had to stand all day on my feet. Four dollars ! and a half a week, I could not afford to work at that price, and I thought ,■ that they would give me more downstairs. Q. Did you get more dowmstairs? A. No, sir, I got four and a half. Q. Did you have any trouble with the foreman? A. Upstairs I did. Q. What was the trouble, tell it in your way and how it happened. A. I When I went and asked them for work I did not want to stand around t because I was not fit for it. I asked for work and Mr. Hollis come around and the forelady was cranky and didn’t know what to give us, and she let , ■ us stand around there, and I went to ask Mr. Hollis and he told me there was plenty of work, and he asked the forelady, and she said to him, “Why, •4 there is plenty of rvork,” and there was no work at all. ji ,Q. And then what happened? A. He took me by my arm and he ttf turned me around and my head got kind of turned, you know, and I didn’t know where I w^as at. Q. Spun you around quick? A. Yes, and the girls all saw it, they told me that I was a fool for taking that, but I could not say nothing. Q. They said you were a fool for taking it? A. Yes, I could not see 045 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee nothing, he turned me around so quick. When anj^body strikes me in the head I get so dizzy. Q. He didn’t hit you in the head? A. No, he turned me around, pinched me by the arm and threw the shoes. Q. Threw the shoes? A. Yes, sir. Q. What shoes? A. The foreman. Q. The shoes that you were holding? A. Yes, he says, “There is the shoes.” Q. Were you up against any cement trough up there? A. No, sir. Q. He just spun you around? A. Yes, sir, he spun me around after I told him I didn’t have no work, and I didn’t have anjn Q. Did you quit immediately after that? A. Yes, sir. Q. And went downstairs? A. Yes, sir. Q. How old are you? A. I will be sixteen. Q. Where is your address? A. 101 East Reynolds street. Q. Is there any fine for spoiling any work over there? A. No, sir, I never had no fine. Q. You are working by the day anywa3A A. Yes, sir, 1 was working by the day, but after that he gave me piece work. Q. This four and a half that you got, is that for five or si.x days’ tvork? A. Six days’ work, the whole week. Q. It was Mr. Hollis that spun 3'ou around? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you friendlj' with him? A. No. Q. Did anyone ever tell you that j'ou should not come to testifj'? A. No, they didn’t know anything about it. I told the girls I was to come and they said for me to come and tell all 1 knew about it. Lucille Flynn’s Testimony. LUCILLE FLYNN, called as a witness before the Committe, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, tvas examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: State j'our name. A. Lucille Flynn. Q. Where do you live? A. 756 North 4 th street. Q. Where are 3^00 emplo3-ed? A. At the shoe factoiw-. Q. How old are you? A. Sixteen. SENATOR JUUL: You are emplo3'ed at the shoe factor3'? A. Yes. sir. Q. How long have 3-ou been there? A. About five months, four or five months. Q. Are 3^011 working bt' the piece or b3' the week? A. Piece work. Q. What are you doing? A. Sta3'ing. Q. What does that consist of? A. We sta3' up the front and then the back of the shoe. Q. That pays how much? A. some cases are eight and some four. Q. A case is seventy-two shoes? A. Yes, sir. Q. Some of them pa3' eight cents? A. Yes. and some four, but not any higher than eight cents. Q. The highest is eight and the lowest is four? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do you make at that for a week? A. I just had gone on piece work. Q. What was 3^our salar3' before 3-00 went on piece work? A. I worked three months for $ 4 . 00 . Q. And then 3-011 came on piece work? A. Yes, I asked him for a raise, and he gave me a half-dollar raise. Q. You asked for a raise and then 3-00 got a raise of half a dollar? A. Yes, and then I asked to go on piece work and I thought I would make more; it has not been a week 3-et, and I don’t know how much I will make. Q. You don’t know what that has resulted in 3-et? A. No, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 647 Q. Who is }'Oiir foreman? A. Mr. Hollis. Q. Does he treat you well? A. Yes, he treats me all right. Q. Does he treat everybody all right? A. Well, I have heard him talk pretty cross to them. Q. Very cross? A. Yes, pretty cross, more than I want him to talk to me. Q. What does he say when he is cross? A. Why, he never w'as in hearing distance of me and I don’t know what he says. Q. You can just hear by the lone of voice? A. Yes, sir. Q. He has never shaken 3rou up, has he? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever see him shake an3Tody else up? A. No, I have never seen it. Q. You have just heard it? A. I knowr he talks awful loud. Q. Did anybody tell you not to come over here tonight? A. No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Have you ever seen any of the girls cry when this foreman was talking cross to them? A. Yes. Q. Very many times? A. Well, 1 seen about three girls, I guess. Q. You have seen three girls at different times cry? A. Yes, sir. Q. Because this foreman was talking cross to them? A. Yes, sir. Q. I think that is all. A. I cried once myself. Q. You cried once 3'ourself? A. Yes, sir. Q. Tell us about that. A. I lost my grandmother and so I went home, and when I came back and m3" hammer was gone, it w'as on the folding table, so I asked him w'here the hammer was. So I asked the fore- lady if she knew' where it w'as and she said she didn’t, so I asked Mr. Hollis and he told the foreladv she would have to tend to that. He talked kind of cross and then I could not understand what he was sa3'ing and I couldn’t help to cry, he talked so dross. Q. Your hammer was lost and he talked so cross to you that you cried? A. Yes, she made us pay fift3' cents for a hammer, and I didn’t want to pa3' fifty cents, so he got me another hammer. Q. You didn’t have to pa\' for it? A. No sir. Q. When a hammer is lost the girls have to pay fifty cents? A. Yes, sir. Q. Whether the\’ have an3'thing to do wdth the disappearance of the hammer or not? A. Yes, sir. Margaret Balter’s Testimony. MARGARET BALTER, recalled, and testified as follows: I I SENATOR JUUL: Were you called in by any foreman and told not to appear before this Committee today? A. No, he told us not to tell. Q. Not to tell what? A. What he said of an3'thing to us. Q. Who did? A. Mr. Alexander; he told us not to tell anything what he said. Q. Told you not to tell anything to this Committee? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he tell 3'ou what not to tell? A. Not to tell that he cursed I us, or an3'thing. Q. What? A. Not to tell that he cursed us. Q. Did he tell 3'Ou that? A. Yes. Q. How man3' other ladies did he tell that to? I don’t know. Q. How man3' w'ere there when he told it -to 3'OU? A. Just me. Q. Nobody else? A. No, sir. Q. Did he know' that 3’OU were going to testif3' here under oath? A No, sir, he didn’t. Q. You don’t know' whether he knew that or not? A. No, sir. Q. But he told you not to tell that he had cursed 3^ou? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did he use that language? A. Yes, sir. 648 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Had he cursed you? A. He cursed me, yes, sir. Q. When did he curse you? A. When I worked there before. Q. Not this last time? A. No ,sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Did he threaten you if you did tell this Com- mittee the truth? A. No, sir. Q. He didn’t threaten to fire you? A. No, sir. Q. He just requested you not to tell this Committee anything about it? A. Yes, sir. Margaret Brennan’s Testimony. MARGARET BRENNAN, recalled, and testified as follows: SENATOR JUUL: Did you have a conversation tonight with the foreman in the factory? A. No, sir. Q. Did anybody ask you what you were to tell about to this Commit- tee or what you were not to tell? A. No, sir. Q. Did Bill Alexander call you in? A. No, sir, not me. Q. Whom did he call? A. Some other girls, he didn’t call me. Q. Did you hear him call these other girls in? A. Yes, sir. Q. What did he tell them? A. I was not one of them. Q. Are they here? A. Yes, sir, they are here. Q. What are the names? A. Rose and Mabel. Q. Do you know them back there? A. I can’t see them. Q. What department are they working in, in Alexander’s department? A. Yes, sir. Anna Young’s Testimony. ANNA YOUNG, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: SENATOR JULL: What is your name? A. Anna Young. Q. Where do you live? A. 1511 Pennsylvania avenue. Q. How old are you? A. Sixteen. • Q. Where are you working? A. At the shoe factor^-. Q. In what line of work? A. In the cerrient department. Q. What is your salary? A. Why, I get $4.50, but they don’t work Saturdays and I get $3.67 when we don’t work Saturday afternoon. Q. You get $3.67 a week but don’t work Saturday afternoon, is that correct? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you work part of Saturday afternoon? A. Half a da\' on Saturday. Q. Up to what hour about? A. Up to 12 o’clock. Q. What has been your working conditions over there, who is your foreman? A. Hollis. Q. Has he been good to you? A. Yes. Q. How does he treat you? A. He don’t treat them very much. Q. You don’t mean to say that he don’t treat them very much; what do you mean, that he doesn’t treat them very nice? A. No, sir. Q. What does he do? A. He just scolds them. Q. Does he shake them occasionally? A. Yes. Q. Did he ever shake you? A. No, sir. Q. Did you ever see him shake anybody else? A. I saw one girl. Q. You saw him shake one girl? A. \ es. Q. Shakes her pretty hard? A. Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Have a'Ou ever seen anj' of the girls cry be- cause they were scolded? A. Yes. Q. Quite often? * A. Not very often, no. Q. But you have seen it? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 649 Q. Did you ever cry yourself? A. No, sir. SENATOR JUUL; You just testified you saw him actually shake one girl? A. Yes, sir. Q. You did see that? A. Yes, sir. Q. And that is the truth? A. Yes, sir, that is the truth. Margaret Lee’s Testimony. MARGARET LEE, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Juul, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Margaret Lee. Q. How old are you? A. Fifteen. Q. When were you born, in what year? A. 1896. Q. What day and month? A. The 7th day of July. Q. You are living with your father and mother? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the address? A. 2112 South 12th .street. Q. Where are you working now? A. At the International Shoe Company. Q. How long have you been working there? A. Over a year. Q. How much money were you paid when you first went to work there? A. Well, the first time I started in I was paid $3.00; the second time I started in I was paid $4.50. Q. What are you getting now? A. I am getting between $5.00 and $7.00 a week. Q. You are on piece work? A. Yes. Q. What is the best you have ever made on piece work in any one week? A. I don’t know, 1 don’t remember. Q. What is the lowest you have ever made? A. The lowest for a complete week, the lowest is $5.00. Q. You have never made less than five? A. No, sir, for a complete week. Q. When they put you on piece work what was the salary that they were paying you up to that time? A. $4.50. Q. Then putting you on piece work really increased your salary there? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many hours did you work a day? A. Ten hours. Q. The same number of hours on Saturday? A. No, sir, nine hours on Saturday. Q. You worked fifty-nine hours a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the lowest you made was $5.50 a week and the highest you made is $7.00? A. I haven’t made quite $7.00; between $6.00 and $7.00. Q. Some place between $5.00 and $7.00? A. Yes Q For fifty-nine hours’ work? A. Yes. Q. You have been over there a year altogether? A. Yes. Q. What department are you employed in? A. The cutting de- partment. Q. Have you a chance to spoil anything? A. Yes, sir. Q. If you do spoil something you are fined? A. No, sir, not unless you spoil over three in a case. Q. Then you are fined? A. Yes. Q. How much are you fined? A. Five cents. Q. What do you get for a case? A. Well, it depends on what kind of a case it is; we get between two and a half and six cents. Q. A case? A. Yes, sir. Q. Who is your superintendent there? A. Mr. Deering. Q. Is he your boss? A. No. Q. Who is your department boss? A. Mr. Hill. Q. Does he treat you nicely? A. Yes, sir. 650 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I Q. You have no complaints to make against him? A. Xo, sir, I have no complaints to make against him; he has treated me well. Q. He has treated the other girls well? A. Yes, 1 haven’t heard them say anything against him. Q. Have you ever heard anybody say anything against IMr. Hill? A. N^o, sir. Q. Have you ever heard any complaints against the other department bosses? A. 1 have heard girls talk about some of them being cursed. Q. You have heard some of the girls say about some of them being cursed? A. Yes. Q. And about their bosses being cross to them? A. Yes. Q. Did you ever hear any of the girls say that any of the department bosses had shaken them? A. W’ell, 1 have heard tell of them jerking them and a girl I know he cursed. Q. By cursing you mean that he used profane language? A. Yes, sir. Q. You know what I mean by profane language? A. Yes, sir. Q. What department boss was it that swore at this girl? A. ^Ir. Hollis. Q. It is common talk among the girls that some of these department bosses do swear at some of the girls and shake them? A. Yes, sir. Q. But your department boss. Air. Hill, j'ou have found him a verj' nice gentleman? A. Yes, sir, you bet you. Q. We want to hear of some of these fine gentlemen; this is encourag- ing. A. I have never heard tell of him using slang language at the girls or cursing them. If he ever finds anything against them he goes and tells them quietly; he doesn’t holler it out so everybody else can hear. Q. This department boss, if he finds a girl doesn’t do quite right, he goes to her as a good father or mother would to a child and tell how to do it better the next time? A. Yes, sir. Q. His name is Hill? A. A’es, sir. Q. What is his first name? A. I could not tell 3 -ou whether it was William or Steve. SEX^ATOR JUUL: Just Air. Hill? A. Yes, sir, and I like him better than any foreman I have ever been under. CHAIRAIAN O’HARA; We like that kind of men too; that is all, thank j^ou. William Alexander’s Testimony. WILLIAAI ALEXANDER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn b\’ Senator Juul, was e.xamined and testified as follows : SENATOR JHL'L: Sit down. - AIR. ALEXAX^DER: I would rather stand up. SEN^ATOR JUUL: A'ou would just as soon stand up, but don’t let us start in having difficulties. Please be seated. (Witness takes witness stand.) Q. State A'our name? A. William Ale.xander. Q. What is A-our age. Air. Alexander? A. TwentA^-seven j-ears old. Q. AVhat is A'our position? A. I am foreman of the paper box de- partment of the International Shoe CompanA' at Springfield. Q. And as foreman a'ou have the poAver to hire and discharge? A. I do. Q. Hoav maiiA" girls are emploA'ed in A’our department? A. Fourteen. Q. The business of these fourteen girls is to do Avhat? A. To make paper boxes. Q. What do a'ou saA" is the average Aveekh' Avage paid to girls in A'our department? A. FiA-e dollars and a half a, Aveek. Public Meetings and Testimony 651 H- tl Q. That is the average? A. Yes, sir. I j Q- What is the minimum wage at which i^ou start girls at work? A. I I Four dollars a week. ij Q. Have j^ou piece work in your department? A. No, sir. A Q. No piece work at all? A. No, sir. .1 Q. You start all girls in at $4.00 a week? A. According to their j! ability; some girls are paid $8.50 a week if they are skilled enough to make it. Q. How many girls in your department are paid $8.50 a week? A. y Only one. Q. Then you don’t consider that a fair test of the wage that girls are I j paid in your department at all, do you? A. Well, the International Shoe ■ Company branch at Springfield has not been working long. Eventually ; they work themselves higher up. Q. You have only one girl that gets $8.50 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Tell the Committee in your own way how you regard the working conditions of these girls at your factor 3 r. A. I consider that the girls are treated as well as any man could have treated them. We get some girls in our plant, they are green hands, and we have got to spend a good deal of time to break them in; we are practically losing money on them for months and months at a time. Eventually when they learn the business they will get better money. Q. Let me ask you. When you say “We are practically losing money on these girls for months and months and months,’’ — I believe that was your statement? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you ever ascertained whether or n.ot your company is losing money on the girl that it pays $4.50 a week to? A. Well, I don’t know. Q. How' many hours do you work a girl for that $4.00? A. Fifty-nine hours a week. Q. Your statement to this Committee is that working a girl for fifty- nine hours wdth j^ou as foreman, that for months and months you are losing money on her? A. No, sir. Q. Wasn’t that your statement? A. No, sir. SENATOR JUL^L; Will you go back, Mr. Reporter, let us go back and find out just what Mr. Alexander did say. I want to give him the full ij benefit of ever^’thing that he says or wants to say. J THE WITNESS; Senator, I would rather deal wnth tlie paper box I end of it; I am not informed as to the other. Q. You will go exactly into the details that I want j^ou to go into. A. Probably. If I can’t e.xplain to j'ou I will keep 1113 ^ mouth shut. j Q. Now, then, you made a statement a few moments ago, and you j said that for a long while as to certain girls you are losing money on them? A. Yes, sir; in the paper box department. Q. What opportunity have 3 'Ou for ascertaining whether or not your company is losing money on a girl that 3^011 employ for $4.50 a week? A. I am allowed a certain amount of money to operate the department to make it a profitable venture, and in m 3 ' own doings I figured the actual cost of each operation in the manufacture of a carton complete. j Q. Yes? A. And I assign a certain amount of money to the pro- j duction of that carton, to each operator, j Q. You know the cost of those cartons? A. I do. Q. And you say that you try to make it a profitable venture? A. I j do, to make it a profitable venture, certainly. i Q. How do you know whether the venture is profitable or not? A. I I know by keeping m 3 ' own account. i O. You are simply basing 3 'our estimate on that on what the firm is I allowing you for making a box and not as to the value of the box? A. Yes, I was basing it on the value of the box, the actual merchandising of it and labor. Q. You fix the price of labor, don’t 3 'ou? A. I fix the price of labor 652 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee so I can make it a profitable box; if I did not make it profitable my posi- tion would not be worth anything. Q. What I want to try to get at is; is it possible to work any woman fifty-nine hours a week at box making or any other line of industr\- that you know of and accept the work that she produces, and lose money on her? A. Yes, sir; it is. Q. That is possible? A. Yes, sir; it is possible; it depends on the ability of the girl. If we have a girl come into the box plant and sit down and waste her time, we lose money in that operation. Q. I take it that you are not running a charitable institution? A. No, sir; I am not. Q. How long would you keep her in that institution if she sat down and didn’t do the work? A. Not an hour. Q. Exactly, you could not lose money on her? A. We are com- pelled to do it to a certain extent, because there is such a scarcity of labor, such a scaracity of labor that we are compelled to keep girls that don’t earn their money. Q. You say there is a great scarcity of labor? A. There is. Q. You seem to be able to get girls out of good families by giving them $4.00 a week for their labors? A. Yes, sir, occasionally. Q. And the reason you are giving this is because there is a scarcity of labor? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you a daughter? A. I haven’t any. Q. Would you like to have a daughter of yours, if j'ou had one, work in a factory under exactly the same conditions and circumstances that these girls are compelled to work in yours? A. I would not object to it, if she was there learning a trade. Q. How long, Mr. Alexander, does it take to learn that trade? A. It depends on what you call learning it; they don’t learn that trade thoroughly right from the beginning of a shoe carton until it is completed, because the girls are put on one machine, and they may stop there months and months before they are changed to something else. Q. What is the next step after a girl is emploj-ed at $4.00? A. Four dollars and a half a week. Q. When you have advanced her and consider her a competent girl in the next step? A. Yes, sir. Q. And yet the scarcity of labor has not made her worth more than 50 cents additional per week to you? A. It would depend on whether the girl gets into any particular line of work, and this girl would step into her position, whether she would be capable of filling it. Q. Try and answer my question: When a girl is advanced to $4.50 a week, when you find her worthy of promotion, then she is a useful girl? A. Provided there is an opportunity of promoting her. Q. When you do promote her? A. Yes, sir. Q. When you finally do promote her to $4.50 a week then the girl is fitted for your business, or you would not keep her? A. I will admit that. Q. You have advanced her 50 cents? A. \ es, sir. Q. Now, what is the next step? A. It depends on whether ain-body gets on another machine. It depends on what machine happens to be vacant next. Q. What do you do financially for her? A. For who? Q. For this girl? A. She will staj' the same until some other girl gets on some other machine. Q. That would be for how long a time? A. iMaybe two or three weeks, maybe a month, maj'be three months. Q. But if she stayed there three months you would consider her a competent girl? A. Not necessarily, it depends upon the portion of work that we give her. Q. She would not be a competent girl? A. She would be for the work she tvas doing, Public Meetings and Testimony 653 Q. Do you make use of the work that she produces; you make use of it in business? A. To a certain extent. Q. She don’t spoil it? A. No, but it is the speed of the girl that counts. Q. Oh, it is the speed? A. What else is it any place else? Q. You are the manufacturer and we are trying to find out; now, will you tell this Committee as to the manner that they are treated? A. They are treated by me just as good as any man can treat help. Q. You don’t talk gruffiy to them at all? A. Never at any time. Q. You don’t shake them? A. I should say not, sir; they wouldn’t stand for it, and I would not do it. Q. If any young lady had come up here and told this Committee that you had cursed her, or had talked gruffiy to her, or grabbed her by the arm and swung her around, or treated her generally in that manner, then you would say that this young lady was lying? A. I would say so, I would like to have you bring that young lady up here and thrash the thing right out. Q. So you disagree with all the ten or twelve ladies that have testified before this Committee that you were in the habit of treating the girls gruffiy and grabbing them, by the arms and cursing them, you disagree with them entirely? A. I disagree with the events that was published in the evening of last Thursday and Friday. Q. I haven’t read the newspaper reports. A. You have heard the testimony as they have testified; if you will bring those girls here we will settle the whole thing. Q. How are you going to settle it? A. If you will bring the girls here I will deny everything and prove it to you that she is a liar. I think I can explain the whole business myself if you will listen to me. Will you listen to me? Q. I am listening. A. The girl stated before this Committee that she worked in the shoe factory four years ago for $3.00 a week. The truth is that the girl started for the Davidson Paper Box Factory, she commenced ten years ago at the age of sixteen years, when she was paid $3.50 a week for working eight hours a day. Q. That is what she said. A. That is the fact, but it didn’t state that in the paper. I have got to read the paper as to my evidence; I suppose they published the truth, but I am sorry they don’t publish the facts. Q. Go right ahead. A. This same girl, at the age of sixteen and a half or seventeen years of age, she made at piece work, piece wages, $7.50 or $8.00 a week at the Davidson Paper Box Factory, and they went through bankruptcy through the same conditions by paying their people high wages. They had to go into the bankruptcy court. Q. You say that the box company went into bankruptcy? A. I say that the Davidson Paper Box Company went into bankruptcy through paying large wages to their help. Q. Have you any idea what they paid? A. They paid this girl, when she commenced, $3.00 a week. Q. And she worked six days a week? A. Yes, I presume forty- eight hours a week; they paid her $3.00 a week. Q. And we are taking it for granted that that is true? A. Yes, sir. Q. And they went into bankruptcy because they paid that wage? A. Yes, sir; I haven’t any doubt of it; they can make paper boxes in St. Louis cheaper than we can, and the only benefit we get is to have the paper boxes right near the work, and we can have any size lot that we wish without waiting for a shipment from St. Louis. Q. You just struck the very thing that I want to get at; you say they can make them at St. Louis for less than you can here? A. I believe so. Q. You can hire girls for $4.00 a week and you can’t compete with St. Louis, is that the situation? A. That is the situation. In St. Louis 1 654 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the Homan Paper Box Company is probably making 75,000 to 100,000 cartons a day. If I had to make 50,000 cartons a day I could make them as cheap as what they can in St. Louis, but at the same time labor con- ditions in the city of Springfield, and particularly in the paper box depart- ment, are not any cheaper than they are in St. Louis. Q. Then in order to compete with St. Louis you are still looking for cheaper labor conditions, isn’t that so? A. If we can possibly get them I will put them to work tomorrow. Q. For less money? A. Yes, sir; isn’t it business to do it? Q. No, I disagree with j-ou. You are reversing the thing. You are putting me on the stand and I am trying to keep^you on the stand. A. \Vell, go ahead, then. Q. Now, Mr. Alexander, do you consider that there is a moral or legal obligation on the part of any big, health}- man who hires a woman, and particularly a weak, young woman, a weak, 3 'oung girl, to work for him, do you consider that there is any moral or legal obligation on the part of that man, who takes her on Monday morning and keeps her until Saturday night, to treat that girl at least as well as he does his horse; to feed her enough, to stable her, to blanket her, if 3 -ou please, if the weather is cold; do 3 'ou consider that there is an obligation on the part of any man who takes the services of that girl to give her a place to sleep, sufficient to eat and clothing enough to cover her nakedness when in ex- change for that she gives him her time from Monda}^ morning till Satur- da}^ night, of the best that is in her? A. Yes, but just for a minute Q. Just answer my question, answer 3 'es or no first. A. No. Q. There is no obligation? A. No. Q. If she can get enough to eat elsewhere that is all right, and if she don’t she can starve, is that the idea? A. No, sir. Q. You don’t consider that a man under those conditions has any moral obligation resting upon him? A. It depends on the kind of work that she is working on. On the start they- are not worth $2.50 a week, where the same girls would be worth $4.50 or $6.00 with more experience. Q. You are not hiring them at $6.50 or $6.00? A. No, sir; but if I can get a girl I am willing to pa}- what she is worth. Q. But 3-0U want a girl that 3 -ou can drive on a high speed average? A. No, sir; I want a girl to do a fair, nice day’s work. Q. Then these girls are not doing a fair week!}- work? A. It de- pends upon what is considered a fair weekl}- work. Q. I am asking you. A. I will give y-ou an opinion. Q. What is 3 -our opinion? A. It depends on the skill of the girl. Q. It doesn’t depend upon the wants of the girl then? A. Some girls want more than others. Q. Well, all of them want food and clothes. -•V. \ es, but it depends on the amount of clothes. Some want enough clothes, some never have enough no matter how much they have. I have got a wife at home that is never satisfied. Q. Never satisfied? .A.. Never satisfied, and I guess it is the same with you yourselves. That is the reason that we have to make our shoes as cheaply as we can to compete with other manufacturers; they have cheap labor conditions. Q. Don’t you think that girls arc entitled to their meals each day? A. She gets them over there. Q. Y'hatever you give them? A. Yes, sir; and I am in position to know; two girls, I won’t mention names, but I know them, they worked at the DesNoids Shoe Compaii}-, worked under me for $3.00 a week for six months and were satisfied. Q. They were satisfied? A. Yes, sir; we never thought of starting anybody in with the DesNoids Shoe Company for more than that. Q. They were self-supporting? A. Yes, sir. Q. There is not anvbody who would dare to tell you or anybody else in Springfield that a girl who works for a living is not as good as any Public Meetings and Testimony 655 other girl, and I think she is; but i am asking you, suppose a j'Oting woman has to look to her wages for her meals and her room and her clothing, nice clothing, not fancy clothing, but nice clothing, can she get them out of what you are paying her? A. There is only one girl in my department that is paying a weekly board. I make inquirj' as to whether ihey are staying at home with their parents or not, and there is only one that pays weekly board, and that girl is getting the top rate. Q. What is she getting? A. Eight dollars and a half; the other girls are getting from $ 4.00 up and no more; they are getting what the^' are earning and no more. Q. Do i'ou mean to tell this Committee that when you pay her $ 4.00 a week she is getting all that she earns? A. Yes, sir. Q. You do? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; You haven’t been in this country- very long.^ A. No, sir; seven years. My father was a Scotsman, my mother was English, and I was born right on the border line between the two countries. My father claims I am a Scotsman and my mother claims I am an English- man, so I’ll be d d if I know what I am. Q. Where did j-ou learn the box business? A. Springfield, 111 . Q. What business have you pursued before you came to this countiw'? A. That of a professional pedestrian; do 3mu know what that is? It is given in Webster’s Dictionary, I have never read it from cover to cover, but it is in there. Q. Did you learn the box business after you came to Springfield? A. 1 believe I did. Q. Had you been in any manufacturing business before j'ou came to Springfield and learned the box business? A. No, sir. Q. This is your first experience in business? A. No, sir. Q. What was j'our first experience in business? A. I learned a grocer}" trade. Q. W’here did 3'ou learn that trade? A. Oh, I learned that in Eng- land. Q. In what capacitv were vou first employed in the box business? A. As that of an assembler of shoes in the cutting department. O. What were you paid at that time? A. Six dollars a week, for the DesNoids Shoe Compan}-, and I was satisfied with that. Q. You were married at that time? A. I hope not. Q. You managed to support j'ourself on $ 6.00 a week? A. I did, fine. O. How long did you remain working for $ 6 . 00 ? A. Oh, about a month. 0 . And then r'ou were raised? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then to how much? A. To $ 7 . 50 . Q. You got $1 50 raise? A. I did, and spent it all that Saturday night, too. O. Then when did you o'o to work for the International Shoe Com- pany? A. A year and a half ago. Q. How much were 3"ou making at that time? A. I refuse to answer. Q. Have you consulted anj'one about answering that question? A Vobod}" but just m3"self. How much are 3-011 making toda}'? A. I would not want to -nswer. SENATOR JUUL: We will summon 3"ou with the pav roll. A. Well, 3"ou have got the pa}" roll, it is all right; get it from the pay roll. CHAIRIklAN O’HARA; You refuse to answer? A. I do; I don’t think it is necessar}- for me to answer that. Q. You are not back in your department, 3-011 realize? A. I realize iliat. Q. Then I ask 3-011 again how much mone}- 3-011 are getting now; and 656 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I wish you to understand that you are now on an equality with these girls who have been testifying here. You will receive fair and courteous treat- ment, and you will answer the questions of this Committee. A. I don’t think it is necessary for me to answer. Q. I don’t care for your opinion; I am asking you that question. A. I don’t think it is necessary for me to answer that question. Q. Are you going to answer that question? A. Twenty dollars a week. Q. Thank you. Now, Mr. Alexander, how many girls are employed in your department? A. Thirteen or fourteen. Q. During the year and a half that has been the total number of girls employed there? A. Oh, I could not specify that. I guess there has been so many coming and going you could not keep track of them; they do that all over the factory. Q. Come and go all the time? A. Yes, sir; in fact, some of them will come in in the morning and go away within an hour. Q. They are not satisfied with the work? A. No. Q. And you are not satisfied with them? A. No, I am not satisfied with their work, and sometimes I am not satisfied with them; it depends on what they look like. Q. In this factory do they give you a certain amount of money to run your department with and require a certain amount of work? A. No, sir. Q. What is the system? A. The system is that we have got to make boxes there as cheap as we possibly can, and yet at the same time pay reasonable wages. Q. If you were unable to make boxes, for instance, in your factory at as low a rate as some other foreman could, then they might get another foreman in your department? A. Maybe. Q. And to hold your job you have got to turn out boxes at the lowest possible figure? A. Not at the lowest possible figure, but a fair figure based on a fair estimate. Q. You told Senator Juul that if you could get girls cheaper you would get them? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR JUUL: You would take them at any figure you could get them? A. Yes, sir. Q. That you would hire them at $2.00 a week? A. I didn’t say $2.00 a week. O. You said as cheap as possible. A. At $2.50; they worked before at $2.50 for the DesNoids Shoe CompanJ^ but I didn’t tell you how many hours they worked. CHAIRMAN D’KAR-L: How many factories are owned be- the In- ternational Shoe Company? A. I don’t know anything about that, only this plant here. Q. Do you know whether the company has other box factories? A. I don’t know. SENATOR JLM^L: Do you know whether or not j'ou manufacture boxes here and send them to other factories? A. I know I don’t. Q. They have box factories elsewhere, shoe factories elsewhere, you don’t furnish them with boxes? A. No, sir; they might have them else- where, I don’t know. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Then you imaeine, ^Ir. Alexander, that if you were unable to produce boxes here as cheaply as they might in St. Louis that you would be criticized for that? A. I might be if I could not make them at the same basis they can bin- their boxes from St. Louis. Q. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that in this world of cold business, you would lose your job if you didn’t get as much work out of your deoart- ment as possible; if von didn’t eet the maximum work out of your helpers vou would be considered lacking in ability? A. That is possibly the judgment, I presume. Q. That is your opinion? A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 657 SENATOR JUUL: In other words, there is not anything in Mr. Alexander that makes him hard-hearted; he is simply a part of the system. Q. Isn’t that right? You haven’t any particular dislike to these girls so that you should like to hire them for $2.00 or $3.00 a week? A. Dislike t for them? * Q. There isn’t anything in your make-up that makes you feel hostile . to these girls; you are simply a part of the system, where you are com- 1 pelled by circumstances in that line of trade to get that work done as ' cheaply as possible? A. I would not be compelled; my allowance on : manufacture of paper boxes, on that I could pay $4.00 a week, which I ought to do. I don’t believe that my superior officer, Mr. Derby, would ; stand for a girl to be hired at $3.50 a week. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You just stated that you would go out and hire as cheaply as you could; would Mr. Derby approve of it? A. I didn’t tell you he would; that is what I would do. How about this girl, about ' her fainting under such condition, you never asked me about that.- SENATOR JUUL: You denied that you ever handled any of the girls gruffly, but eight or ten witnesses testified that you did. A. I could tell you myself that. ( Q. You have denied it? A. I will explain it to you: that girl never I fainted. I never put my hands on her at all. The last time she had any r trouble was a fit that she had over there. Then we had to send out and send for a physician and had her sent to a hospital; the girl had a fit, and then they wanted the company to pay all those bills. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Is it your opinion that the company should not pay bills of that nature? A. I should think not. SENATOR JUUL; That is preposterous, Mr. Alexander? A. Yes, sir. Q. You think that would be preposterous? A. I think it would be preposterous if the company was to pay any such bills; it is not necessary. The girl is in ill health and has been ever since I have known her. She ( will faint on the slightest jar on the floor upstairs. i Q. How long did she work? A. She worked for the Davidson Paper , Box Company seven years ago. i Q. She was working there four weeks ago? A. Yes, sir; she com- i menced work seven years ago. I Q. What had she been paid in the matter of waves? A. She started ^ for the International Shoe Company on February 20, 1912, at $4.00 per ■ week. I n. Yes? A. And inside of one year, ending February 17, 1913. her wages were $7.00 a week, an increase of the wages of the girl of $3.00 in ■ one year. Q. You started her too low? A. I didn’t start her too low. Listen: If I would have started her at $7.00 a week she would have Stayed there, because she could not have earned any more on the machine; in fact, they are even paying her more, was pajdng her more when she quit than what she was earning. O. After seven years in the business she was not earning $7.00 a week? A. She was not earning $7.00 a week. Q. She was an experienced girl? A. I will put a girl on a machine, and in three weeks that girl will get so, yes, the second week she is there she will get so that she will do more w'ork in a week than this girl ever done in her life in the same length of time. Q. How much were you paying her? A. Six dollars per week. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: How do j'^ou know that this girl had a fit? A. I have got the physician here that attended her; w’e can have the physician here to prove to you that she had a fit. Q. Who paid for that physician? A. I am not paying the company’s bill; I don’t know anything about it. I believe the company would pay for the medical attendance on the first trip, I believe they would. O. Then the physician you refer to is in the employ of your com- *^any? A. How should I know? 658 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How often do you take a vacation, Mr. Alexander? A. A vaca- tion ? Q. Yes. A. I worked for the DesRoids Shoe Compan3' for four years and a half and never lost an hour except when I went and got married. Q. You never lost an hour? A. Never lost an hour; the only hour that I ever had off I went and got married, and that’s the best thing I ever done in my life. Q. I believe it was. A. I would marry again if I had the chance. Q. Have you had a vacation since you went over there to the Inter- national Shoe Companj'? A. This is the first one I believe I ever had. Q. This one here tonight? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you work days or nights? A. No, sir; I never worked an hour overtime in my life that I can remember. Q. Why do j'ou call this a vacation, at night? A. I staj" in the house with my wife, where I ought to. Q. About four and a half years and you have had onlj' two vacations; one was to get married and an evening off to come before this Committee? A. Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Committee feels honored, I^Ir. Alexan- der. SENATOR TOSSEY: Supporting a wife and family do you manage to save verj' much? A. I never saved a red cent in my life. Q. And we are all a part of this great sc^stem? A. Yes, we are all in the same system. Q. We have all the same battle to fight that the girls have? A. I guess so. SENATOR JUUL: Did \-ou instruct an\- of the \-oung ladies over there, Mr. Alexander, not to answer questions? A. Concerning this Committee’s inquiries? Q. Yes? A. I will swear I never told them anything. Q. You are denying it? A. I am denying it; yes, sir; I den\- it. Q. Do you deny that you ever shook a girl? A. That I ever shook anybodjc Q. Or ever cursed anybody? A. I never did; the girl that testified before this Committee that I swore at her or shook her, if you will bring her here she will den\' it right in front of me. Q. Do you mean to tell me that all of these girls told an untruth? A. I sav that that girl said what amounts to the same as all of them told. I am saying that what this girl told before this Committee Friday night is untrue. If you will bring her before the Committee I will prove that ever}" word that she has told }"ou is a lie. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You wish to go on record as branding as untruthful every one of these girls who have said you swore at the girls and shook them; you wish to' go on record as charging each and every one of them with perjurv? A. I didn’t saj" I branded anyone as a liar; I say they didn’t tell the truth, and that is the mildest tenns that I could use, and anj" of these newspaper reporters who are sitting around here, the}" didn’t tell the truth. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all, Mr. Alexander: thank you. W hereupon, on motion of Senator Tossey, an adjournment was taken. SESSION XXIV. An employer and a labor union representative furnish infor- mation concerning wages and labor conditions in the broom manu- facturing industry as affecting women workers. Sociological stu- dent quotes from his experience and observations as a member of the Chicago Vice Commission, tells something of the facts gath- ered by that body, and endorses the idea of a minimum wage. Operator of many coat and hat checking concessions in well known cafes and hotels answers questions concerning rules gov- erning his girl employes. Testimony of: Mr. E. C. Jones, broom manufacturer. Mr. Willis E. Harvey, business agent. International Broom Makers’ Union. Prof. Graham Taylor, President, Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, member of Chicago Vice Commis- sion and student of social problems. Jacque Rosseau, concessionaire. Chicago, Illinois, May 26, 1913, 10 o’clock A. M. LaSalle Hotel. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, there being present Chair- man O’Hara, Senator Beall and Senator Tossey, and the following pro- ceedings were had : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Committee will come to order. Is Mr. E. C. Jones here? Mr. E. C. Jones’ Testimony. E. C. TONES, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CH.AIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. E. C. Jones. Q. And your business, Mr. Jones? A. Broom manufacturer. Q. What is the name of the company with which you were connected? A. The United States Broom and Brush Company. Q. You are president of that company? A. I am. Q. Is that a corporation? A. Yes, sir. y. Incorporated in Illinois? A. They are. Q. What is the location of your factory? A. Clybourn avenue and Clybourn place. Q. How many women and girls do you employ there? A. We had fifty- three on the pay roll last week. Q. And how many men were on the pay roll last week? A. Seventeen. Q. How long had you been operating that factory? A. About three years ; it will be three years in October. Q. Now, go back a year, Mr. Jones, approximately how many women and men did you employ a year ago? A. M'ell, I should say about ten ner cent less. Q. Ten per cent less women? A. No, ten per cent less employes than we are employing at the present time. Q. The proportion a year ago of men and women is the same as now? A. No, we are w'orking more today than we w'ere working a year ago. Q. I am trying to get at this, Mr. Jones; did you employ more men in 659 660 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee comparison with the number of women a year ago? A. No, we didn’t; we employed less. Q. Then you haven’t discharged your men and filled their places with women? A. We haven’t; we are using more men today than we was a year ago. Q. What was the average wage received by the wmmen last week? A. 1 think it was in the neighborhood of $7.20. Q. What was the lowest rate paid to any girl or woman? A. Five dollars. Q. That was the lowest? A. Yes. Q. Have you ever paid less than $5.00 a week for a full week’s work to any woman or girl? A. We have paid $4.00 for girls under sixteen, that is, for the first week ; for the second week $4.50, and for the third week, $5.00, but we have discontinued using girls under sixteen years of age. Q. At the present time $5.00 is the lowest minimum wage? A. It is, yes. Q. Would it seriously handicap the business if jmu w'ere to establish a minimum wage at $7.50? A. I don’t think it would. Q. You come in competition wdth the products of prison labor? A. We do, yes. Q. What is the effect of prison labor upon free labor? A. Why, it is very demoralizing, so far as prices go. Q. If you were not forced to compete with prison labor, do you think it would be possible for you to pay higher wages to girls employed in your fac- tory? A. I don’t; we have girls there, women, that are making $10.00 to $12,00 a week, but they are competent ; they have been there some time. Q. Now, what was the highest wage paid to any girl or woman in your employ last week? A. I think it was $11.80. Q. What was the nature of this girl’s work? A. She worked at a ma- chine making brooms. Q. What did the men in your employ do? A. They worked on machines at the same class of work. Q. Did they do the same kind of work? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was the highest wage paid to any man working on a machine in your employ last week? A. Fifteen dollars and sixty cents. Q, Wtet was the reason that he received $15.60 while the woman only received $11.80? A. Because he accomplished more work. Q. Do you pay by the piece system? A. Yes, sir, part of them; that class of work we pay by the piece system. Q. That is, the girl that received $11.80 was paid on the piece system? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the man who received $15.60 was paid on the piece system? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was the rate per piece the same? A. Yes, sir. Q. There was no difference? A. No difference whatever. Q. You make no distinction between the price paid to the woman and the price paid to the man? A. No distinction at all; most women work less hours, and that accounts for the smaller wage. Q. Now, of the fifty-three women in your employ last week how many received $5.00 per week? A. There were four. Q. And how many received less than $6.00 a week? A. Y’ell, I should presume there was about twelve. Q. And how many received $7.00, between $7.00 and $6.00? A. The ma- jority of them. Q. The majority of them received between $6.00 and $7.00? A. \es, we have different classes' of labor up there ; it is all foreign, and we have to work them a little different. If we were to work American help, why, they would no doubt earn more money. This class of help is more or less ignorant, Polish and Russian, I would say that most of them are married women. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Has the Labor Onion a witness present? (A man arises back in the audience.) Public Meetings and Testimony 661 CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will you come forward? Just bring a chair up and be sworn. Mr. Willis E. Harvey’s Testimony. WILLIS E. HARVEY, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Willis E. Harvey. Q. What is your business? A. Broom-maker. Q. Where are you employed? A. I am business agent at the present time; I used to work for the Enterprise Broom Company. Q. Business agent of what? A. Local 29, International Broom Makers’ Union. Q. Are you familiar with the United States Broom and Brush Company factory? A. Why, somewhat, yes, sir. I Q. Have you anything to tell this Committee regarding the conditions as you have found them at that factory? A. Why, somewhat, yes, sir. Q. What have you to say regarding the conditions, as you found them there? A. Well, I haven’t been in the factory myself for several years, but when I was there the wages were rather low for the lady end of it. Q. Your obsrvation extends back how far, two years? A. Yes, to the ! inception of the plant. Q. Do you know the conditions there as they exist at the present time? A. No, sir; not at the present time. Q. The Committee, Mr. Harvey, will be glad to get any information that you may have and want to impart. A. Well, of course, our day’s wages is $3.50 a day, and, as I understand it, they work on the piece work ; we pay I 35 cents for certain kind of brooms, and Mr. Jones pays 17 ; that is almost 50 I' per cent in wages. Q. By “we” I understand 3 'ou mean the Union, that is, the Union scale? I A. The Union scale, yes. Q. What proportion of the brooms made in Chicago are made by union t labor? A. Well, 75 per cent. I Q. In your Union have j'ou both men and women workers? A. No. Q. That applies only to the men? A. To the men only. Q. Is there any Union of women broom-makers? A. No, sir. Q. None at all. A. No, sir, none at all. I Q. Have you tried to interest the women in your Union? A. Some, a ;jj few years ago, but not recently. I Q. Then the women labor in this case is used to compete with Union ;| labor? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the women are paid, as a rule, 50 per cent less than the Union ' men are paid for doing the same kind of work? A. , I should judge some of ,! the higher grade brooms that there would not be very much difference in. ! Q. What did you say was the average wage, or what is the minimum wage of the Union broom-makers per week? A. Well, on piece work, I could not answer as to the minimum. Q. What would you call the average wage under the piece system? A. It would be about $19.00. Q. What is the minimum on a salary? A. Three and a half. Q. Three and a half a day? A. Yes, sir; nine hours’ work. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Have you any question that j'ou would like to ask the witness. Senator? EXAMINATION BY SENATOR McLEAN. SENATOR McLEAN : You were employed at one time by Mr, Jones, were you not? A, Yes, sir, 662 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How long ago was that? A. I think that is three and a half years ago, I can’t recall now. Q. In what capacity were you employed at that time? A. Foreman. Q. How long is it since you visited the establishment? A. I haven’t been through the establishment of Mr. Jones. Q. You don’t know anything about the conditions existing there at the present time? A. No, except that I get my information from people that have quit there. Q. Were complaints made to you? A. Yes, sir. Q. By employes that had quit there? A. Yes, sir. Q. This wage paid to Union broom-makers, is that an established wage throughout the state? A. No, it would not be throughout the State, it applies to our local only. Q. As a matter of fact, the Union employs very few women laborers in that class of work, isn’t that true? A. None whatever. Q. None whatever? A. No, sir. Q. So that if the broom-maker, the male broom maker in Mr. Jones’ establishment was making $15.00 a w^eek, you would say that that is a pretty good wage, wouldn’t you, in that class of work, as compared with the Union? A. 1 w'ould not, no. Q. The Union scale for piece work, you think, would average about S19.00? A. It would average about $19.00. Q. Piece work? A. Yes, sir. Q. What proportion of the brooms here are made by piece work? A. All of them so far as I know. SENATOR McLEAN ; That is all. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL; Mr. Jones spoke about prison-made brooms; what proportion are made in prison, if you know? A. That I could not say. Q. Have you no idea? A. I have not much of an idea; I never gave it a thought. Q. In most of our institutions, take for instance, Chester, they used to have a stove foundry, brick factory and bolt works, and all those things. It has all been abolished, and they make nothing except perhaps crushed rock; now' take, for instance, Chester, suppose they were to make brooms there, or at any other institution, would they sell those brooms to the trade any cheaper than these you manufacture? A. Yes, sir. Q. So you see you are up against competition of the worst kind? A. ’’l es, sir. Q. W'hat would you recommend then, would you recommend them to cease manufacturing in institutions of this kind and selling their products on the open market, or the man on the outside cease making them ? A. Cease in the insttiutions the first thing. Q. The thing is to cease manufacturing in such institutions, in my judg- ment ; isn’t that right? A. That is right. The institutions of the City of Chicago, they ship them here from everj'where, and also every institution here of our own ; in lots of cases, they sell brooms at a dollar a dozen cheaper than any other manufacturer. Q. That is what I am trying to get at. A. My position at the present time is calling on all retail stores in Chicago, and of course I see the bills and how they are shipped in, and I find that certain persons sell them lots of times a dollar a dozen less for the same grade. Q. A man goes and buys a broom and he don’t pay any attention whether it is prison-made goods or scab goods or anything else, if he wants it? A. Me try to educate them all to buy our kind. Q. We have in the General Assembly a bill on the minimum wage scale for women. Our business is to look after the women ; what would you think, what would you judge a woman or girl in Chicago could live and live com- Public Meetings and Testimony 663 fortably for and have a little amusement and wear good clothes and enjoy life j' as a human being should enjoy it, what would you think? A. Ten dollars a j week. SENATOR BEALL; Now, Mr. Jones, what do you think about that? I MR. JONES: I don’t think with the class of labor we have got, we could I not pay it ; they don’t earn it. I know that from the wage we are paying and the class of help we have that they are able to live very nicely and wear good clothes and live respectably. SENATOR McLEAN : Mr. Harvey, don’t you know there are many women employed today in the broom manufacturing business in this city? A. I Sorting women. Q. Don’t they run the machines too? A. Not outside of Mr. Jones’ place, i Q. You know as a matter of fact that LMion men have to be experienced :! machine men? A. Yes, they have to serve an apprenticeship of two years. Q. You also know that employes in Mr. Jones’ shop are what would be ■ termed raw girls? A. Yes, sir, but it looks to me like it is taking advantage 1 of a person, because they have just landed in this country and are unable to talk. Q. You think it is a good thing to give people employment, don’t you? A. [ do. Q. You would not say that a manufacturer in Mr. Jones’ position could 1 afford to pay raw workers the same amount that he could afford to pay ex- 1 perienced men and women, do you?. A. No, he could not. ' Q. So, if Mr. Jones pays these new women, these Polish women, much ? less than he would pay the experienced men and women, you would say that i was a good thing, rvouldn’t 3 'ou, in order to give them employment? A. This j is the way : you take a big girl, you pick a girl up and bring her into a broom 1 factory and put her on a broom machine at so much per dozen ; she would do j! well if she tied about a dozen the first day, and 34 or 35 cents, that is what she J would receive for that day’s work, but she would still put in her entire time, f That is pretty hard work; that will break a woman down in three or four I years. ■ SENATOR BEALL; Do you mean running a machine will break a woman I down? A. Yes, and it will break me down, too. j CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Are those heavy machines? A. Brooms are not i so heavy ; the^^ are handled by power, but you put a woman making those heavy t brooms, weighing from thirty to sometimes fifty-five pounds to the dozen, that’s ' about all that I can do ; that used to keep me guessing. CHAIRMAN O’HARA ; As I understand it then, Mr. Harvey, your con- ! tention is this : that the employment of women to run these machines in in com- i petitition with the men, and that the w’omen are paid less than the men? A. Yes. ; SENATOR McLEAN ; I would like to ask Mr. Jones wdiat percentage of the women in the shop are now working on machines? ' MR. JONES: Not to exceed 10 per cent Q. Ten per cent of the women? A. Yes, sir. A. And the women that are running the machines are big, strong women, are they? A. They are women that are accustomed to farm work. j Q. Where do you obtain these women that work in your shop, how' do ] you get them? A. They come there and apply for work. Q. Are they women that at one part of the season work out in the fields? A. At times. Q. What fields are they employed in? A. Truck gardens. SENATOR .McLEAN ; Mr. Harvey, I would like to get straightened out I on this machine proposition. I have seen a good many machines operated and I I want to ask you what hard work these is about running a machine. There is no heavy lifting or anything of that sort, is there? 1 MR. HARVEY : Well, it is a pretty heavy drag all day. j SENATOR McLEAN ; They stand behind the machine and run the broom 664 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee through as the sewer sews the broom? A. No, you have got the wrong idea there. Q. What? A. You have got the wrong idea there; this machine revolves around and ties the broom on the handle. Q. There is nothing for the operator to lift other tlran the broom, is there? A. Well, you lift about, oh, say, seven or eight dozen forty-five or fifty-pound brooms, and believe me, you have done a day’s work. Q. Brooms don’t weigh forty-five or fifty pounds apiece, do they? A. No, a dozen. Q. They don’t handle a dozen at all? A. No, they handle them singly. Q. That is all they have to do? A. There is a strain on the back in doing it. Q. In putting a broom in and taking it out? A. No, just wiring. You understand how it is tied? Take what corn you kave and you run it onto the handle, and that is a strain to move that corn even in a certain place, and then you take some more, that’s another strain. SENATOR McLEAN : I would like to ask Mr. Jones if any women in his shop make those forty or fifty-pound brooms? MR. JONES; They don’t. Q. That is left for the men, is it? A. Yes. Prof. Graham Taylor’s Testimony. GRAHAM TAYLOR, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. Graham Taylor. Q. And your occupation? A. Teacher. Q. At what institution? A. I am president of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. Q. Are you connected with an}- Chicago institution other than that? A. Yes, I have been resident warden for nineteen years in the tenement district. Q. How many years have you given to the study of social problems? A. Well, I am just rounding out my twenty-one years in Chicago; I had about twelve and a half years’ experience in Bradford, Conn., in the down-town dis- trict somewhat similar to the one that I now live in. Q. You had some connection, Professor, with the Vice Commission in Chicago? A. Yes, I was a member of the Vice Commission. Q. And you were active in the vice investigation? A. Yes, I was. Q. What other investigations, if an}-, have you been interested in? A. Well, I have had occasion to look into the reasons for immorality of quite a large number of young girls in families whose troubles had been brought to my attention and also to try to check the exploitation of young girls and women by men and women who were engaged in the professional business of vice, and I have been behind the prosecutions of a number of such people, although I have not always appeared in public, because it was not necessary. Q. Have you found. Professor, that there is either a direct or an indirect connection between low wages and vice? A. W’ell, there is both; both direct and indirect. Q. And for the information of this Committee, Professor, would you mind making a statement covering your experience and observations along the line of this inquiry? A. I would be very glad to. I wish to preface that state- ment by the assurance that I have no theory to defend, or no self-defense to make. Q. You are not on trial. Professor; you are merely here as a witness. A. I have published some things over my own name for which I will stand, and I have subscribed to other things, as for instance, the Vice Commission report of the City of Chicago, for which I will also stand ; but the statement that I will make will deal only \\-ith such ascertained facts as seem to be authenticated or sufficiently attested to be worthy of credence. And with the methods of getting at those facts and readily interpreting them, I have learned that the evidence so-called or the accounts of those given by the girls and women whom I have personally questioned in and outside of the \ ice Commission, or of the Public Meetings and Testimony 665 madams of these houses with whom I have frequently conferred, need verifi- cation, and are extremely uncertain. I also find that you must extend your inquiry far more widely than at first seems to be necessary, as the comparatively simple and conclusive statements that are first given you require other state- ments and facts and figures to readily interpret them. Now, I shall be glad to be interrupted and be of all the service to the Committee that I can. In the first place, 1 want to give you the basis of my opinions. I had most to do in the Vice Commission, with the gathering and presentation of the facts con- tained in the chapter, four on the sources of the supply of victims of the vice. In the course of that investigation, which lasted over a year, and in which I was almost continuously interested, as a volunteer, of course, I heard the story of no less than twenty-four hundred and twenty women and girls implicated more or less in this social evil, who passed under my review. Of those twenty- four hundred and twenty women and girls, five were found in amusement parks under private management ; that is, the five that were inquired of ; forty were found in dance-halls ; forty-nine were found in saloons and on the streets ; fif- teen were found in flats and assignation hotels; nineteen were found in houses of prostitution, and thirty were found in houses of prostitution of the more expensive type; fifty-one were delinquent girls investigated by the Juvenile Protective Association ; a hundred and seventy-nine were girls whose careers both before and after their trouble were studied intensively for a period of nearly two years b}' the department of social investigation of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, the report of which was made to the Russell Sage Foundation, and in addition to those one hundred and seventy-nine, we looked at the records of twenty-two hundred and forty-one cases recorded on the books of the State Reform School for Girls, the State School for Girls ; cases committed to the custody of that school from Cook County. Of course you will understand that the names of these parties were suppressed, and in most of the cases were absolutely unknown to me or any other of the inquirers, and there is absolutely no truth to the name, except the key to the Vice Commission report, which we cannot surrender, because we got this testimony or evidence, these life stories under the seal of confidence, and it would be the most outrageous breach of confidence to surrender that key. Now, I should like to state the reference made to economic causes by these various groups, for instance, the thirty inmates of the more high-priced open houses of prostitution in the former red-light district of the south side. Of the thirty of those young women, eleven on their own account referred to their wages, eleven out of the thirty; of the forty that were interviewed in dance-halls, eight referred to their eco- nomic conditions; of the forty-nine who were found on the streets, thirteen alluded to their wages. The other reasons that were given were very many, and they will be referred to later. Now, I have just received from New York the first report on the Rockefeller investigation ; it came from the publisher only on Fridaj'. “The Power of Social Hidden Commercialized Prostitution in New' York City,” the first of four volumes published by the Century Company. This report is written by two persons ; George J. Kneeland, who was an investi- gator for the Chicago Vice Commission, and in whose judgment I have the ut- most confidence after having worked with him for a year and a half, and Cath- erine Bement Davis, the superintendent of the Bedford Reformatory for Girls, a woman in New York City, than whom there is no more capable person at the head of any reformatory for girls or women in the United States or anywhere else, so far as I know, and these two reports in this volume, are as carefully, cau- tiously and fearlessly and frankly presented and interpreted as any of my experi- ence with statistics that I have ever seen. It is an absolutely square piece of sta- tistical work, and it is very interesting to compare or to contrast their conclusions on the economic aspects of these women’s cases with those that we have arrived at here in Chicago. There were eleven hundred and six cases reported in New York; one hundred and thirty-nine of the eleven hundred and six, one hundred and thirty-nine only referred to their economic conditions. That is, twelve per cent of the eleven hundred and six. Now, they would naturally put the most favorable explanation of their entrance into a life of- immorality, and one of the most natural explanations would be their economic necessities, and yet only a hundred and thirty-nine out of the eleven hundred and six even alluded to their economic necessities or their wages. Now, of these eleven hundred and six, two hundred and seventy-nine w'ere the cases of the Bedford Reformatory girls studied verj' deliberately by personal interviews and all sorts of records by Catherine Bement Davis. These two hundred and seventy-nine girls, or 666 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee young women, gave six hundred and seventy-one reasons for being what they were; of the two hundred and seventy-nine girls accounting for their im- moralit}', or for their being victimized by the immoralities of others, nineteen only' alluded to their economic condition or their wages ; nineteen out of two hundred and seventy-nine. Five of them said that they could not support them- selves ; one said that she could not support herself and her children ; thirteen said that they' could not find work. Now, in looking over the report, I found five more that probably ought to be added to those nineteen, because they said the poverty of the family drove them or led them into trouble. That would make at most twenty-four out of two hundred and seventy-nine, who, in account- ing for their conditions, referred to wages or economic reasons. Xow, the bal- ance of the eleven hundred and six, about nine hundred or so were found on the streets, of those, two hundred and thirty'-six gave economic reasons out of about nine hundred. Sixty-seven said that they could not support themselves; thirty-seven said that they could not support themselves and children, and sixty- said that they could not find work. It is rather interesting, too, to go beyond this and see when or how these girls account for their first immoral experience. 1 hirty'-eight per cent of them said it was because of misplaced affection; twenty per cent of them said that it had something to do with economic conditions; twenty-two per cent of them said that force was used. That is rather illuminat- ing. It is a very authentic study of statistics. Xow, gentlemen, I will call your attention to the fact that while at most, twenty-four of the two hundred and seventy-nine of these Bedford Reformatory girls refer to their economic condition, three hundred and six of them referred to bad family conditions; fifteen of them to immoral or bad parents; thirty-nine to incompatibility of their homes, a hundred and sixty-six had no father or mother, or neither ; ten suffered, they said, on account of themselves from overindulgence; thirty-five from too strict home discipline, six were turned out of doors. Of these two hundred and seventy-nine, twenty-nine per cent were subnormal; there was something wrong about them; they weren’t whole; they* were defective; some of them were actually insane. Some were feeble-minded, others had retarded development, some being of twenty years of age who had. not the development of eleven, sometimes not the development of a child of eight, and that accords with my experience that a very large percentage of the women found in pro- fessional prostitution are below the normal, in other words are subnormal, and they have been taken advantage of. It is not because, in the first instance, they were so bad, but because they were weak, and some person stronger than they, physically or mentally, overpowered them and they fell by their own inherent weakness. Fifty-five of these two hundred and seventy-nine were supposed to be where they were from marital infelicity; two hundred and ninety-one gave entirely personal reasons; seventy-five of them said it -was due to bad company; forty-eight to their seeking pleasure ; thirty-eight money had something to do with it; seventeen of tlie thirty-eight, I mention seventeen additional, said it was “easy money” they wanted, twenty hated work ; thirteen attributed it directly to public dances ; and ten to no sex instruction. Miss Davis summed up- thus; “Granted, that the data on the wage relation to vice are reliable, there would seem to be no indication of real economic pressure, as the reason for entering an immoral life.” That is, iMiss Davis comes in and states it a little more strongly than I would state it myself. X'ow, of the women that are considered, Kneeland finds that a hundred and sixtv-eight of them attributed their downfall to family infelicities; a hundred and fifteen to marital infeli- cities; four hundred and ninety-two to personal, purely personal reasons. I think that the Kneeland statistics corroborate the Chicago statistics very re- markablv, although the Chicago statistics put up the economic reasons a grade or two higher than the Xew York statistics, as given by Kneeland. I rated the occasions for accounting for the immorality of the women and girls that I myself accounted for, that I myself questioned about in this order: First, the failure of family life, parental failure; secondly, the exploitation of the innocent instinct for amusement, the absolute decoy and trap on the part of some of these privately owned recreation parks and especially the dance halls with bar permits, which are absolutely the tap root, and, in my judg- ment, next to the faulty family life the cause of the downfall of most girls. All yOTi have to do is to do what we do — go around and sit in dance halls on Saturday night from 1 o’clock to 3 in the morning, and if it would not bring any man of conscience or common decency to his senses on the question of bar permits and dance halls, then I don’t know what I am talking about. Public Meetings and Testimony 667 It is simply infamous. All the saloons are closed at 1 o'clock and then all the drinkers are turned out to continue their drinking until 3 o’clock in the dance halls, to come in contact with unsuspecting girls, and taking them home. It is a perfect outrage, 1 say, from one end of the city to the other, and this Committee could hot do a greater public service than to lay the axe right at the root. SENATOR BEALL: Let me ask you a question: I have been around considerable in Chicago, and 1 agree very much with some of the things you say; would you recommend the abolishment of these saloons and wine rooms connected with these dance houses? A. 1 recommend that the , Committee should advise the abolition of bar permits for public dances, and 1 would recommend the establishment of municipal dance halls under strict supervision. I have j'et to see any of these abuses come from the dance halls in the recreation centers under the Park Commission managements of Chicago. That is one of the best investments we ever made in the city. Now, I have only another thing or two to say: I call attention to the order of the causes of, or the occasions for the downfall of girls stated by the City Council Committee, which is another verification of the positions we have taken here. The source the Council Committee found back of com- mercialized vice and partly accounting for it was not caused by poverty, though with this I thoroughly agree that sometimes poverty strikes a hard blow at all decencies where sanitary or proper social provisions do not exist in the tenement houses. The overcrowding of tenement houses and the taking of men boarders by poor tenement families, especially among the foreign people, is the cause of no end of tragedy and injustice. Of course, i there the wage comes in, but it is the wage of the parents and not always the wage of the girls. A great deal more ought to be made, if you are .going . ; to run the thing so largely in the direction of the economic wage, it ought r to be the wage of the farni^^ and not only the wage of the supposed victim I or person who may be victimized. Lack of home care and parental training, ' hasty marriages, public dance halls, amusements, bad literature, bad pic- : tures, songs — these infernal songs that they have in these dance halls, open I' houses of ill-fame as the market of vice and as a source of remuneration to •j the procurer, young girls thrown prematurely into the working world. I SENATOR TOSSEY : As I understand you. Professor, you put the ii sale of liquor at these dance halls as one of the principal causes? A. Yes, 1 ' it is, and bar permits. ij Q. And bar permits? A. Yes, sir, at public dances. :{ C. Who is behind these bar permits? A. Well, sometimes it is the r. owner of the hall and sometimes it is the club that rents the hall, and when a complaint is made to the city authorities they say, “Why, this is a repu- (ii table club, and they have the same right there that they would have in their ?![ private homes,”^ but if you inquire into the reputation of the club you will 1 find some mighty disreputable clubs applying for permits under the guise of aid societies; every last one of them is an aid society when they want a ■1 bar permit for a dance; to aid themselves, that is all the aid there is to it. j Q. Do they ever have to furnish any bond or financial backing, or ;; anything of that kind? A. No, and in some dance halls the proprietors ■ are decent enou.gh. I know of one in my neighborhood who simply cannot stay up all night himself, and if he goes home, things go wrong, and I have known him in the last three years to hire a man at $5.00 a night to keep order and have drunken men put out, and drunken men applyin.g for adrais- ' sion forbidden to enter. By the way, at 1 o’clock, I forgot to say, the admis- sion is taken off, just when it ought to be kept on. Then you can come in free and go on drinking to 3 o’clock. ! Q. There is some evidence before this Committee that showed that the ; breweries rented out these houses of ill-fame or sub-leased them to madams. i| A. I have no evidence on that, and I don’t know. j' Q. You don’t know about that? A. I don’t know, but I know that Ij breweries in most localities take leases for the saloons. I have run up ■ against that trying to get bad saloons out with the help of better saloon- I keepers, and I had no means of classifying the saloonkeepers in with the 1 brewers, and I have found out that many saloonkeepers protest against the 1 way in which other saloons are run. On the other hand, the brewers’ hand- 668 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee book and the brewers’ congress that was held here in the city in a most determined way denounced the brewers’ connection with them and any brewers who did have connection with them, but that was simply the action of their congress, and their very able reports, the hand-book reports, that they get out every year, the brewers’ hand-book, is a remarkable pro- duction. SENATOR BEALL: Have they established a one-for-all rule? A. Yes, but I don’t think that they can control their own constituents. SENATOR TOSSEY: There are many who are against local option down in the State. They attribute the owning by the brewers'of a large number of saloons and putting irresponsible men in charge of those saloons at high prices and running what might be called “doggeries” — A. Yes, I have had experience with one or two such cases, but not enough to pass any judgment on it. SENATOR TOSSEY: It might be the cause of this local option wave that has been sweeping over the State? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR BEALL: Professor, there is one thing we have before us, and it is a very serious question, and that is the bill that is before the General Assembly which comes up, I think, on \\'ednesday. A. Do you mean the Minimum Wage Bill? SENATOR BEALL: Yes. A. I am glad that I can speak on that subject. SENATOR BEALL: Now, what do you think a girl can live on and pay her board and dress decently and get along in this world with; what amount do you think would be fair now? A. Now, I rather anticipated that question, and I think that before you can answer that question suc- cessfully you have got to make inquiries along some such lines as this: You have got to ask the age of the girl; her school training; her mental development; her parental background; her occupation; her hours of work; whether she is an apprentice or a regular employe; what is the source of her support if she is an apprentice or is not when she is unemnloyed; whether she is living at home or contributing to the support of the family, and what use is made of her wages: whether she is to give them all to her mother and father, for the support of the younger children; whether she has had any previous deprivations, necessary to make her more or less of a spendthrift; what the sex standards of her associates are; what kind of recreation she enjoys and are open to her, and if she has fallen into vice what she spends the money that she earns for, whether for necessities or luxuries, or to help her family, or to buy finery. Now, I think all those things have to be gone into before you can answer that question successfully. SENATOR BEALL: The point is this: this bill calls for, and there will be a commission formed of three, and the^- will fix that part of it; the bill now calls for $7.50 a week. Of course, it provides for an apprentice- ship and will probably start girls off with, say, six months at a certain wage, but after they had been there a certain time the minimum should he $7.50, or whatever the bill calls for. A. Whether the girl lives at home or not? Q. I think a girl living at home ought to have just as much as the girl who don’t live at home. A. I mean during her apprenticeship. Q. Yes, or at any time, so far as that is concerned. A. Of course, you can’t expect an emploj^er to give as much to a girl that lives at home. Q. She starts off with a sliding scale and she works up during her apprenticeship of, say, six months, or something like that, until she re- ceives the minimum wage of $7.50. Now, a girl living at home is worth just as much to the employer as if she had to pay her board; she is giving value received, and what we are trying to get at is the minimum scale; now, what do you think a girl can live on and live comfortably, no extras, dress comfortably, go to a show once in a while and have amusements, a nice,, clean girl — what do you think would be a fair rate to start her in at? The amount up to the minimum wage amount is liable to be changed at any time by this Commission; this Commission will have the power and will have the right to go into factories and talk to the people, and talk to Public Meetings and Testimony 669 the proprietors like some of your good people in Chicago have done. We have had lots of girls that have had their wages increased gradually, and they are very thankful for it, but you know that a girl cannot live on $3.50 to $5.00 a week in Chicago, can she? A. No. Q. She can’t do it? A. No. Q. Let us go a little further on that subject: if a girl is working for I $3.50 to $5.00 a week — a lone girl, isn’t that girl more liable to go astray 1 than she would be if she were getting $8.00 or $10.00 a week? Let me illustrate that. Professor; I met a young girl out here at a dance hall. I was out several nights among them, and she told me her story of how she fell and how it came about. She was working for $4.50 a week and paid $3.75 every week for board. She had to pay 5 cents carfare at morn- ing and at night; she lived out about seven miles, and she told me she had 15 cents left at the end of the week. She told me the whole story. I said, “My girl, had you been receiving $10.00 a week instead of $3.50 to $5.00, would you have been all right?’’ She said, “I would, most assuredly, but what could I do? My clothes were getting threadbare; I only had one shirtwaist, and I had to iron it out at night, and when that was gone what ■ could I do?’’ Now, if that girl had been getting $8.00 or $10.00 a week, do • you think that that girl would have been as liable to fall as a girl getting from $3.50 to $5.00? Let us come right down to horse sense and mother wit; do you think that a girl working for $3.50 to $4.50 or $5.00 a week is as liable to go astray as the girl that is getting $8.00 to $10.00 a week and having all the necessities of life; isn’t she more liable? A. That depends [ upon the girl. ' Q. Here is the question: it is a question of starvation, or suicide, or prostitution, or slavery; now what are they going to do? A. I don’t think you have exhausted the categories yet. Q. I am asking you the question, and we want your opinion; you are . better posted than I am, so far as that is concerned. A. Let me tell you, I have known a girl, for instance, to have a job offered her in a place !; where they had a boarder; she didn’t have any shoes to wear to go to take the job. She was bitterly disappointed — was crying. The boarder came up and asked what she was crying about, and she told him. He said, “I will fix that.” She sold herself, poor child, for a pair of shoes. Q. That is exactly it, she hadn’t money to buy the shoes? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is what I want to get at. A. But now, that is a question that is very rare; on the other hand, I could parallel that case by very many of hungry girls who resisted the temptation; of others who sold i| themselves for a new hat that they didn’t need at all, or a one night’s if dinner, or an entertainment at a small, cheap show, or something of that s sort. ; Q. You are correct on that. A. Yes, and it is not always a serious j economic pressure that induces her to do that, not by a great deal, but, of course, no person can support themselves decently at all with anything but the very barest of the necessities of life on $3.00 to $5.00 a week in any ' place like Chicago. Q. That is what I am trying to get at. A. While you are talking about the minimum w-age, I would like to give you a little experience that I had in England. I was over in England about two years ago, just when they were starting up and putting into effect the Parliamentary law of ■ ; the minimum wage. Of course, they had the enormous advantage of I legislating for all the country, and we are payim? a mighty big price for , our state governments; we are disturbing the balance of economic com- j petition and putting some people very much at a disadvantage with other j people not five miles away from them. Of course, I met that in the be- f ginning in investigating the Commission, where we were trying to make all mines of Illinois safe from fire after the Cherry Mine disaster. In [West Virginia they have not done anything, and that is the way it goes ■ along. A lot of employers, who would not otherwise object if the thing 1 went from one end of the continent to the other, then they would be all j even, but they did not want the economic balance of competition upset, so ' they all objected and discharged all men who were skinning their labor. 670 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR BEALL: I was over there four months; were you at Budapest? A. No, I didn’t get to go to Budapest. I went to London with the trade boards. They passed this law that there should be a mini- mum wage, and put it in the hands of the trade boards to see employers and the employes in each trade by itself, and they started on four trades. I was over in July, and what I am afraid of is, gentlemen, that anj- kind of omnibus legislation will fail at tbe end. 1 am very favorable to a mini- mum wage, 1 want it, but I want it so it will stay after we get it. I was with the Trade Board men when they were doing this. They took up first the chainmakers, mostly women, who were hammering out the links of chains. I never knew that they were in the industry. Then the3' took the wholesale clothing, the lacemaking and the paper box making, and they got these representative emploj-ers and the representative employes to- gether and said, “Now, the government wants you to arrive at some de- cision as to what the minimum wage in this trade should be.” And when they got at that, I understand it was with the understanding that the government trade boards could lower it or raise it, but they did not do anything without a consultation between the two parties most involved. Q. This bill at Springfield calls for a commission of three to consult with the manufacturers, say, for instance, the box factories; this commis- sion has the right to go there and consult with the manufacturers and employes. A. That might be well while you are on the question of paper box manufacturing. Q. Don’t you think that if the Governor would select good men we could arrive at some minimum wage scale which would be acceptable to the people? A. Now, do you mean one that would prevail over all trades, irrespective of the cost of living in different parts of the State? Q. No, I expected to come to that, but take in the southern part of the State the cost of living there is different from what it is here. A. There is quite a difference. Now, I have had this experience: the window washers and people down in the loop district wanted a raise of wages, or in the janitor service; I am not sure whether it was window washers or not, and they based it on the cost of living. The managers came over to us and wanted to know what it cost to live, saj-ing that the3' didn’t believe what had been stated to them, and we went around and got statistics which showed that the wages had not anywhere kept pace in proportion to the cost of living. Now, I think in arriving at a minimum wage we ought to take all that into consideration and find out the relation of the wage to the cost of living, then you will have it on a scientific basis. Q. If this bill passes and the Commission is appointed, all good men, men wdio would be competent to go over the matter of the minimum wa.ge scale and ascertain also the different costs of living, don’t 3'ou think it would be better than to have conditions as they are at the present time? A. They would have to be might3^ well informed men, appointed on some other basis than that of political creed, Q. It would be up to the Governor to see to that. .-k. Well, let me make one other statement. I had been ver3- much afraid of the identification of this minimum wage movement — and I want the Lieutenant Governor to hear this — 1 had been ver3' much afraid to class the identification of this movement for a minimum wage, with \ice commissions, on two grounds. In the first place, I think that the public hearings, if 3'Ou will pardon me for saying so, in which so man3- girls had been brought in to testif3' as to their wages,_ and all that, has been an injustice to them, and on that ground 1 have criticised the method of the Committee, On the other hand, I think that the minimum wage problem is such a complicated affair, that it ought not to be tied up with the comparatively small proportion of cases in which the vices of immoralit}' are involved. Now, if x'ou can somehow or other, in your report, gentlemen, to the Senate, when it .gets out over the Slate, base 3mur arguments for a minimum wage scale on, not onlv on this evidence that 3'OU have been .getting, which of course I allow, has a kind of educational value, but if you could get some broad sweep of argument such as the message of Parliament had and put it up to the Legislature, it would carp- through the state and through the other states. 1 have a good deal to do with journalism, and I read a great manr- papers, and this Committee has been ver3‘ severely criticised all over bv professors of political economc', and by men of public Public Meetings and Testimony 671 affairs, and by those who are very insistent upon a minimum wage scale law that that identification is damaging the movement. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Isn’t it a fact, Professor, that not every, hut nearly every professor of political economy, every newspaper and publica- tion that has criticised this Committee is receiving part of his or her income from big business concerns that are underpaying these girls? A. I would not like to say, but that is not the reason they said it, for some of these men are quite as free and independent as any member of this Committee could be. Q. Yes? A. Let me call your attention to one other thing: I have by correspondence with selected individuals, for instance, Catherine Bement Davis, she is a public official in the Bedford Reformatory, and people who are entirely independent, I have had by correspondence and inquiry, I have asked them for their opinion as to the direct relation between w'ages and vice. Now, in the order of their accounting for the w'omen and girls falling into vice, this is the order from this correspondence of mine, and I think that they were the best informed people, as I would not write to a person that I thought was going to lie to me, but here is the way they put it ; sub-normal, weak-minded, individual temperamental conditions, immoral associates, cramped quarters at home. When you were out I made quite an emphasis on the wage question of the parent, not only of the girl but of tbe parent. No employment, seeking for pleasure, love for finery, inexperience, ignorance of sex relationship, with the economic influ- ences more or less working all along through them, but not a definite, specific single one. It is too complicated a thing. You have got to see wdiat a mixed, complicated situation it is. SENATOR BEALL; We have got way off of our subject, altogether; I asked you a question to start with, about girls working for three and a half or four dollars a w'eek. A. Yes. Q. Now" then, do you think that a girl, as I said before, do you think that a girl can live on that? A. No, on any decent standard of life, she cannot. Q. What would you recommend nowq you have been investigating these mat- ters, tell us what to do. A. I am not a high-brow ; I am a low-brow. Q. You criticised us and you don’t know what this Committee had been through the last four months. I am sixty-five years of age and I have traveled all over this world, but I have learned more in the last four months than I did all of my life before; my whole sphere is changed. Now, tell us what to do. We say that a girl cannot live on three and a half to five dollars a week and live right. Tell us what to do; you will get up and preach about it, but let us get down to brass tacks; what would you do? A. I have been trying to solve that problem myself. Q. Let us put ourselves in the other fellow’s place. A. I have been trying to do that all of my life; in the first place, there is no “Humphrey’s Specific.” Q. No, we can't adopt one remedy for everything. A. There is no one remedy for such a complication as this; the whole situation is involved. I can’t answer yes or no to such a question without making a fool of myself. Q. No, we can all do that, but can you give us any recommendation ; you have been in this business for a good man}- years? A. I would have to say that a good many things were to be done in the first place to answer what you want me to answer. First, 1 w-ould say that a well considered maximum w'age law', somewhat on the lines of what the English law has been arrived at, would be essential. Q. That is what I have been trying to get out of 3-011 for half an hour; now 3-0U come down to it. A. I am not through yet. Q. Well, go ahead and give us the balance of it now and don’t qualif}'. A. No, I am not going to qualify it. Q. Well, go ahead then. A. I would say in addition to that I would have vocational guidance or vocational training all down to the kindergarten in the public school. Q. That is all right. Now let us talk about the matter further. A. I would have sex training of the parents. I w'ould also have it very carefully given to children, if possible, by parents, if not by somebody who would do it better, in sex hygiene. Man\- of these little girls fall before they know what it is to stand, and they don’t know the consequences of their acts. 672 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What would you think of a man who brings girls from Milwaukee and Des Moines, Iowa, and Montreal, Canada, brings them here and sells them, you know what I mean by that, you have heard of it? A. Heard of it! Heard of it ! I should say I have. Q. All with the promise of good wages, they come here and they don’t get it? A. Yes. Q. You and I agree on all those subjects, and I agree with you on all that you have said ; you are a man who is well posted, but it all comes right down to the start, to what we started to say first, if we had a good minimum wage law for girls, under a good commission, good, reliable men, do you not think as well as I do that it would be a good thing? A. It would be a good thing, but it does not all come down to that. Q. It is a good start? A. Yes, it is a good start. Q. This Committee lasts two years, and we have two years to work on. I don’t know who the Governor will appoint, but I assure you that the Governor will select good men, men that have had experience like you Irave had, and you might be one of them. A. I have no desire in that direction ; I have troubles now of my own at present. I would like to saj’ just another thing, I feel that the Minimum Wage Bill, not the minimum wage movement, needs backing up by educational training. Now, I find that most of these boys, as well as girls, and it is a man’s question as well — there is at least fifteen men every twenty- four hours to one woman, at least, and in New York they said ten, and it is between ten and fifteen, and I am more intensely interested on the man’s side than I am on the woman’s side. It is a man’s vice, and the woman is used; that is all there is to it. Q. You take a poor girl coming to Chicago with no friends and ever\'body is trying to catch her. A. Yes, sir, sure. Now, I think that the school age should be raised and that we should have educational training, not at the expense of general discipline and culture, but educational guidance and training all the way along. Here is a little girl, possibly of foreign parentage, and the day she is fourteen years old — y-ou have lived, possibly, in a tenement house region as I have all of my manhood — and what happens to that poor little thing? 'That household is open for the panderer to work. She has to stop in the middle of the week, if she is fourteen years old, and go out and find a job. The child does not know where to find a job. “Girl wanted.’’ Probably she gets into sorne of these employment agencies. While we were investigating, and were in this Commission, the Vice Commission, we sent women detectives around to employ- ment agencies and said to them, “Can you furnish us any girls to sporting houses?” We had no difficulty at all. They put down the name and the locations of these employment agents that at once said they would do the same. That child goes around, wanders up and down the street, and her rnother in some cases don’t even know where she is employed. If she is an immigrant, that has just come in, she can’t speak the English language, and I warrant you that if there was a big fire and several hundreds of those girls were burned up, why, a certain proportion of the families of those girls would not kmow that they were in that building. There is no guidance for that poor little child just at the time when they most need it, so I say to select it all and put it down on the wage question, is really not fair. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Now, I want to ask you just a few questions. A. All right. Q. You were connected with the Chicago Vice Commission? A. I was. Q. In the report given by the Chicago \'ice Commission is any reference made to the matter of wages? A. Sure, there is; I made it myself. Q. That makes a connection between low wages and vice? A. A con- nection, yes. Q. And that report was written after investigation? A. Yes, sir; why, yes. Q. That was written after an investigation? A. Why, of course it was. Q. And in that investigation you found that low wages has something Public Meetings and Testimony 673 to do with immorality? A. I reported the proportions all the way through. Q. How much, if you are familiar with the figures, did it cost the Chicago Vice Commission to conduct its investigations? A. I think the printing of it cost about not less than fifteen thousand dollars. We were at it about a year and a half. Q. Did that include everything, fifteen thousand dollars — printing and everything? A. I didn’t have anything to do with that part of it; I think the City Council made two appropriations of five thousand dollars each, and I think we got one. I think that something like five thousand dollars in money was given us from the outside. Q. Who was the chief contributor of that money given from the outside? A. I don’t remember; I never heard anything about it. Q. Did you ever hear? A. Why, I don’t know whether it was given in one sum or several. I have heard of some who gave to it. Q. Who are some who gave to it, according to your recollection? A. I think Mr. Rosenwald gave some; I had nothing to do with the finances at all, and it is so long ago that I can’t remember. I would tell you if I knew, frankly. ’ Q. When you wrote the paragraph in the report on low wages, did you first write another report on the matter of wages? A. No, everything I wrote is in there. Q. Do 3mu know of any other report connecting low wages and im- morality that was written and submitted to the Committee, except that which went into the book? A. Here is the way we proceeded: Sub- committees were formed, on some of which I served. The sub-committee made its investigation — I am speaking of the one I was on — and we pre- sented a preliminary report at very considerable length. The entire commission, when we were ready to report, sat for hours and hours and hours, whole evenings at a time, listening to those reports. Then those reports were put back into the hands of a committee on the entire report, so as to prevent overlapping and to make it short, condense it sufficiently to make it a readable volume, and in that way they were condensed and laid out and put in line with each other so that there would be no repe- tition, and there was absoluteh^ no blinking at facts, and if there had been I would have been the first to cry out against it. I had no axe to grind there; I stood straight up on two feet for the things that I be- lieved in, and I watched very closely, and I think I attended about every session of the commission, and I know of no manipulation of figures or reports of any kind that would change the opinion of the committee, or any attempt to change it; the committee would not have stood for it. Q. That report, as published, has a key? A. Yes, I have referred to it. Q. You have that key? A. No, I haven’t. Q. Have you a copy of the key? A. No, none of us have. Q. Why was the key not made public? A. As I stated before, it was because we got a great deal of this evidence on the assurance of confidence. I personally interrogated, as I told these gentlemen when you were out, scores of these women. I said, “Now, your name will never be mentioned in this thing.” And some of those even in the sporting life, a great many of them, have been in the sporting life for most of their womanhood, and those women were just as urgent that their names should not be mentioned as those were who had recently entered, and I would consider it the most outrageous breach of confidence and trust if anything were given out to lead to the identification of the persons that committed their confidence to me. It is not fair, moreover, what could have been proved then and what was true could not be proved about locations, owners of property, madams, inmates and patrons of the eighteen different groups of merchants and all who were preying like wolves on these poor creatures. We could have proved it then but you could not prove it six weeks after with all your witnesses scattered, and we would all of us have been liable to be sent up for libel, and the most of us wanted to keep out of jail. 674 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee SENATOR BEALL: There is one or two things that you agree with us on; you agree with us that it is poor practice to allow liquor in these dance halls where girls will drink? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you agree that a minimum wage law is a good thing? A. Yes, surely. SENATOR BEALL: That is all I want. Professor. PROF. TAYLOR: I wish to absolutely disavow the opinion that has been attributed to me, I think, twice within two days, in the public press, that I have ever said or thought that wages have no connection with the victims of vice; I never said it and never thought it. Q. You never said that? A. It has been stated in connection with my being subpoenaed. Q. You never did say that? A. I never said it and never thought it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You are in sympathy with the w’ork done by this Committee, are you, Professor? A. I am in sympathq with two public steps you have in mind; one is to get a well considered minimum wage law in the state of Illinois, and second is to stop the source of supply of victims of this vice. Q. Yes? A. But I have criticised, gentlemen, in public, and I will stand by the criticism that some of the methods employed by the Com- mittee, I think they might have been errors in judgment; I think they were mistakes, and I think, nevertheless, notwithstanding the mistakes, that the work of the Committee has called very wide attention to condi- tions among people who probably would not have paid attention to any- thing or anybody else and that notwithstanding some harm that has been done by it. I think that a very great deal of good has come out of it. Jacque Rosseau’s Testimony. JACQUE ROSSEAU, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Jacque Rosseau. Q. What is your business, Mr. Rosseau? A. I am engaged in the manufacture of the safety towel device, operate a laundry of my own in connection, and also operate some concessions in various hotels, res- taurants and so forth. Q. What are the nature of those concessions? A. Well, checking wraps. Q. At what hotels and restaurants do j'ou operate? A. The most prominent places in town. Q. Will you please name your places? A. Well, if you insist; such as the Bismarck and Dejonghes, the Palmer House and the Sherman House. Q. And others? A. Yes, the Kaiserhof here in Chicago. Q. Do you operate as an individual, a company or a corporation? A. As an individual; the towel company is a corporation of the State of Illinois. Q. But the concession business is your individual business? A. ^ly individual business. Q. How many girls and women do you employ in this hotel con- cession business? A. Fourteen. Q. Only fourteen in all? A. Only fourteen. Q. How are they placed; for instance, at the Sherman House how many have you? A. Two. Q. Two girls? A. Yes, sir, and the Bismarck two, and the Dejonghe one, and one at the Kaiserhof. Q. Where else do you employ? A. One at the Palmer House and two at the Edelweiss, and that is about all. Q. That only covers eight? A. There is two maids in the Sherman House and one at Dejonghe. Q. What do those girls do? A. They receive and give out wraps. Public Meetings and Testimony 675 'j Q. Are they paid anything for their services? A. Yes, sir. I Q. How are they paid? A. They are paid more than those in any :i factory is paid; we pay eight, nine and ten dollars and meals. ! Q. What is the lowest wages you pay? A. Seven dollars at present i; for maids, but they get nine dollars during the season: this ends our ■ winter season for hotels and restaurants. ■ Q. How many hours do they work? A. They never exceed the I;: ten-hour law. ; Q. What time do they go to work in the morning? A. At twelve, ..) at noon. I Q. What time do they quit for dinner? A. At two o’clock; there is always more than one woman employed in any department. Q. Yes? A. And they change off. Q. They get off at two o’clock; now, what time do they come back? A. About five-thirty. Q. At five-thirty o’clock in the afternoon? A. Yes. Q. How long do they remain on duty? A. Again until about one o’clock. In every case we have a book that we keep track of where y there is two girls employed, as at the Sherman House and we have five li men working there. ■'' Q. When these girls leave work at about one o’clock in the morning, I I presume they go home on the street cars? A. I suppose so; I don’t watch them any more than any other factory man or any other employer watches his employes. Q. Yes, but there aren’t very many factories that work girls and j put them out on the streets to go home alone at one o’clock in the morning, so you will admit the condition of your business in that detail is different? A. Yes. Q. You don’t know how they get home? A. I don’t know, your Honor, but I imagine that they go home on the street car. ] Q. Is it fair to presume that they go home on the street car? A. Yes. Q. They leave your place and they have to stand sometimes quite 'a while until a street car goes by, waiting for a car at one o’clock in the morning? A. Yes, sir. I Q. Have any of those girls ever complained to you of being accosted while waiting on the corner at one o’clock in the morning for a car? A. No, sir, at no time. Q. They have not called your attention to that? A. No, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Well, they have been, because some of those girls have written in to us telling us of insults that are offered to them at that hour of the night, not in your place of business, but in getting home. THE WITNESS: I, like all manufacturers, have, my competitors to compete with, and I don’t doubt the least that letters written to you by one of my former employes must have been from a competitor’s position. Q. Then there is competition in your line of business? A. Yes, your Honor. Q. How many men are engaged in the concession business? A. Right in Chicago? Q. Yes. A. Three or four. O. Who is your leading competitor? A. Well, I don’t know whether that is right to make public. Q. We ask you? A. One by the name of Newberger. Q. What is his address? A. I don’t know, but I will give you the names of the places he operates. Q. Yes? A. Rectors and the North American, the Bismarck Garden, the Morrison Hotel and Riverview Park. Q. Yes? A. And that is about all that I can think of. 676 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Who are some of the other companies or individuals in this line of business? A. There is one individual by the name -of Sam Lerner. Oh, I missed one place of Newberger’s; he operates the Congress Cafe. Q. What is the name of the man whose name you just gave? A. Sam Lerner. Q. What places does he operate? A. Well, he operated some of the places you have lately closed down on the South Side; also the Cafe Savoy. Q. And some of the places in the 22nd Street district? A. Well, about 18th Street on Wabash Avenue. Q. Those two gentlemen are your leading competitors? A. Yes, sir. Q. How do you get your business concessions; do j-ou bid one against the other? A. Well, I am in Chicago since 1906; when I came here there was nobody here. It was like any other person thinking of a new idea and entering into business. Q. The idea originated with you? A. Yes, but two 3 -ears later Mr. Newberger reached Chicago, and then secured the privilege at Rector’s and commenced to compete with me. Q. Did he take a number of places awa 3 - from \’ou? A. Yes, he did. Q. By offering more money? A. Yes. Q. What was the first place he took from 3 - 011 ? A. He took away the Edelweiss. Q. At the time you were there what were you pa 3 ing for that con- cession? A. I don’t care to make that public, 3 mur Honor. Q. Well, I ask you to? A. I don’t think it is the proper time to give that out; I am here to give you all the ideas of what is most interest- ing to the public, and I feel this is a little personal. Q. Yes, but we ask you to give that. A. I will tell 3 -ou ever 3 -thing I feel like, but I will not give you everything on this basis. Q. Do you refuse? A. I would be glad to if it was m 3 " business; if I opened a store, if I was independent, but I am going to talk about somebody else’s business, and that is not right. I am an emplo 3 "e of the house. In fact there is some concessions that I don’t pa 3 " any-thing for the concession. Q. How is that? A. Well, I say- I was, as y-ou see, the first one in Chicago. Q. Yes? A. I had the first chance; I was lively- enough, and suc- cessful enough to obtain every place in the city" of those I have men- tioned, excluding a few of them. Q. Yes? A. I didn’t go at it to keep any'body" out of business, but merely as an energetic young man, and finding the business and looking after it. Q. You started out without any money"? A. I had a thousand dollars when I came from Pittsburgh, where I operated. Q. You came here with a thousand dolltirs in 1906? A. In 1906, that is personal, but I don’t mind to make that public. Q. How much are you worth now? A. I don’t care to say- that either. Q. When you get more than a thousand, that becomes a little too personal to be told about: now, Mr. Newberger entered into competition, did he, with you? A. Yes. Q. And he is your principal competitor? A. He goes at it different than the other people have gone at it, the other people that is ahead of me. Q. How many men do you employ" in your business? A. Oh, about thirty-five. Q. The girls in your employ wear a uniform, do they? A. No, your Honor. Public Meetings and Testimony 677 Q. They don’t? A. No, sir, just an apron. Q. Are there any pockets in that apron? A. Pockets, all you want; 3"ou can fill them up with all kinds of change and they will hold it, not as the papers made it public, as there was no pockets allowed. Q. You do allow pockets? A. All they want. Q. Do you reserve the privilege of going into those pockets? A. No, sir, we never inquire of those people that wear them; if they are not satisfied, we make a change, that is the means of what we do in our business. Q. What I want to get at is how do you find out whether you are satisfied or not? A. How do we find out? Q. Yes. A. We generalh^ never have any trouble, as a rule. Q. What do you mean? A. Well, we have men, just the same as the girls; the girls can’t do the hard work anyway. There is more work, in fact the girls can’t do as well as men; in other words, taking in at the Hotel Kaiserhof, taking in the wraps and checking them and hanging them up. Q. Have you a list on which you keep the daily record, or nightly record, of these girls? A. No, sir. Q. But you have some record of how much is turned in to each hotel? A. Ves, sir. Q. And the restaurants everj' night? A. Yes, sir, but not of the individual employes. Q. There is no check of anj- kind kept upon the individual? A. No, sir, but I imagine that your Honor has been in some of the places and you have noticed how it has worked. Q. Is there anyone stationed to keep an eye on those girls and report if they seem to be getting away with some of the money? A. No, sir; in fact we trust the whole thing to the girls as well. Q. These girls are paid tips? A. Yes, sir. Q. Gratuities? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the gratuities she keeps until the end of the evening, or does she immediately turn them in? A. It all depends on where she is; take for in- stance in Dejonghe’s, she keeps it all day long and turns it in when she gets through ; but at the larger places, where the place is a little bit larger, they turn it in right along. Q. When do you make your collections? A. I make my daily collections like any other business. Q. What hours do ^'ou make those collections? A. Sometimes at twelve o’clock or one o’clock, and sometimes the next morning. Q. Do you pay a certain flat amount to the hotels and restaurants? A. Yes, sir. Q. They have no interest in the amount of your gratuities? A. That is not done for the sake of money getting; it is done more because it is to save embarrassment to the hotel. Q. How is that? A. Well, it is a very troublesome proposition to handle those wraps, in case any should get lost. I will point out to you, for instance, all over the country that in some places they have not the chance to get any money for the concession ; they actually give it over to somebody to operate for them as will be liable for any losses ; in other words, it is a matter of the short- age being guaranteed the house against loss. Q. Now, Mr. Rosseau, I will have to ask you a few direct questions. A. Yes. Q. You have one girl at Dejonghe’s? A. Yes. Q. And she receives gratuities? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the average weekly turn in of that girl at Dejonghe’s? A. I know, she gets nine dollars a week. Q. How much money does she turn in to you? A. That don’t make no difference. Q. Now, I ask you that? A. Well, I don’t want to answer that question. 678 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do you refuse? A. Yes, I don’t think I should tell. It makes no difference to the public. Q. Have you consulted counsel on it? A. I did, yes. Q. And you now refuse to answer the question? A. That is quite differ- ent; I am not making that public. Q. You refuse then to answer? A. Well, I can’t see why 30U should in- sist on this question, your Honor. Q. Do you refuse to answer the question? A. Right now I do. Q. Do you desire to consult counsel? A. I desire for further steps, yes, if it is very important for you gentlemen to know. Q. The Committee will insist upon j-our answering the question. A. I will consult counsel and let you know. Q. Then you will return here at two o’clock this afternoon prepared to answer the question or to refuse to answer the question, and on jour refusal the record will show, and further proceedings will be taken against you. A. All right. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You are excused now for the time being; you are excused until two o’clock. Whereupon a recess was taken by the Committee until two o’clock P. M., May 26, 1913. SESSION XXV Owner of many restaurant coat checking concessions, recalled as a witness, refuses to answer questions concerning his profits. Official of a laundry company, employing 186 girls in several plants, explains his wage scale. Statements of profits, refused the Com- mittee by several witnesses at previous hearings, are given by an attorney as copied from the records of Federal Excise Tax Re- turns in the office of the Commissioner of Corporations at Wash- ington, D. C. Executives of two chain-store corporations give evidence. Working conditions and how wages are fixed in the meat packing plants at Chicago stock yards revealed by em- ployers in that industry. Testimony of: Jacque Rosseau, concessionaire; Mr. George E. Hunger, Mimger’s Laundry Co.; Mr. Maxwell Edgar, attorney at law; Mr. C. W. Gasque, auditor, F. W. Woolworth & Co.; Mr. L. R. Steele, manager, Knox 5 and 10 cent Store; Mr. Louis F. Swift, president, Swift & Co., packers; Mr. M. D. Harding, superintendent, Armour & Co., packers; _ Mr. C. L. Charles, assistant superintendent, Morris & Co., packers. j Chicago, 111., May 26, 1913, 2 :00 o’clock P. M. La Salle Hotel. The Committee met pursuant to adjournment, the same members . being present, and the following proceedings were had, to wit : I EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The meeting will come to order. Jacque Rosseau’s Testimony. JACQUE ROSSEAU, recalled for further examination by Chairman I O’Hara, and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You have been sworn, Mr. Rosseau? A. Yes, sir. [ Q. Are you represented by counsel, Mr. Rosseau? A. This is my I counsel. MR. EGBERT ROBERTSON: I represent Mr. Rosseau. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Egbert Robert- •' son, of the law firm of Foreman, Levin & Robertson. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You will be granted full privilege to advise 1 or take part in the examination of the witness. Q. Now, Mr. Rosseau, what do you pay the girl employed at Dejonghe’s restaurant? A. Nine dollars a week, j Q. How long has she been in your employ? A. I have to look up the date. Q. Well, roughly speaking? A. For a good many months. Q. She is an experienced hand at that kind of work? A. Yes, sir Q. What are her duties? A. To check wraps. Q. That is, coats and hats are given to her and she puts them up ^ and takes care of them? A. Yes. i Q. And gives them out? A. Yes, as they come in for them. I Q. Puts them on hooks? A. Yes. 679 HI I 680 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Is that the only woman you have employed at Dejonghe’s res- taurant? A. And the maid. Q. What are her duties? A. To keep the place clean and provide the toilet. Q. She looks after the cleanliness of the place? A. Yes. Q. And she receives gratuities, as the check girl receives gratuities? A. Yes. Q. What do you pay this maid? A. Eight dollars a week. Q. She has been in your place some little time? A. Yes, sir. Q. So that she is an experienced hand? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are you to any other expense outside of the amount you pay the hotel for the privilege, and the salaries you pay these two girls, are you to any other expense in the conduct of your business? A. Not any, unless a loss occurs. I am to reimburse a loss if any happens. Q. What? A. If they should lose a coat or hat I make good for it. Q. And you have made good for coats and hats lost? A. Well, very little, very little losses occur. Q. But there have been losses occur and you have made good for them? A. Yes, sir. Q. You make good to the hotel? A. No, sir, I make good directly to the people; in other words, I avoid all trouble of going to the hotel. Q. Suppose I should lose a hat there, where do 1 report it? A. You leave your name and address and we call on you and make good to you. Q. Now, I ask you again, what was the amount, the total amount of money taken in, in the form of gratuities, and turned over to you by these two women employed at Dejonghe’s restaurant last week? MR. ROBERTSON: That is- objected to. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: And you advise your client to refuse to answer that question? MR. ROBERTSON: Yes. Q. You do that believing that your client is within his rights? MR. ROBERTSON: Oh, absolutely, surel}', or I should not other- wise do it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA fto the witness): You do refuse to answer it? THE WITNESS: I personally do. I really am surprised at this question from people who know something about competition in this world. For instance, I made public such a question as this MR. ROBERTSON: Mr. Rosseau, I don’t think that the Committee wants an argument from you on the question. THE WITNESS: There is something as an excuse. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Let us get down to cases: you do refuse? THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The secretary' will make a note of the refusal of the witness to answer the question and will prepare a certified copy of the evidence at the earliest possible moment, and give to the Committee to present to the Senate. That is all, !Mr. Rosseau. STATE OF ILLINOIS. COUNTY OF COOK. J A. S. C.ARPENTER, of the City of Chicago, County of Cook and State of Illinois, being first duly sworn on oath, deposes and says that he is a shorthand writer doing business in the cit 3 ’ of Chicago, county and state aforesaid, and has been engaged in said business in the Cit}" of Chicago for the eighteen years last past: that he was emploj-ed to report and did report the proceedings of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee held at the LaSalle Hotel this 26th day of May, A. D. 1913; that among other witnesses called to testify Public Meetings and Testimony 681 at said time and place was one Jacque Rosseau, who was- called and sworn and testified before said Committee; that the above and fore- going is a full, true, correct and complete transcript of my shorthand notes, and of the testimony of said witness Jacque Rosseau, and of the proceedings had at said time and place. And further this affiant sayeth not. A. S. CARPENTER. .Subscribed and sworn to before me this 26th day of May, A. D. 1913. MARTIN J. HOGAN, Notary Public in and for Cook County, Illinois. STATE OF ILLINOIS.| COUNTY OF COOK. J THOMAS J. O’NEILL, of the City of Chicago, county and state aforesaid, being first duly sworn on his oath deposes and says that he is the official stenographer duly appointed to report the procedings of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee. That he was present at the hearing at the LaSalle Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, on May 26th, 1913, when one Jacque Rosseau was called and sworn and testified before the said Committee. That he heard all that was said during the examination of said Jacque Rosseau; that he has read over the before and foregoing transcript of the evidence of said Jacque Rosseau, and the same is a correct transcript of the proceedings had at said time and place. And further this affiant sayeth not. THOMAS J. O’NEILL. Subscribed and sworn to before me this 26th day of May, A. D. 1913. MARTIN J. HOGAN, Notary Public in and for Cook County, Illinois. (Note: The Forty-Ninth General Assembly enacted a law prohibit- ing tip concessions in Illinois of the nature conducted by Mr. Rosseau.) Mr. George E. Munger’s Testimony. GEORGE E. MUNGER, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn, was examined by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. George E. Munger. Q. And your business, Mr. Munger? A. Laundry business. Q. With what company or concern are you connected? A. Munger’s Laundry Company and Drexel Laundry Company. Q. Is that a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. Incorporated under the laws of Illinois? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many laundries do you operate, Mr. Munger? A. In Illinois? Q. In Illinois. A. Four. Q. Where are those laundries located? A. One is at 24th and Indiana Avenue, one at 1437 West Madison Street, one out in Hyde Park and one at 39th and Langley Avenue. Q. All in the city of Chicago? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have no laundries outside of the city of Chicago? A. Not in Illinois. Q. You have laundries in other states? A. Yes. Q. In what other states? A. In Missouri and Iowa. Q. They are all owned by the Illinois corporation? A. With the 682 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee exception of the Westminster Laundry Company of St. Louis; that is a separate corporation organized under the laws of Missouri. Q. What is your position with this company? A. I am assistant treasurer. Q. You are familiar, Mr. Munger, with the salaries of the women and girls employed by your company? A. Yes. Q. How many woman and girls are employed by your corporation in the four laundries situated in the city of Chicago? A. Approximately 186; it varies slightly. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any girl or any woman employed by your corporation in Illinois? A. A few weeks ago, when your committee was sitting, I had some figures taken at that time; at that time we had one girl that was getting four dollars. Q. Have you a statement covering the number of girls working at different figures? A. I have for a portion of the help; for the lower salaried girls. Q. Will you read that, Mr. Munger? A. Out of 186 girls we, at this time — three or four weeks ago — we had one girl at four dollars ; one at four and a half — these girls are between the ages of fourteen and sixteen — ^five girls at five dollars ; twenty girls at six dollars ; eleven girls at six and a half ; thirty- two girls at seven ; eighteen girls at seven and a half, making a total of ninety- three girls that are getting under eight dollars. Q. Ninety-three girls getting under eight dollars? A. Yes, sir. Q. Could you afford, Mr. Munger, could your corporation afford to raise the pay of these ninety-three girls from below eight dollars to eight dollars and still make money? A. We could not. Q. Then if those girls were paid eight dollars a week, a reasonable con- clusion would be that your company would have to go out of business? A. That would be true unless we could obtain more money for our product; we cannot raise these girls without raising the rest of them. The drain on the laundry business would be too great to allow them to stand the strain. We pay on an average of fifty per cent of our total income out in wages. Q. Then you believe, Mr. Munger, that if the state should enact a minimum wage law, setting eight dollars as a minimum wage, that the consumer would pay the freight? A. That would be the result in most lines; whether it would be true in the laundry business or not, we don’t know. The laundry might have to close down if they could get the consumer to do it. Q. Where else could the consumer get it done? A. By washwomen, by Chinamen, and they can do it in their own homes; that is what we have to contend with most, is the housewife. Q. What is the highest wage paid by your corporation to any girl or woman? A. Twenty-one dollars. Q. How many are paid twenty-one? A. One. y. How long has she been with your concern? A. Approximately ten years. Q. What is she doing now? A. Bookkeeper. Q. She started as a bookkeeper? A. Yes. Q. What is the next highest wage paid? A. We have several girls getting fifteen and sixteen. Q. What are they doing? A. Some of them, well, we have women at certain times on piece work. The piece work I speak of, is shirt finishing and markers and sorters. Q. Why are they paid these larger wages? A. They" are more skilled. Q. They have been with your company a number of years? A. Usually, yes, we have girls that have been with us twenty to twenty-five years; one girl since the concern was organized. Q. Been with you twenty or twenty-five years? A. Yes, sir. Q. How much money is she making now? A. The two I have named, one of them makes fifteen dollars and one of them makes sixteen dollars. Q. After twenty-five years of preparation? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the average period of service of girls in your employ? A. They only average three and a half years. Public Meetings and Testimony 683 Q. Most of these girls live in the neighborhood in which the laundry is situated? A. Not necessarily. Q. They have car fare to pay? A. The majority of them have car fare to pay. Q. Does the average daily expenditure for car fare run up to ten cents per day; it would amount to ten cents per day wouldn’t it? A. Yes. Q. What do you estimate the minimum cost of living of a girl or woman in the city of Chicago? A. I don’t know if I am qualified to answer that question; I think it varies in different cases or different localities. Practically all of our girls live at home. There are a few that support themselves. Most of those girls live in districts and with people of their own nationality where they get their board quite reasonable. Q. They are enabled to live, exist, because they live in neighborhoods that are not as good as some other neighborhoods? A. Possibly so. Q. You are enabled to get those girls and they are enabled to work under smaller wages because they live in such districts? A. Because their expenses are not possibly as high as that of girls working in department stores, where they have to dress better ; their expenses are naturally lower. Q. You would say as a general rule, would you, Mr. Munger, that a girl that is getting less than eight dollars a week, if she be entirely self-supporting, must of necessity live in a section of the city where the conditions are not the best? A. No. Q. In the way of housing? A. No, not necessarily; she can live in a section of the city where she can obtain board for less money; possibly the con- ditions in that section may be better, and they may not be as good as in certain other localities. Q. You have twenty girls working at six dollars a week; what do they do? A. A good many of them work in the flat work department. Q. What do you mean by that? A. Where we iron sheets, table linen, pillow slips, towels, and all that sort of thing. Q. They come to work at what hour in the morning? A. Their usual starting hour is seven-thirty. Q. They work how late in the afternoon? A. We figure on ten hours a day. Q. They quit at what hour in the afternoon? A. Usually by six o’clock, it varies a little at different times. Q. Do they work ten hours on Saturday? A. No, only on Monday. Q. What is it, fifty-four hours a week? A. It will average approximately fifty-four hours. On certain holiday seasons there are times when we are excep- tionally busy, and they may work more than fifty-four hours a week. Q. These girls are largely used in ironing? A. Ironing by machinery. Q. What is that process? A. After the goods are washed, they are shaken out, and after they are shaken out they are put through our flat work ironers, large ironing machines. Q. What do the girls do, just feed them? A. Some of the girls feed them, others catch them as they come out and fold them. Q. It is not possible to do that work sitting, is it? A. Not to the best advantage, no. Q. The girls all stand up? A. Yes, sir. Q. They are on their feet all day? A. If they are on small work they can sit down, when folding small pieces ; when they fold the large pieces they stand. Q. And while they are on that kind of work they stand up all the time, do they, while they are at work? A. Practically, yes, sir. . Q. They are on their feet about ten hours a day? A. Nearly that. Q. They are being paid six dollars a week for that? A. No. Q. Some of them are? A. No, we have no feeders that are getting as low as six dollars, but the six dollars a week girls are the ones that shake them out before they go through the machine. 684 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How much do the feeders get? A. Usually seven or seven and a half. Q. These six dollar girls, most of them you say, are used in shaking out? A. Yes, sir. Q. How do they do that? A. Simply pick the pieces out as they come frorn the washing machine, after they have been shaken out, and sort them out, sorting them by themselves, sheets by themselves and cases by themselves. Q. Do they do that standing? A. Yes. Q. Stand during the entire process? A. Yes. Q. They remain standing for about ten hours a day? A. If we are busy all the time, they are standing, but they are not always busy. Q. Sometimes you are busy all the time? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, the girl comes to work at seven o’clock in the morning; what time does she get through to go to lunch? A. Usually at twelve o’clock. Q. From seven to twelve o’clock, and if it is a busy day, she is on her feet all the time and does not have any opportunity to rest at all during that period of time? A. No. Q. How long does she remain for lunch? A. Well, it varies, sometimes half an hour and sometimes an hour ; it depends on the plant, we will say half an hour for noon. Q. Where does she get her lunch? A. She quite frequently brings it with her ; sometimes goes out. Q. She brings it with her? A. I think the majority of them bring it with them. Q. When they bring it with them it is cold, and thej' don’t have any coffee? A. They make their own coffee. Q. In the plant? A. Yes. Q. Do you furnish the coffee? A. No, we don’t; they bring the coffee. Q. Do you furnish the coffee pots? A. In some places; not as a rule. Each three or four of the girls bring their coffee pot and make their coffee together; they wdll start making it half an hour before lunch time to get their coffee ready and preparing for the lunch. Q. What proportion of the girls would you say bring their lunch with them to work? A. Oh, I should think there w’ould be more than fifty per cent. Q. Preparing and eating their lunch that takes either a half hour or an hour? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then they go back to work? A. Yes, sir. Q. And they are on their feet until the day is up at about six o’clock in the evening? A. Yes, sir. Q. For that they get six dollars a week? A. Some are not worth more than that. Q. Why do you say that? A. I don’t think the}' could go in any other line of business and make more than that; their ability is not such, as a rule, on the work in that department that they can draw more wages. Q. Aside from the matter of business, kir. Hunger, looking at it from the standpoint of humanity, do you think it is quite right that any girl should work ten hours a day, be on her feet that length of time, eat a cold lunch at noon, and at the end of that week get less money' than she can decently' live upon? A. I think you have to take into consideration the law's of supply and demand. If that girl could obtain no employment elsewhere at a better w'age, isn’t she better off at that than doing nothing? Q. Don’t you think that she is entitled to a living w'age? A. She has plenty, or should have, to meet her conditions, if she has ambition, and works hard. We are anxious to get girls that are ambitious to work for us and w'e offer them an opportunity' to advance. Q. Let us see what that opportunity is in fairness to you and the girl. The girl starts in at about four dollars a week, does she? _A. Usually those four-dollar girls — some sister of the girl that works with Public Meetings and Testimony 685 us, they make the request of us that we put their little sister to work. We would prefer not to take them as young as that. Q. You think about five dollars would be about the minimum? A. Usually. Q. Outside of one or two, that is the case? A. Yes. Q. Apparently your maximum is about fifteen dollars, because you have two or three girls at that figure who have been working twenty or twenty-five years with you? A. Yes. Q. The average girl, working at six dollars a week, how long has she been in your employ? A. That varies; she might have been there two weeks, and she might have been there a year. If she shows ability, she will be advanced before that. Q. Have you any girls at six dollars a week who have been em- ployed longer than a. year? A. We might have, but I would have to look that matter up. Q. Would you say you had in your employ any that had been there two or three years? A. I doubt that. Q. Now, at six dollars and a half a week; have you any girls work- ing at six dollars and a half a week that have been in your employ longer than a year? A. No, not that I would quote off hand; I don’t believe so. Q. You have thirty-two at seven dollars a week; what would you say is the average period of service of those girls? A. I would judge that the average period of the seven dollar a week girls would be well under a year. Q. Haven’t you any girl working at seven dollars a week that has been in your employ two or three years? A. We have one or two. Q. Have you one who has been in your employ five years? A. I don’t think so. Q. Four years? A. I don’t think so. Q. Then you would say that if a girl has shown ability, and is quick to learn and so forth, that after she had been in your employ a year, that she ought to be getting seven dollars a week? A. Yes. Q. Or more? A. Yes, if she has ability she would be getting more than that. Q. After she gets seven dollars a week, how long would it take her to get eight dollars a week? A. It depends entirely on the individual case, on the ability of tbe girl; we are looking for the better class of employes every time. Q. Can you take a girl who starts in your business green and so educate her that at the end of six months she is able to earn a fairly good wage? A. If a girl has ability sbe certainly can; if she has not ability, she can’t do it in six years possibly. Q. Suppose she had not the ability, do you let her go? A. We do, or she stays in one of the minor positions; she does not advance. Q. Where do the most of these girls come from that you have in your employ? A. A good many of them come from the south district, down near South Chicago, out in the Hyde Park laundry. Q. They come from poor homes? A. Largely; there is a large per- centage of them that are Polish; our average girl gets eight dollars and fifteen cents. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: You are probably aware that we have a bill in the General Assembly now pending by tbe name of the Minimum Wage Scale Bill? A. Yes. Q. What do you think that a girl can live on and live moderately right and easy? A. I don’t think that I am qualified to answer that question, Senator. I think it varies in the locality in which she lives. Q. That is probably correct. Now, if the bill is passed there will be a commission formed, appointed by the governor, of three good men, and 686 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee they vvill have full say. We have started on seven dollars and a half, and that is only subject of course to amendment; but that is only what we have heard in the past two months; now, what would you think a girl paying board, and having a reasonable amount of clothes and a good room — what do you think would be a fair, reasonable wage for her? Now, understand me, I don’t mean to say a wage that will enable her to live extravagantly, and I do not mean that wage to apply to beginners. Of course, the wage as to them will be fixed at a sliding scale during apprenticeship, and the time fixed at say six months or a year, providing she is a good girl. A. I don’t think that you can set any definite scale. Q. You can’t set any definite scale, but what would it cost them to live? A. It varies, absolutely. 'Q. Take it in Chicago, for instance. Chicago is different than the southern part of the state; it costs more to live in Chicago than it does in any other part of the state. Now, what do you think it costs in Chi- cago to a girl coming in from the country and getting a job in a laundry or a store or a factory, what do you think that she can pay board and live on reasonably? A. I don’t know; some of them live on five or five and a half or six dollars a week, and some can’t. Q. How do the girls live on that salary? A. We have been told that a great many girls working for four and a half a week were paying three dollars and seventy-five cents a week for board; that’s mighty cheap, isn’t it? A. No, they can’t get board for that. Q. They do get it for that, and then they pay the street car fare morning and night, and that takes all but fifteen cents; now, where is her clothes coming from? A. There is a good many of the class of people that we employ that would be glad to board the girl to help out the family income for less than three dollars^ a week. Q. I don’t see at the present cost of board, how anybody can board for less than three dollars and a half, to get board and room; that is the lowest we have found. A. Possibly you know more about it than I do. Q. I ask you the question for information. I want your opinion on the matter. We want to find out your opinion because you are posted and know something about it. We have asked all the same question. A. I don’t feel that I am competent to answer, because the most of our girls — the vast majority of them — live at home. Q. Do the girls ever complain about the fact that they could not live on what you are paying them? A. Possibl3^ I haven’t had it come to my knowledge, though. Q. Now, you can’t hire a man nowadays at less than a dollar seventy-five cents to two dollars and a half a daj'' for common work? A. We don’t employ a great manj' men for that kind of work. Q. You don’t? A. No, we have drivers in our employment. Q. You have got men working on the inside? A. Yes. Q. What do these men do? A. Usually we have engineers and assistants. Q. Of course, they are higher priced than the ordinary laborers? A. We haven’t any ordinary laborers; we have some men working in the wash room. Q. What do you pay these men in the wash room? A. It varies from eight or nine dollars up. Q. Could the women do that work? A. She could; she does some- times, in certain places. Q. Then if you had a woman do that work, would j'^ou pay her the same as you are paying that man? A. Practically. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Munger, you say that you could not afford to pay these ninety-three girls as much as eight dollars a week. May I ask you how you have arrived at that conclusion? A. It would be suicide to the business. Public Meetings and Testimony 687 Q. You have consulted your books on that in reaching that con- clusion? A. Yes, but it was not necessary to consult the books; I figured by what it would amount to. Q. How much would it amount to, according to your figures? A. We figure it would cost us, as I remember it (I have not got the figures, it is just offhand) between six and seven thousand dollars a year to raise that number of girls, and that is not taking into consideration the other hands that would have to be raised as the result of any such raise. Q. For much how is your laundry incorporated? A. Fifteen thou- sand dollars. Q. How much money have you actually invested in the business? A. I could not tell you that; it is invested in such a way from time to time that we could not keep track of it. Q. After paying a reasonable rate of interest on the money invested your corporation has made a profit of less than six thousand dollars, an annual profit? A. I figured that, yes. Q. Do you tell this Committee that the net profit of your corporation during the last fiscal year was below six thousand dollars? A. No, I would not say that. Q. You would not make that statement? A. No, sir. Q. You are incorporated for fifteen thousand dollars? A. Yes, sir. Q. An eight per cent dividend is a good dividend, isn’t it. Mr. Hun- ger? A. Yes, sir. Q. Eight per cent on fifteen thousand dollars would be something like twelve hundred dollars, wouldn’t it? A. I suppose so. Q. Take six thousand dollars, the amount of money, according to your figures, to raise the wages of these girls to a living wage, and add your dividend, which would make seventy-two hundred dollars; do you now tell this Committee that the annual net profit of your corporation is less than seventy-two hundred dollars? A. No, sir. Q. You don’t make that statement? A. No, sir. Q. Do you desire, Mr. Hunger, for the members of this Committee to leave you with the impression in their mind that 3'our profit is less than seventy-two hundred dollars a year? A. No. Q. You don’t? A. No, I don’t say that. Q. Then, Mr. Hunger, I will ask you what was the profit of your corporation last year? A. I prefer not to state that. Q. But you will say that it was more than seventy-two hundred dol- lars? A. Yes, sir. Q. Considerably more? A. I prefer not to say anything along those lines. Q. Have you consulted counsel regarding that? A. No, I haven’t. Q. Do you refer simply to this state or to the profits of all proper- ties of the corporation? A. I prefer not to state it; you are not taking into consideration that the company, among other things, have plants in other states; the profits are figured on the total number of plants. You are speaking on an advance in wages of a certain state, or in one state. It would be rather difficult to get at just the figures that you would want there, and I would prefer not to state anything about it. Q. Well, Mr. Hunger, you have made a statement to the Committee that you could not afford to give these girls more money, and when I asked you for some proof on your inability, you prefer not to give it; how do you expect this Committee in its report to do justice to you as well as to the girls if you fail to give that information? A. Possibly there would not be the same objection to giving the Committee some of the infor- mation that they desire if they would consider it confidential. Q. We cannot do that; that can’t be done, Mr. Hunger. A committee of this sort is composed, in a sense, of all of the people of the state. We are passing upon questions of public policy, and the people are to decide upon those questions. The theory of government today is, as I under- stand it, to take everybody into your confidence and play your cards on 688 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the table. The people are fair-minded and they will give you a fair deal and we will give the girls a fair deal. But this is digressing in the examination. You refuse to answer that question? A. I prefer not to •answer. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The record will show the refusal. Senator Harris, have you any questions to ask? EXAMINATION BY SENATOR HARRIS. SENATOR HARRIS; You say your company is incorporated for fif- teen thousand dollars? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is an Illinois corporation? A. Y'es, sir. Q. Do you know the profits of that company, aside from the Missouri cor- poration, and those other corporations? A. I could not give it to 3'ou off- hand; I could figure it up. Q. How many hours do your girls work on an average, a week? A. On an average, they will work, I should say, fifty-four hours. It is necessary to work more than fifty-four hours in certain periods of the year. SENATOR HARRIS: But fifty-four hours is a fair average? THE WITNESS : That is about what they are working now. Mr. Maxwell Edgar’s Testimony. MAXWELL EDGAR, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Q. What is your name, please? A. Maxwell Edgar. Q. And your business? A. Attorney-at-law. Q. You have devoted some time, Mr. Edgar, to a study and an investiga- tion that has familiarized you with the profits made by some of the corpora- tions in Chicago? A. Yes, I run across that in connection with the suit which we have brought here in the name of the people of the State of Illinois. Q. May I ask what corporations you have familiarized j'ourself with in that connection in the way of profits? A. That, I might say, we brought suit against all the corporations doing business in Illinois, who were considered to be exempt from the payment of capital stock tax. We picked out some twenty- five or thirty-five of those corporations, different corporations, manufacturing, mercantile, public printing and stock operating, and we brought suit particularly against these thirty-five, but the bill was directed against all the corporations in Illinois who were subject to the payment of capital stock tax. Our object was to enforce the capital stock tax which had remained a dead letter in Illinois for the lack of enforcement, for anywhere between tw'entj- and thirty- j'ears. Q. And in what way did j'ou gain information regarding the profits of the corporations? A. When we brought suit against these thirtj’-five corpora- tions a number of them appeared by their attorneys, some fifteen of them. Thej’’ answered the bill, all except the National Box Company, which answered bj' demurrer ; the demurrer was overruled, and they stood bj' their answer and appealed to the Supreme Court. The trial court gave us a ■writ of mandamus, and the Supreme Court affirmed that writ. It was then returned to the Circuit Court here for further proceedings. The matter was set before Judge Mangan, and he delayed the matter for a whole j'ear ; he didn’t seem to be able to make up his mind one way or the other. We then found out that we were short of evi- dence. We had established the law that the capital stock law was valid, and that there was no exemption, but now we have to get the evidence, so I wrote down to the Commissioner of Corporations, to kir. Cabell, I think it is kir. Frank- lin McVeagh’s former department, for the returns of these corporations to the Federal Excise Tax, and they sent me copies of the returns in their of- fice from those corporations, sworn to bj^ the various officers. They afterwards came up to mj^ office, or kir. Cameron, my attorne}', or associate attornejq and demanded these papers back, and thej^ were a little loud about it and hinted that we had got them wrongful^. We showed them the correspondence between ourselves and kIr. Cabell to sho'w that we had written for these documents and the3- had been sent to us, and that ever3Hhing Avas done in good faith. Then the3' asked if Public Meetings and Testimony 689 we would be good enough to return them. We stated that we would, provided we could have these documents at any time that we required them in the Circuit Court. In the meantime we took copies of them, and we still have copies, and we intend to use them in the suits when they come up again. When we took the National Box case before the judges of the Circuit Court, and a copy of the evidence after Mangan had refused to do anything, and after I had complained that we could not get justice, the Circuit Court first refused to give us any relief, and then they seem to have talked it over and they sent it before three of the justices, and they were with us up to within two days of the time of their decision. Then they switched around and decided flat against us on almost every proposition, and we are now taking that matter to the Supreme Court again on the theory that the Board of Review ought to be attached for contempt of the Circuit Court of Cook County, and for contempt of the Illinois Su- preme Court. Q. Now, Mr. Edgar, what corporations were mentioned in the reports i|: obtained by you from the tax officials in Washington? A. I have a list of I them. , Q. Will you read that list, Mr. Edgar? A. Armour & Company, Butler Brothers, Crane Company, Creamery Package Manufacturing Companw Cudahy j Packing Company, Diamond Match Company, Elgin National Watch Company, Fairbanks Canning Company, The Fair, The Illinois Brick Company, The Illi- nois Steel Company, James S. Kirk & Company, John V. Farwell Company, Knickerbocker Ice Company, Libby, McNeill & Libby, Marshall Field & Com- pany, Morris Packing Company, McAvoy Brewing Company, National Box Company, N. K. Fairbanks Company, Peabody Coal Company, Sears Roebuck & Company of Illinois, Sprague, Warner & Company, Swift & Company, Union Rendering Company, W. D. Boyce Company, Western Stone Company, W. W. Kimball Company, Western Electric Company. Q. For what year were those figures made? A. For 1909 and 1910. ; Q. Will you state to the Committee the annual profit of Marshall Field & Company during that period as shown by those figures? A. In 1909, the I annual profit of Marshall Field & Company — this is the net profit as computed by the Federal authorities — was $4,643,197.98; for 1910, the same profit was j $4,419,427.81. Q. That is the annual net profit? A. Yes, sir, and the Board of As- I sessors’ full valuation of the capital stock was $250,000, which was affirmed by the Board of Review ; the Board of Assessors’ full valuation for 1910 was raised I to $600,0000, and was cut down by the Board of Review to $250,000. j Q. Will you tell us, Mr. Edgar, what was the annual net profit of The Fair as shown by these figures? A. The Fair’s net profit for 1909 was $1,000,910.44; ] that was for 1909. For 1910 it was $1,136,878.46; in 1909 the Board of As- sors’ full valuation of the capital stock was $100,000, which was cut down to I nothing by the Board of Review. In 1910, the Board of Assessors’ full valua- tion of the capital stock was no assessment, which was confirmed by the Board of Review. Q. Will you tell the Committee what the annual profit was of Sears Roe- buck & Company? A. This is Sears Roebuck & Company of Illinois — not of New York or New Jersey. The annual profit of Sears Roebuck & Company, on which they paid a Federal tax for 1909, was $6,099,794.61. That was assessed by the Board of Assessors, the full value of the capital stock at $500,000 in 1911, which was cancelled by the Board of Review. The profits for 1910, was $6,606,291.47. No assessment, either by the Board of Review or the Board of Assessors for capital stock in 1912. Q. Marshall Field is a corporation, is it, Mr. Edgar? A. Yes, sir. Q. Organized under the laws of what state? A. Under the laws of Illinois. Marshall Field & Company incorporated prior to 1904, as a mercantile business, capital stock $6,000,000; the full cash value was $12,000,000. Tangible property $5,500,000; net full value of the capital stock $6,500,000, and deducting $250,000 the net tangible value of the capital stock leaves $6,250,000. Q. The corporation is for six million dollars? A. Yes, six million dollars, not the capital stock, but the share capital. You know, Mr. Chairman, that there is a distinction between share capital and capital stock; the capital stock is ^ull value of the corporation, tangible, all its assets, good will and everything. 690 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee that is, in a legal sense, and the share capital, as in this case, $6,000,000, is the amount of capital paid in by the share holder. Q. What do you mean by net profit; what is the difference between gross profits and net profits? A. That depends on the accounting a good deal, and on the different systems of bookkeeping kept by the various corporations. There is no standard value. Some corporations cut down everything except what is available for dividends, and that is net profit ; others, again, consider surplus and depreciation, and there is no real standard meaning to net profit ; it all depends on how the books are kept. Q. But in this case the four million dollars, or the four and a half million dollars annual profit of Marshall Field & Company would be available for dividends, is that your understanding, Mr. Edgar? A. It would be the net profits as considered by the Treasury Department of the United States or the legal department of the United States. Now, just what these are I don’t know exactly, but I know there is a difference. They allow certain deductions, that is the Federal government does, that they don’t allow in Illinois, and vice versa; for example, here is Armour & Company, having a net profit in 1909 of $4,358,488.83; for 1910, these , profits fell to $865,266.95. Now, either the business of Armour & Company was very much less profitable in 1910 than it was in 1909, or they had juggled their accounts to show a small net profit in order to escape the excise tax, one of the two. Q. Was that about the time of an agitation against the beef industry in Chicago? A. Yes, sir, just about the time they were indicted, I think. Q. That might have had some influence on it? A. Yes, but if you compare that with Swift & Company, you don’t find the same discrepancy; they are the only ones who fell down so very far. Q. Before we get into that, kir. Edgar, now Marshall Field & Com- pany is incorporated for six million dollars; in 1909, and again in 1910, the profit as reported to the Federal government was about four and a half million dollars; that money was available for dividends, and there- fore Marshall Field & Company made something like eighty per cent on its investment during those years? A. Perhaps not on its investment, but on its share capital. It may have been that Marshall Field & Com- pany had bonds or mortgage on that. There may have been some fixed debt that we don’t know about, and the theory of the Illinois law is that the funded debt is supposed to be added to the share capital, and from that the fair cash value is deducted, and the tangible property, and the balance is the capital stock value upon which taxes shall be assessed in Illinois. Q. For how much is The Fair incorporated? A. One million dollars. Q. One million dollars? A. Yes, sir, that was it, but the_ cash valuation of that is ten million dollars. The tangible property is $1,050,000, leaving a net value of $8,950,000 on which they did pay fift}' thousand leaving the net value at $8,900,000 capital stock on which no taxes have ever been paid. Q. You say that the fair cash value is ten million dollars? A. Yes, sir, we think that ten per cent is a fair dividend;' a department store will pay that. We think that it could be sold to an American or a British syndicate for ten million dollars, and we consider that the full, fair cash market value of The Fair is ten million dollars, and we put it that in our bills. Q. That is your own conclusion? A. That is our own estimation. Q. Are the figures and books at Washington from which these figures were taken, open to the public? A. No, there is a dispute about that. When I was down to Washington at the Lorimer Senatorial Investigation I called to see Mr. Cabell, and in talking to him he said that it was all a horrible mistake, that some clerk had blundered, and he would not give me, he told me, any more figures. I wanted it for several people here. He stated that under the Federal law a person held himself open to liabilitv if he gave out those figures. He asked me to go and see _^Ir- Frankfin McVeagh, but I had known Mr. McVeagh before, and I didn’t Public Meetings and Testimony 691 think that I could get any information out of Mr. McVeagh, so I didn’t go. There is some part in the Federal law that prevents or prohibits anyone from giving out these figures, 1 understand. I said that the law was unconstitutional and that he ought to give me these figures, because we could not collect our taxes in Illinois from these great tax-dodging corporations, and he said that if he gave out those figures that the Federal government would not be able to collect its tax, because the corporation would not give the figures. 1 said that the State of Illinois was a part of the United States and was paying its share for all of these Federal officials and collection agencies, and that they were simply taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another, simply to avoid payment, and there should be no concealment between these men and the state government, it is all one government. Q. Were you warned not to give out these figures? A. No, I was not warned, but he said that a person laid himself liable if he gave out those figures, but that was under a Republican administration. Now, we are under a Democratic administration and we are not afraid of any publicity. Q. Do you mind giving to the Committee, so it will be of record, your list there complete? A. 1 could make a copy of it, Mr. Chairman, and give it to you. Q. Will you do that, Mr. Edgar? A. Yes. I could give you a copy of the abstract of record or proof in the National Box Company case that has gone up to the June term and will be decided some time between now and October. Q. We desire to get now, Mr. Edgar, at this time, simply a copy of the figures of the sworn profits given to you by the Federal govern- ment. A. Yes. Q. You stated that the list of profits given you was in the form of a certified list? A. Certified copy of the lists at Washington, sworn copy given by these corporation officials. Q. And you declare that the figures you have given us and the figures you will give us in the list are accurate according to the figures given you in that certified list? A. Yes. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL., SENATOR BEALL; I understood you to say that these parties were paying no tax on this capital stock? A. There was a few of them paid; a great many of them don’t pay anything at all. Q. Who is it that don’t pay anything? Let us have the ones that don’t pay anything? A. Here is Butler Brothers, a very wealthy firm, was assessed by the Board of Assessors full value of capital stock three hundred thousand dollars, and the Board of Review cut that down to nothing. Take the last one on the list, the W. W. Kimball Company. This is a very wealthy company, and their profits in 1910 was $636,622.70. The Board of Assessors’ full valuation of the capital stock was $60,000; that was wiped out by the Board of Review. Take the Illinois Steel Company: The Illinois Steel Company’s profits in 1910 were $11,165,839.22. They were assessed by the Board of Assessors on $150,000 full valuation of the capital stock, which was confirmed by the Board of Review. Here is The Fair, capitalized at $1,000,000. The Board of Assessors’ full valuation of the capital stock was $100,000 and was cut to nothing by the Board of Review, and in 1910 their profits were over a million dollars, and they were not assessed at all on the capital stock. A system of cor- ruption all the way through. Crane & Company, this is Mr. Crane’s company; the profits of that company in 1909 were $2,576,777.58; the Board of Assessors’ full valuation of the capital stock was no assessment; the Board of Review’s full valuation of the capital stock no assessment. In 1910 the profits were $2,974,334.70; no assessment there either years by either of the taxing boards. Now, the Creamery Package Manufactur- ing Company; the profits of that company in 1909 was $230,584.13; it was assessed by the Board of Assessors at $100,000, which was wiped 692 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee out by the Board of Review, and the same thing occurred in 1910 when the profits of that company was $240,721.34. EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We are much obliged to you for coming here today. If you will give us that list of profits, we can have our reporter copy it and return the list to you. MR. EDGAR: I prefer to take it back and make a list of it. When we were in the Supreme Court with the National Box Company case we were afraid to put that document on file for fear it would be stolen. We kept it in the safe and we would not place it on file. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You don’t trust corporations very far, do you? MR. EDGAR: No, sir, I have worked for them and against them; I know them. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all. I thank you. Which list was and is in words and figures as follows, to-wut: Company. Net profit. B. of Ass’rs full valuation B. of Review full valuation Armour & Co. (1909) $ 4,358,488.83 capital stock $500,000 (1911) capital stock $500,000 (1910) 865,266.95 500,000 (1912) 500,000 Butler Bros. (1909) 1,619,158.23 300,000 .000 (1910) 2,111,510.88 500,000 .000 1 Crane Co. (1909) 2,576,777.58 No ass’t No ass’t (1910) 2,974,334.70 (( a Creamery Pkge. (1909) 230,584.13 100,000 .000 Mfg. Co. (1910) 290,721.34 100,000 .000 Cudahy Pkg. Co. (1909) 230,584.13 100,000 100,000 1 (1910) 290,721.34 100,000 100,000 ! Diamond Match (1909) 1,667,670.12 No ass’t • No ass’t 1 Co. (1910) 1,425.513.30 1 Elgin Nat. Watch (1909) 669,921.76 ti i Co. (1910) 572,138.19 it “ 1 Fairbanks Can. (1909) 753,118.86 500 1911 500 1 Co. (1910) None No ass’t 1912 No ass’t 1 The Fair (1909) 1,000,910.44 100,000 .000 (1910) 1,136,878.46 No ass’t No ass’t Illinois Brick Co. (1909) 114,116.17 100,000 50,000 (1910) 93,694.88 500,000 50,000 1 Illinois Steel Co. (1909) 8,375,725.25 150,000 150,000 (1910) 11,165,839.22, 150,000 150,000 Jas. S. Kirk & Co. (1909) 239,002.15 10,000 10,000 (1910) 138,583.13 10,000 10,000 : John V. Farwell (1909) 405,021.54 No ass’t No ass’t 'I Co. (1910) 534,522.84 it it Knickerbocker (1909) 573,189.55 150,000 .000 1 Ice Co. (1910) 261,156.39 100,000 100,000 ! Libby, McNeill (1909) 47,584.13 No ass’t No ass’t ! & Libby (1910) Out of bus. a it Marshall Field (1909) 4,643,197.98 250,000 250,000 1 & Co. (1910) 4,419,427.81 600,000 250,000 Morris Pack’g (1909) Loss 30,254.67 No ass’t No ass’t Co. (1910) Loss 14,712.14 ** “ McAvoy Brew. (1909) 122,416.09 (( Co. (1910) 147,337.03 ** “ Nat. Box Co. (1909) 91,752.57 No ass’t (1911) No ass’t (1911) (1910) 35,551.09 $ 1,000 (1912) $ 1,000 (1912) ; Public Meetings and Testimony 693 N. K. Fairbanks Co. (1909) (1910) 1,354,639.56 No data 100,000 300,000 100,000 100,000 Peabody Coal Co. (1909) (1910) 98,698.07 150,499.72 No ass’t No ass’t Sears, Roebuck & Co. (111.) (1909) (1910) 6,099,794.61 6.606,291.47 500,000 (1911) No ass’t (1912) .000 No ass’t Sprague, Warner & Co. (1909) (1910) 77,213.57 311,054.46 150,000 No ass’t .000 No ass’t Swift & Co. (1909) (1910) 7,769,529.33 (Missing) 500,000 (1911) 500,000 (1912) 500,000 (1911) 500,000 (1912) LTnion Rendering Co. (1909) (1910) 5,783.63 823.63 No ass’t ti 5,000 No ass’t W. D. Boyce Co. (1909) (1910) 159,950.24 184,104.44 100,000 No ass’t 150,000 No ass’t Western Elec. Co. (1909) (1910) 2.058.866.00 4.088.208.00 450.000 750.000 450,000 .000 Western Stone Co. (1909) (1910) 28,545.15 21,885.93 No ass’t No ass’t n W. W. Kimball Co. (1909) (1910) 834,709.56 636,622.70 tt 60,000 200,000 .000 Mr. C. W. Gasque’s Testimony. C. W. GASQUE, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Q. What is your name? A. Clarence W. Gasque. Q. What is your business? A. I am at the present time auditor for F. W. Woolworth & Company. Q. In what line of business is Woolworth engaged? A. Five and ten cent store. Q. You are the auditor for the Chicago stores? A. Yes. Q. Exclusively? A. All stores under the jurisdiction of our Chicago office. Q. How many stores does that include? A. A hundred and twenty- seven. Q. Are most of those stores in Illinois? A. Forty-one of them. Q. Covering what cities? A. I think most of them are, I can’t remember that off-hand. Q. What are they? A. Well, Alton, Bloomington, Chicago Heights, Quincy, Cairo, Decatur, Danville, DeKalb, Evanston, Elgin, Freeport, Gales- burg, Joliet, Jacksonville, Kankakee, Kewanee, LaSalle, Moline, Peoria, Pekin, Canton, Rock Island, Rockford, Streator, Springfield, South Chicago, Waukegan. I guess that is all. Q. How many girls and women are employed in the series of Woolworth stores that come under your jurisdiction? A. I could not say about twenty- five hundred or three thousand, I should say ; somewheres in that neighbor- hood. Q. What is the least amount of money paid as a wage to any girl or any woman in any of these stores? A. Is this in Illinois, or in any store? Q. In Illinois, if you have it so divided. A. Why, I should say in the neighborhood of about four dollars, in some cases. Q. Now, couldn’t you state positively? A. No, I could not, not unless I refer to my records. Q. How long will it take to refer to your record? A. Oh, probably an hour or so to go over them. There may be exceptional cases; there is, may be, one or two under four dollars, but I am not positive whether there are or not. 694 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You would say there are not very many? A. Oh, no, not very many. Q. What is the average wage? A. In all the stores? Q. In all the stores? A. Why, I can’t give you that information just now; that would take a good deal of work; I was not informed as to what itiformation you wanted. I was out when the investigator called, and I didn’t know what information he wanted. Q. I want to ask you a few general questions now; you have a store at Springfield, have you not? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you pay higher wages in Springfield than you do in Chicago? A. No, I could not say so. Q. Do you pay higher wages in Chicago than you do in Springfield? A. I should think they would run about the average, those two cities; I should think Chicago would be a little bit higher. Q. How about Peoria? A. That is about on a par with Chicago. Q. Yes? A. But I should not think the average would be quite as high as Chicago. Q. Who fixes the wages that they pay, the wages in Peoria and Spring- field? A. The local manager. Q. In the different cities? A. In the different cities, yes, sir. Q. He has full power as to wages? A. Yes, he has full power as to wages and the hiring of all female help. ■Q. There are no restrictions upon him? A. No. Q. No rules to guide him? A. No. Q. Or anything of that nature? A. No, sir; not that I know of. Q. He could pay a girl if he wanted to $10.00 a week? A. Well, I suppose that he could. Q. You know of no rule limiting the maximum to be paid a girl? A. No, I do not. Q. And you know of no rule fixing a minimum? A. There tvas a rule years ago, I don’t know whether it is in force or not, that the minimum was $3.50. Q. You are not prepared right now to give us very much information about the wages paid by the Woolworth people? A. It depends on what information you want. Q. I would like to get tables showing the number of women employed by the Woolworth stores in Illinois, your forty-one stores, showing the lowest wage paid, the number of women receiving the lowest wage and then a grading scale up to your maximum. A. On each individual store? Q. No, collectively. A. Collectively? Q. And also let us know where you pay the lowest wage and where you pay the highest wage. A. Yes. Q. Also I wish you would bring a copy of any rules regarding the employment of girls, rules that are sent out to your local managers. Your Peoria manager testified, if I remember correctly, that there was a rule fixing the maximum and the minimum wage, and that, as a matter of fact, he didn’t have a great deal of power in the matter of wages. I don’t want to do your concern an injustice, but that is my memory. I may be mistaken, but if there are any rules sent out to these local managers, I would like to get those rules. A. There is none that I know of. Q. Then you are excused. Can you be here today at 3:45 o’clock; that is, an hour from now? A. I think so, but I don’t think that I can get all of the information at that time; do you want last week’s reports? Q. Any week within a recent period of time. You prepare that and appear before our Committee at its next meeting? A. Tomorrow? Q. No, it will be next week, I think. A. You will let me know when that will be? Q. Yes, but prepare that at once if you will; you may be excused for the time being. A. Yes, sir. Public Meetings and Testimony 695 Mr. L. R. Steele’s Testimony. L. R. STEELE, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. L. R. Steele. ,i Q. What is your business? A. Manager of the Knox 5 and 10-cent I store on State Street. I Q. How many girls and women are employed in that store? A. Well, ‘ we have seventy girls right now. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any one of those girls? A. Six dollars. Q. Six dollars is the lowest? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the highest? A. Fifteen dollars, j . Q. How long have you been connected with that store? A. This is ’ my second year. ^ 4 I Q. During the two years that you have been there, what has been the lowest wage paid at any time to any girl employed there? A. Six dollars. Q. During that period of time no girl has received less than $6.00? A. No. We made an attempt to get girls at $5.00, but we could not get f them. I Q. Tell us that. A. Well, our allowance for help is not to exceed , 7 per cent of our sales, and there are times during the year when business i gets extremely dull, in summer, occasionally, and you must try_ to I economize, and that was when we tried; that was one of the ways we tried, but we were not successful. Q. You are given an allowance of 7 per cent for help? A. Seven per cent. Q. This allowance is made by whom or comes from where? A. That seems to be a general set rule of 5 and 10-cent stores; that has been my experience, and I have been connected with several of them. Q. These people for whom you work have a syndicate of 5 and 10-cent stores? A. Yes, they operate 106 stores. Q. How many stores have they in Illinois? A. I don’t know as I can give you that right now. There would be at Springfield, one at Jack- sonville, one in Chicago, and I don’t recall whether there is any more than that in the State of Illinois. We operate principally East at the present time. Q. And 7 per cent is allowed for help? A. We are not supposed to f exceed that. f Q. How much is allowed for rent? A. That all depends on local i conditions. [ Q. There is no rule regarding that? A. No; for instance, as rents t N are advancing on State Street today, if it keeps on, they will soon be 20 per i cent of the sales, and it will be almost prohibitive, so far as 10-cent stores f are concerned. Q. There is no rule so far as rent is concerned? A. You can’t fix i a rule. Q. But there is regarding wages? A. Yes. Q. That 7 per cent rule holds good throughout the entire State? A. f Supposed to; yes, sir. Q. Is that the only rule regarding wages? A. Yes, sir. , Q. Any local manager of any 5 and 10-cent store that you know any- thing about can exercise full authority in hiring girls providing he does not exceed 7 per cent? A. Yes, that all depends on the store. If he has charge of the store, naturally, he must economize on the wages he pays to ! cover the store profit if his business is not what it should be. If business is good, he could pay good wages; in other words, it is a business proposition. 696 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. But in no case is it to exceed 7 per cent? A. Oh, there is lots of cases where it runs as high as 9 per cent. Q- How low have you got it in your store? A. My salary list runs a little over 7 per cent last year. Q. You have how many girls employed? A. We have seventy girls. Q. And the lowest you pay is $6.00? A. Yes. Q. How many are working at $6.00 a week? A. Fifty-two. Q. What is the next highest wage after $6.00? A. Six and seven dollars. Q. And the next figure? A. One at $7.50, and one at $8.00. Q. Yes? A. And four at $9.00, two at $10.00, one at $11.00, one at $12,00, one at $13.00 and one at $15.00, that is seventy, I think. Q. Out of seventy girls, fifty-two work at $6.00? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then $6.00 is about your usual pay? A. That is what we start girls at — $6.00 a week. Q. Now_, the girl getting $15.00 a week, how long has she been in the* employ of this concern? A. I should say approximately three years. Q. What has she been doing? A. She works at the music counter. Q. Why does she get $15.00? A. Because we have not been able to get a young lady to take charge of it for less money. Q. That work requires a sort of expert? A. Yes, sir. Q. These girls that work for $6.00, fifty-two of them, how long have they been in your employ? A. I should judge probably twelve out of the fifty-two might have been there for six months; the rest of them may be floaters. Q. What do you call floaters? A. They might stay' a week or two weeks, and they might be in the store two hours and we catch them steal- ing, and discharge them. Q. Do you find that happens quite often? A. I should say so. Q. It does? A. Yes, sir; we have had one girl at Christmas time, she reported in the morning and by 11 o’clock she had gotten away with $42.00. Q. Did you discharge her? A. We didn’t even see her go out of the door. Q. What were your total losses from stealing last y'ear? A. Well, 1 don’t know just exactly what the total would be, but from stealing by the general public and clerks, losses of every character, they exceed 5 per cent of the sales. Q. They exceed 5 per cent? A. Yes, sir. Q. Suppose you took 5 per cent out and added it to the salaries; would that lessen the loss? A. It might lessen it probably 1 or 2 per cent. Q. You think it would lessen the loss? A. Yes, but I am not able to say that. Q. Then, in your judgment, some of these girls who are getting less than a living wage, who are getting $6.00 a week, steal to live? A. 1 would not say that of all of them; I would say some of them did. Q. You would say some of them do? A. Yes, sir; I don’t know whether they steal to live, but we have had two cases recently' where two girls were stealing from us to keep what they termed their sweethearts. Q. Tell us about that. A. Well, one girl, we caught her stealing, and actually' found that she was giving her money' to some man she had; the other girl, who was chumming with her, found out about it and she started to steal to give money to her friend. We brought the matter before the authorities, and we were criticised because we paid the girls $6.00 a week. Q. How old were these girls? A. Probably nineteen y'ears old. Q. How long had they been in y'our employ'? A. Not over three weeks. Q. How did they come to your notice? A. Just caught them de- liberately stealing. Public Meetings and Testimony 697 * Q. No, I mean when you employed them, how did they come to you? [ A. They came in and applied for a position. j Q. In answer to a want ad.? A. No, just came in and applied for a J position; 50 per cent of our girls don’t stay long enough to keep the store |; properly filled with clerks, so we are always in need of help, f Q. When they come in looking for a job, do they fill out any applica- ■ tion blank? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do they fill out; what do they have to state in the blank? A. ■ She gives the name of her father and mother, how long she attended public school and where she worked at last and three references; usually the ; references they give are fictitious, f Q. Do you ever look them up? A. Yes. I Q. How often? A. We make an attempt to look all the girls up. Some of them don’t stay long enough for us to look them up. ' Q. Before putting a girl to work will you look up her references? A. We are supposed to look them up right away; we have a young man who is supposed to look a girl up right away. Q. Suppose a girl hasn’t a father and has not a mother, you take her^ ! anyway, don’t you? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. That is, you don’t care whether she is entirely self-dependent or not? A. No, that doesn't enter into the proposition at all. I Q. In other words, you want to get girls at $6.00 a week? A. Yes, sir. I Q. And what they do with the $6.00, and whether they live on it, is j their own concern? A. Yes, sir. t Q. Well, you are frank and honest with us, anyway. A. Yes, it is a commercial proposition with us. Q. Some of the witnesses before us have told us that they didn’t like I to take these girls unless they were thoroughly satisfied that they were living at home. A. That is a good rule, but we have applications or re- I quests from the largest firms in the city on the same girls that we have ' lost from the store. i Q. You don’t think it really makes any more difference with them ■ than it does with you? A. No, I do not. Q. Isn’t it a fact that the 5 and 10-cent stores are largely used as a school for education for the larger retail places? A. Yes, sir. Q. And the reason that you cannot keep them, cannot keep your help J longer, is because when they get a little skilled they go into the larger j stores? A. Yes, sir. ; CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I think this witness has been very honest ■ with us. SENATOR BEALL: It looks like it. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: He has given us good information. Senator [ Beall, do you want to ask any question? ; SENATOR BEALL: He looks all right to me. * SENATOR TOSSEY: Do the 5 and 10-cent stores pay less wages i; than the other stores? A. We don’t aim to. M Q. _ But the girls would rather work in the larger stores? A. Yes, I? that is it. ■I Q. At the same wages? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is it any harder work in the 5 and 10-cent stores than in the other ): stores? A. No, I don’t think so. 'j SENATOR TOSSEY: That is all. ‘ SENATOR BEALL: Mr. Steele, what would you think of a gradu- ated scale; we have a bill in the Legislature and we want information from ^1 such men as you, how do you think that would act? In other words, you il know about what a girl can live on. Now, what do you think would be a [( good minimum wage to start off at; what do you think is a good minimum wage after a girl has worked six months or a year and proved herself good i| and faithful, what do you think of a minimum wage of that kind all over 698 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I the State, and what do you think the wage should be? A. I think it would j be a good thing for 50 per cent of the girls; for the other 50 per cent it : would not help. ' Q. Take a girl you put in at $5.00 a week; at the end of six months you know whether she is a good girl or not? A. Yes, sir. Q. Would that girl be worth a minimum price of, say, $7.00 or $7.50? ? A. Our average is $7.94. ' Q. Suppose you keep a girl there for six months; at the end of six months you know whether she is a good girl for you? A. Yes, sir. Q. At the end of that six months would you be willing to pay a minimum wage scale of the same price? A. I would; yes, sir. Q. At the end of six months, if she was not a good girl, j^ou would let her go? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is your idea of it? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR TOSSEY; How would it affect your business to give a minimum wage of $7.50? A. Well, I don’t know as it would affect us 1 any in Chicago. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; You would work them all in as apprentices? | 'A. No, I would not work them all, but about 50 per cent of them would j fall in under the apprenticeship rule, but that would be their own fault if i they didn’t remain. Q. How many hours do your girls work; that is, on the average? A. i About, on the average, nine hours a day, fifty-four hours a week. Mr. Louis F. Swift’s Testimony. LOUIS F. SWIFT, called as a witness before the Committee, being , first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Louis F. Swift. Q. And your business? A. Packing business. Q. You are connected with what concern? A. Swift & Company. Q. What is the nature of your connection? A. Onlj' the president. Q. Only? A. That’s all. Q. As president of that concern, Mr. Swift, you are familiar with the wages paid to girls and women there employed? A. Just in a general way; I don’t know of the details; but I know in a general wa3^ Q. How many girls and women are emplo3'ed by 3'our company? A. Can I refer to a memorandum I have? Q. Yes, of course. A. Six hundred and ninet3'-five women and girls. Q. What is the lowest wage, klr. Swift, paid to any of those six hun- dred and ninety-five women and girls? A. Six dollars a week. Q. Six dollars a week is 3^our lowest wage? A. Yes. Q. How man3r are employed at that rate — at $6.00? A. Fourteen. Q. Have 3^00 a table there, Mr. Swift, of the wages paid? A. _Y’ell, this table says that the average of these 695 women and girls is $10.05, but, now, this includes office help; there is two divisions, you know. SENATOR BEALL: Of course, office help is higher? A. Yes, I have got that in here. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: There are fourteen at $6.00? A. Yes. Q. What is the next? A. I haven’t an3' other table except the average. Q. Of the 695 women and girls, Mr. Swift, how man3^ are paid less than $8.00 a w'eek? A. I have not got it figured that way. I have got the office women by themselves, and then the plant help separate. Q. What is the average at the plant, the average wage? A. There is 399 of them averaging $7.59 a week. Q. The average is $7.59? A. Yes, sir. Q. What are those girls and women doing, Mr. Swift, in the plant? A. Well, different things; the majorit3" of the work is that the3' work in Public Meetings and Testimony 699 the butterine factory, and they work in the soap factory, and they wrap the cakes of soap, and a few of them work in the sausage department trim- ming meat, and there are quite a good many of what we call egg candlers, you understand what, that is? SENATOR BEALL: Examining eggs? A. Yes; holding them up to the light. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; The lowest wage paid to any of them is $6.00 per week? A. Yes. Q. And the average wage is what? A. The average is $7.59 per week. I don’t know, some of them make as high as $14.00 and $15.00 a week, a few — not a great many. Q. How many hours do they work, Mr. Swift? A. About fifty hours on the average. Q. A week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do they stand up most of the time? A. Well, we let them sit down wherever possible; they sit down most of the time, but in a few cases they stand. Q. Have you any idea, Mr. Swift, as to the lowest amount that a woman or girl can live on in the City of Chicago? A. I think that would be pretty difficult to tell. Q. Did you ever conduct an investigation to ascertain? A. No, sir. Q. Do you think that an employer has some moral responsibility to conduct such an investigation? A. Yes, that might be a very good thing. Q. Do you think that low wages, Mr. Swift, has anything to do with immorality either directly or indirectly? A. It is my opinion that the rela- tion is very slight. Q. To what one cause would you attribute immorality, or to what one cause above others? A. Oh, I don’t think I could say. Q. You have no opinion on that? A. No, I have no definite opinion. Q. Would you say that bad housing conditions has something to do with immorality? A. I should think it might; I should think that a girl’s home life had a good deal to do with it. Q. Home life, in a measure, is dependent upon money, isn’t it? A. I suppose it is, some. Q. The money that is paid the girl or the father? A. Some relation, yes. Q. Now, girls working for $6.00 a week, girls and women that are working for your company, where do they live, most of them? A. A good many in that neighborhood around Forty-seventh Street and Ashland Ave- nue; there is quite a residence district in there. It is about half a mile away. Q. What are the housing conditions in that district? How would you describe them? A. I don’t know as I am competent to judge, but I should think it would compare favorably with any manufacturing or any factory district; they are pretty good houses. Q. Has your company or any other company in a similar line of busi- ness ever made an effort not only to make that district compare favorably with similar districts, but have you ever made an effort to make that the best district of its kind anywhere? A. Well, we have done considerable in a general way; we have subscribed to association houses and are doing what we can in that way. We give a good deal of attention to the care of the girls and women on the plant, to their working conditions; they have been improved a great deal in the last two years, and we are still improving them. Q. Would you say, Mr. Swift, that $8.00 a week is an excessive amount for a girl or woman to spend on her own existence, her bed, a few meals a day and some clothing? A. That does not look excessive, no sir. Q. Do you think that $8.00 a week would be about a fair minimum? A. Well, I could not exactly say that I think it would be a fair average. Q. Admitting that it is a fair minimum, why should an employer pay 399 girls less than that minimum? A. Why, I suppose there is standard 700 Report op the Illinois Senate Vice Committee wages. I suppose they pay somewhat on the standard of the localitj' and ■ of the city. Q. What fixes the wages that you pay the girl? A. The standard of tiie city, I suppose, to some extent. Q. Then the girls’ value is based upon the use that the employers ’ ; have for their services? A. Not altogether. It is in connection with the girl’s ability herself and the ability of what the department can afford to pay; the three things, I should say, have to go together. Q. What department, if any, do you employ the majority of these ■ girls in, or are they scattered around pretty generally among the depart- ments? A. Pretty generally scattered. Q. Have you any departments at your plant that are losing monej-? A. At times they do. I Q. Year in and year out do they lose money, Mr. Swift? A. Well, I i don’t think so, not continuously. Q. Is Swift & Company losing money? A. No, sir; but w'e have had { departments that lost money continually, that were closed down by the i company. Q. How much would it cost you, Mr. Swift, to establish the rule in t your place of business that no girl or no woman in your employ there j should get less than $8.00 a week, a reasonable living wage; how much J would that cost you a year? A. In Chicago alone? Q. Yes. A. It might be about $20,000 a year, perhaps. j Q. Are the profits of Swift & Company in excess of $20,000? A. Yes. ; Q. What were your profits last year, Mr. Swift? A. In Chicago? Q. Yes, in Chicago. A. We don’t keep them separate; the whole 5 company is all combined. Q. And roughly speaking, what would you say they are in Chicago? A. I could not figure that out. Governor O’Hara. Q. What were the profits all told last year? A. We paid 7 per cent dividends on our capital stock and had about 4 per cent left over to the surplus account. SENATOR TOSSEY : How much is your company capitalized at? A. Seventy-five million dollars. Q. About 11 per cent? A. Yes, about, but, of course, Chicago is a small portion of that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; You could establish a minimum living wage without hurting your business, without increasing the cost to the con- sumer of your products? A. I could not say that; I suppose the cost would go on to the product as small as it is; I suppose it would have to be paid by somebody. It might come out of the profits. Q. Wouldn’t you be willing to pay out of j'our own pocket, !Mr. Swift, $20,000 a year to bring a little hope into the existence of 399 girls that are building up your business for you? A. I would like to improve their condition. I would like to improve the men’s condition, too; the laboring men; they have their troubles, too. Q. Yes, that is up to you. The State at this time cannot enact a minimum wage law' for men, but the State can for w'omen — pretty soon, I think, the State will get around to a minimum wage for men. A. M'ell, we will try to conform -with any law that the 3 r make, and do it cheerfulh-. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Mr. Swift, I suppose that 3 -ou are aware that we have a bill now before the General Assemblj- — a minimum wage scale bill? A. Yes. Q. As the bill calls for now, there will be a commission of three appointed to look after these matters. Now, we started on a basis of $7.50 a week for girls. Of course, an apprentice, for the first six months, probably, wdll be graded up; do you think if this law was passed to make $7.50 that it W'Ould be a good thing or a bad thing for }-ou to pa^- it ou*- Public Meetings and Testimony 701 of the profits that you are making- in your business? A. What is that ( question again? 9i Q. The question is: if they pass this minimum wage scale law of $7.50 a week; that is, pay the girls that are working there for six months or a year, the first six months her salary would be graded possibly as an 1 apprentice, but after she has been there a year, say, or six months, if the girl is a good girl, out of the profits of your concern could you stand to pay these girls $7.50 or $8.00 a week? There will be a State law, and all of you people in the business will be equal, and there will be no cutting on prices and going from one to the other because there are better wages at one place than another; now, don’t you think it would be better for all concerned? Don’t you think it would be a good thing? A. It would be a I good thing for a majority of the girls, perhaps; I guess, half of the girls. Q. The bad ones you would not keep after six months? A. Some of them are not as competent as others. Q. Do you think those girls could live on $4.00 or $5.00 a week? A. No. Q. We are trying to help the girls, and I believe you are trying, too. A. We have helped them a good deal. Q. Yes, and I am glad to hear it. Do you think that $7.50 would ! be a fair minimum wage for us to put in a bill of that kind, or what do you think is right? We want to learn. You have had the experience, and you " know more about it than we do. A. Well, that don’t look very unreason- ,, able. I don’t know what effect it would have in Illinois if Illinois does it : and the other states do not. ' CHAIRMAN OHARA; Mr. Swift, your concern is one of the Big 1 Four, popularly known in the packing industry as the Big Four? A. They call it that sometimes, but I never knew of a reason for it. ; Q. This $75,000,000 capital, is it all paid in? A. Every cent. There I! is not $1.00 for trade mark, good will or any other excessive charges of ' any kind on the books. That is all the company averages to earn, is this 10 or 11 per cent, if they have good luck. Mr. M. D. Harding’s Testimony. M. D. HARDING, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: I EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. M. D. Harding. Q. And your business? A. Superintendent for Armour & Company. ;! Q. Eor the Chicago plant? A. Yes, sir. I Q. You are familiar with the employment of women in that plant? |j A. Yes, sir. Q. How many women and girls are employed there? A. Eight hun- I dred and forty. j Q. What is the lowest weekly wage paid to any one of these women || or girls? A. Five dollars a week is the lowest. ■ Q. How many are paid $5.00? A. Ten. Q. What is the next lowest wage? A. Eleven fifty. Q. They jump from $5.00 to $11.50? A. No, we go up, the hourly rate is lll4 cents an hour; most of our girls work on the hourly basis, ij Q. Some of these girls are paid $5.00 a week? A. No, they are on ■ the hourly basis, too. j Q. How much are they paid? A. Eight and one-third cents an hour. I Q. The next highest scale is what? A. The next highest scale is I 10 cents. ' Q. Ten cents an hour? A. Yes. sir. jj Q. What is the next highest scale? A. Eleven cents an hour. Q. And the next? A. Eleven and two-thirds cents an hour. 702 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Then? A. Twelve and a half cents an hour. Q. Then? A. Thirteen and a half cents an hour. Q. The next? A. Fourteen cents an hour. Q. Yes? A. Fifteen cents an hour. Q. Yes? A. Sixteen cents an hour. Q. From 16 cents it goes how high? A. To cents an hour. Q. How many girls are employed at 8 1-3 cents an hour? A. Ten. Q. At 10 cents an hour? A. Three hundred and eleven. Q. At 11 cents an hour? A. One. Q. At 112-3 cents an hour? A. Forty-nine. Q. At 12J/4 cents an hour? A. Seventy-seven. Q. At I3y2 cents an hour? A. Five. Q. At 14 cents an hour? A. Eight. Q. At 15 cents an hour. A. Six. The balance are piece workers; we have got a number of girls working at piece work. Q. On- your last week’s pay roll, Mr. Harding what was the lowest amount paid to any girl for a full week’s work? A. I could not tell you about last week’s pay roll. Q. Well, the week before? A. I could not tell you of the week before, but for the average ten weeks last, the lowest paid any girl was $4.80 for an average of ten weeks. Q. Being an average of ten weeks? A. The lowest paid was $4.80; that was the case where a girl didn’t work full time. Q. What do you call full time? A. Sixty hours. Q. Sixty hours a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. If a girl is paid $6.00 a week, for that she works sixti”" hours? A. It all depends upon her hourly rate. Q. But the average that you have? A. Our average rate was $7.19 for the 844 girls. Q. You have 311 girls working at 10 cents an hour? A. Yes. Q. What do those girls do? A. Various works; some label cans, some trim sausage meat, some w'ork in dried beef chipping (the chipped beef department), some put sliced bacon in cartons, some pack butter in cartons, some wrap butter and some break eggs in the egg room. Q. They go to work at what time in the morning? A. Seven o’clock. Q. What time do they go to lunch? A. Twelve o’clock. Q. Have half an hour off? A. Half an hour. Q. Where do they get their lunch? A. All over our plant, in four or five different places we have lunch rooms. Q. Do you serve lunch there all da}-? A. No, sir; we serve coffee for 1 cent a cup; most of the girls bring their own lunch and get just the coffee. In each one of our departments we have a rest room, presided over by a matron, where these girls can go and eat their lunch and rest during the noon hour. Q. At 12:30 o’clock they go back to work? A. Yes, sir. Q. What time do they quit? A. Five thirty. Q. Are they on their feet the most of the time? A. A large per- centage of our girls, 65 to 70 per cent are doing work where they can sit down; the other percentage, 30 to 35 per cent, are on work where they can sit down if they desire; there are seats provided for them. The girls in the canning room, the chipped beef department, the egg rooms, the butter rooms — their work is such that they can sit down. Q. That leaves about 35 per cent that cannot sit down? A. They can sit down if they want to, but it is not quite so convenient as it is in the other departments; trimming sausage meat they have to stand up when- ever they do the trimming. Q. Let me ask you, hir. Harding, would the}'- hold their jobs very long if, while at work, instead of standing up, they were to sit down? A. Public Meetings and Testimony 703 We never object to a girl sitting down. I never have, and no foreman ever did; we don’t mind them resting at all. Q. I want to understand you clearly. You say that 65 per cent are doing work where they can sit down? A. Sixty-five to 75 per cent. Q. I want to know what the other 35 or 25 per cent do? A. Trim sausage meat. Q. And they are expected to stand up? A. Yes. Q. Where do these girls live? A. Well, I could not tell you exactly; the bulk of them live between Halsted Street, Western Avenue and from Forty-seventh Street south. Q. How are conditions in the neighborhood in which they live? A. In what respect? Q. Are the housing conditions good? A. Well, we have a welfare department in our plant that is presided over by the Visiting Nurses’ Association. They have a representative at our plant; we furnish the office and certain rooms for her, and she visits the homes of all of our girls who are absent from duty to see if they are sick or ill, or the reason that they are not working. She goes right into their homes. If she finds a case that she thinks we ought to know about she reports it to us. If it is a case that requires medicine we see that they are taken care of. Q. Are the majority of these girls native Americans? A. No, sir; they are mostly foreign born. Q. Born in what country? A. Well, the largest percentage of them are Lithuanians, Slavs, Bohemians, Servians and Polish. Q. Are they organized into a union? A. I don’t know anything about that. Q. How long have you been connected with Armour & Company? A. One year. Q. You don’t know whether girls out there were ever organized into a labor union? A. Not that 1 know of; I have been in the stock yards twenty-three years, but I never knew that the girls were organized into a union. Q. You don’t know whether it is true or false that organized girls on piece work used to make $18.00 a week for the very work that you are now paying these girls $6.00 a week? A. Never to my knowledge. Q. You don’t know if that organization was broken up and the places of those girls filled with cheaper foreign labor? A. No, sir; not to my knowledge, not during my time. Q. What would you say, Mr. Harding, is the lowest amount upon which a girl can decently live in the City of Chicago? A. Well, I am not competent to judge on that particular point; I would not want to say; it all depends upon their environments and their desires. Q. If you had a girl that you thought a good deal of, a sister or a daughter, you would not want her to try it on very much less than $8.00 a week? A. I have lived and supported my mother and two brothers on $5.00 a week. Q. How long ago was that? A. Oh, that has been twenty-five years ago. I got $5.00 a week for three years; I was the only support of my mother and two smaller brothers. Q. Was that in Chicago? A. No, sir; in Kansas City; it all depends upon your desires and the way you want to dress and the way you want to live. You can live on $5.00 a week, as I have done it. Q. Five dollars a week twenty-five years ago was much more than the same amount today? A. Yes, then it would go farther than today. SENATOR BEALL: I worked for $2.50 a week. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Could the company with which you are con- nected afford to raise the wages of these girls from below to above the bread-line; that is, from below $8.00, $9.00 or $10.00 a week, to whatever it may be found would constitute a living wage, without increasing the cost to the consumer? A. Our average pay for the 844 girls was $7.19; 704 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee that was the average for ten weeks. It all depends upon how high you want to make it. The packing business is scattered, particularly through the Missouri River states, and there is considerable competition between Kansas City, Omaha and Chicago. If it costs more to do a certain line of work in Chicago than it does in Kansas City — if it costs more in Chicago to do_ work than at Kansas City. Cudah}% for instance, in Kansas Citj-, or Morris in Omaha, they would get the business in some cases. In other words, when the states that have the large packing centers that don’t adopt it, it might mean the cutting down of the department and laying off of the help, for instance, of our chipped beef, of our sliced bacon depart- ment, where a large percentage of the girls are working on a very close scale. If we had to pay $ 1.00 or $ 1.50 a week for our girl labor more in those departments, it would give an advantage to people in the same line of business elsewhere, outside of the State of Illinois. Q. Why do you pay by the hour instead of by the week? A. Well, throughout the entire stock yards the wages generally are on an hourly basis. Q. Is that because the average girl does not work a full week? A. I would not say so; it is a custom, I call it a custom. Q. Under this system you can v/ork a girl two or three hours today and four or five hours tomorrow, or not at all? A. Yes. Q. And that is done? A. The average, though, will come verj^ close; the girls will average around fifty-five to fifty-eight hours a week. Q. From fifty-five to fifty-eight hours a week? A. Yes; it is an impossibility to operate some of our departments sixty hours, because we can’t control the supply of hogs and cattle. Some da3^s the receipts are heavier than others, _ and, as the result, we cannot operate all of our departments all the time, sixty hours. Q. Now, under this hourly system, a girl has si.xtj' hours a week of her time to sell? A. Yes, sir. Q. She comes to you to sell it? A. Yes, sir. Q. And instead of buying all of her time at wholesale, you bui' it by retail, as you need it; if you need her all of her time today j-ou bui' it; she has no other market to go to; is that system fair to the girl? A. There is a lot of these girls that prefer work in the packing houses to doing domestic work. It is almost impossible to take one of these girls who are working in our departments and get them to accept a position as a domestic. Q. Why is that? A. They prefer to have their evenings to them- selves, their homes to themselves, their holidays to themselves; thej" prefer living there, as they do in the stock yards district, than to working as a domestic. Q. Do some of them go from your service into domestic service? A. I very rarely hear of it if they do. I have tried from time to time to get them to leave the packing house for some of our officials and some of our friends as a domestic, but they don’t care for the jobs; they come back again to work. Q. Do you get some girls from domestic service; do girls come from domestic service into your service? A. I could not answer that ques- tion, because we never question them when they come to work. This is work, probably, that they have been on before, and we simpl3' put them to work. I know it is an impossible proposition to get them to leave us and go to work at domestic work, because I have had experience in that direction; I have tried to get them to go to 0:3- own house. Q. And they won’t do it? A. The3- won’t do it; the3- want their evenings, their holidays and their Sundays to themselves. Q. Do they talk English? A. Some few; a larger percentage do not. Q. When you find a girl who speaks English, do 3-011 have to pa3- her more than $ 6 . 00 ? A. When we find an English speaking girl we usually have a position that we can utilize her services in to good advantage; perhaps that of a paymaster, perhaps as a forelad3" over the balance. Q. Now, let us get down to it; you use these girls because the3- are good, big, strong girls and don’t have to spend so much mone3- to live Public Meetings and Testimony 705 :1 on, isn’t that why you use them? A. No; we use them because there are certain lines of work which women can do much handier than men; they I are niftier; it is a clumsy thing for a man to wrap a pound of butter; ' women have nimble fingers, for instance, putting chipped beef in a jar. :: There is not one man in 100 that can do that and have it look like anything. A woman has an idea of tidiness that a man hasn’t got. ' Q. You hire them not because they are big and strong, but because they are dainty and neat? A. They are niftier than men. Q. Did you ever have a strike out in the stock yards? A. Many of them. Q. When was the last big strike? A. 1904. Q. Were you there at that time? A. Yes, sir. Q. You were there before that time? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are familiar with the conditions out there pretty thoroughly? A. Yes, sir. Q. Before the strike of 1904 were American born girls doing the work now being done by the girls you have described? A. There were quite a number of American born girls working there at that time. 1 Q. Is it a fact, or is it not, that as a result of that strike, foreign- born girls were taken into the stock yards? A. No; there was a large percentage of foreign-born men and foreign-born women in the stock i| yards -prior to the strike of 1904, and the same condition is true in the 1 stock yards as it is in other parts of the United States in manufacturing districts, where this Slav element comes in more and more as the years . go on. They keep on increasing and increasing all the time. The vicinity ' of the stock yards is now populated by Slavish people, and we have to draw upon those who live in the vicinity of the stock yards for our help. Q. They are pretty good citizens? A. We have no fault to find with them at all. Q. They ought to be paid as much as American-born people? A. ■ ■ We make no distinction. Q. You don’t make much of a distinction, but I notice that most of your girls are paid at the rate of 10 cents an hour? A. About 50 per cent of the girls that work on the hourly basis, out of the 844 there is a larger percentage, 54 per cent, that are working on piece work; they i average from 12 to 14 cents. You haven’t calculated them in your table ! at all. S Q. No, I merely notice that you have 311 girls working at 10 cents I an hour. A. Yes, that is on the hourly basis. ! Q. Those girls have got to work sixty hours a week to make $6.00? i" A. Yes, sir. j Q. And 35 per cent of them have to stand up? A. No, 35 per cent Hi of the total number of girls in the plant. Q. That is 35 per cent of what? A. They are ail doing work where they can sit down; the girls stand up on piece work generally, because U they think they can do it faster that way. - Q. What is the lowest amount paid last week to any girl working ■J under the piece system? A. I can’t tell you last week. . Q. In any average week? A. I will read you off a few of the f! average rates made. I will go down it rapidly: $7.88, $9.07, $5.92 — that girl, ►} perhaps, was absent. Q. How many hours did she work? A. I haven’t got that. j Q. She got $5.92? A. Yes; $9.69, $9.32, $8.22, $11.70, $10.01, $8.53, $6.87, $8.18, $12.85, $9.35, $10.74 and $9.36. Those are all piece workers, i-l doing work where they have to stand up. li Q. Do you know what the profits of Armour & Company were last 1 year? A. No, sir; I am only interested in the operating end, not the f financial end. Q. Upon what basis do you figure the worth of a girl? A. Generally r on the prices that similar work brings in similar cities, in other cities 706 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee doing the same kind of work that we are doing, our corapefitors, both here in Chicago and elsewhere. Q. I don’t catch that. A. We try to pay the same wages to our girls, for instance, working in the chipped beef department, that other packers pay here in Chicago, and that other packers pay elsewhere, that are in the same line of business as we are, so that our average cost of manufacture will correspond with the average cost of manufacture in those other cities. Q. You do pay, do you, the same as are paid by other packers in Chicago? A. We try to, but we may vary in some departments, but we are generally along on the same lines. Q. Then you remain back and wait until they fix the price? A. Xo, sir; we don’t, only in some cases. Q. Who takes the lead? A. We do in some cases; other cases some of the other packers do. Q. Now, here is a girl going to work in your labeling department; who fixes the amount that girl is to be paid? A. The superintendent’s office. Q. He know, does he, what is paid to a similar girl for doing similar work in Kansas City or here in Chicago? A. We know generally the wages that are paid for similar lines of wmrk. Q. How often do you get together on the outside and determine on how much these girls are going to be paid? A. We never did; we don’t get together at all to decide on how much they are going to be paid. Q. Yet you were telling me — I want to be fair with you — that these girls’ wages are fixed by the packers themselves? A. No, sir. I did not say anything of the kind. I said that we tried to keep in touch with what is being paid so that we can keep our factory going the same as other men in a similar line of business. Q. Suppose your concern were to raise the wages of these girls, who are now getting $6.00 to $10.00, and in Kansas City they should raise them and establish a $10.00 minimum, would that make any difference in the price that you would pay in Chicago? A. Probably not in Kansas City, but it probably would in Chicago if thej' wanted trained, skilled help to do the work. Q. If you were to establish, Mr. Harding, $10.00 as 3 'our minimum, it would be only a matter of time until the other factories would establish the same minimum? A. In Chicago? Q. Yes. A. It would probably be so. Q. Or might it happen that you would be called off; they would come to you and say, “You are paying too much?” A. No, thej^ wouldn’t do that; we handle that end of it ourselves, and we bother with nobody else; they would not dictate to us what we would paj' our help. Q. Then you think it is within the power of an^' packer to revolu- tionize conditions out there b}^ setting a precedent? A. Revolutionize it in what way? Q. By increasing the wages of the girls and bringing them up to a living wage? A. It is possible, providing the present wages is not a living wage. Q. Granted that they are not, then Air. Armour, Air. Swift, Air. Sulzberger, or anj’ of the gentlemen out there, individually can increase wages throughout the entire stock j'ards district? A. N^o, sir; he cannot. Q. Didn’t I understand j'ou to sar' that would be the result of in- creasing the pay of these girls? A. If one particular packer increased the wages of his help he would be able to select the best of the help; it would then be a matter of policr" whether the other packers would want to get along with less experienced help or make the same rate. It is just the same as with the department stores downtown. CHAIRAIAN O’HARA: That is all. Air. Harding. Thank j-ou. Mr. C. L. Charles’ Testimony. C. L. Charles, called as a witness before the Committee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: Public Meetings and Testimony 707 EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; What is your name? A. C. L. Charles. Q. And your business? A. With Morris & Company, at the stock yards. Q. What is your connection with that company? A. Assistant superintendent. Q. What business is this concern engaged in? A. Packers. Q. How many women and girls are employed in your concern? .A.. In the plant do you mean? Q. Yes. A. Exclusive of the office force, 324. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any of those girls? A. Ten cents an hour. Q. And the highest wage? A. The highest is 17^2 cents on a straight salary, then there is piece work. Q. How many girls are paid 10 cents an hour? A. Twenty-six. Q. What is the next? A. Eleven and a half. Q. How many are paid that? A. One hundred and twenty-eight. Q. What is the next? A. Twelve and a half. Q. And how many are paid that? A. One hundred and twenty. Q. What is the next? A. Fourteen and a half. Q. And how many are paid that? A. Fifteen — pardon me, twenty- three instead of fifteen. Q. Let us see, this is Morris & Company? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you compete with Armour & Company? A. We do with all packers. Q. We find that at Armours 311 girls are paid at the rate of 10 cents an hour, while only twenty-six at your place of business are paid at the rate of 10 cents an hour? A. Twenty-six; yes, sir. Q. You are paying a little more money, apparently, than Armour? A. I don’t know what Armour is paying; I heard this gentleman testify. Q. Well, Mr. Charles, why is this hourly system used? A. Well, it is used for the reason that the girls don’t work steady; they work on an hourly basis; one day might be a light day and they might quit at 4 o’clock, and the next day at 5:30 o’clock. Q. Can they quit at afiy time they want to? A. There is no restric- tion on them; if they have any reason that they want to quit, they quit; but the girls, as a rule, want the work, so they don’t quit as long as the work is there. Do you mean, now, if a girl wanted to go home that she could not, is that your question? Q. No, I would like to know whether this system of paying them by the hour is for the convenience of the girls or of the packers. Let me ask you a few questions leading up to that; are there some periods of the year or some periods of the month when you don’t need so many girls as at other periods? A. Yes, sir. Q. During your slack periods do you have some of these girls come in for a part of a week? A. Do you mean for a portion of the week? 0- Do voU' sometimes lay off all the girls for two or three hours a week? A. Yes. Q. That does happen sometimes? A. Yes. Q. And sometimes do you la}^ them all off for, say, a day? A. No. Q. Or for two or three hours a day? A. No. Q. Or for a period of suspension running for a week? A. No, it won’t run that much; you will find that the girls will make from fifty-six to fifty-eight hours a week, about on an average. Q. That would be an average? A. Yes, sir. O. That is, the girls would be willing to work the full sixty hours? A. Most of the girls want to get away on Saturday afternoons; in fact, seem to be anxious to get off. 708 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee 1 Q. If you let them off for, say, two hours on Tuesday, that would ' j not affect their getting off on Saturday, would it? A. No. i Q. They would still want to get off on Saturday afternoon? A. Yes. ( Q. If you let them off on Tuesday? A. That would be on account i of no work on Tuesday. Q. The girl has sixty hours of her time to sell? A. Yes, sir. Q. She comes to you and you are a big business man, a big business \ concern, and instead of buying from this girl wholesale, buying outright her sixty hours’ time during the week, you insist upon buying from the girl retail, buying her time in hour lots, as you can use it. and the girl has to stand the loss of any time that you can’t use? A. That is verj^ true. Q. Then the real loss occasioned by slackness falls upon the girls, under this system? A. There is no question about that; also the custom as to the men is the same; j^ou will find even the high-classed butchers are working under the same condition; they are getting good, big salaries, are paid by the hour just the same as the girls; that is a custom that has been in effect in the yards ever since I can remember. Q. Are you paid by the hour? A. No. Q. Are the highest salaried people paid by the hour? A. No, simply the people that work in the plant, including all butchers, meat cutters, meat trimmers, all work on piece work. Q. Don’t you believe, Mr. Charles, that it is injustices of that sort that brings discontent upon your working people? A. Yes. Q. What are you doing for the welfare of these girls. Mr. Charles? Q. Well, we feel that we have done quite a little out there; we have three doctors, a dentist and a nurse that devote their exclusive time to the employes of the plant, girjs and w'omen, too. Now, we have in force and have had for about three vears what we call an Employes’ Benefit Associa- tion; the employes contribute a small amount to that association, and that association pays $3.00 a week, and it will run up to nine; nine is the largest we allow them to pay. and if they are sick they get medical service, medicine, doctor’s attention, and, if necessary, we take them to a hospital without cost to them at all. In fact, right at the present time I think we have twelve people in the hospital; two of them at Mercy and some at Wesley. That is, if they have an accident or sickness, whether the accident happened at home or where; we also have a dentist out there that devotes most of his time to the \\-omen; we find it a hard matter to get the men to pay any attention to it. Q. How rntfch money do you expend annually for this kind of work? A. Probably $8,000 at this plant. Q. You pay the doctors and dentists? A. Yes, sir. Q. You haven’t any benefit association? A. Yes, if the employe is away, if they are sick for any reason whatever, they get $3.00 a week. Understand, they don’t get their time. Q. Who pays that $3.00 a week? A. The Employes’ Benefit Associa- tion. Q. Do they also pav these doctors? A. Oh. no, no, Morris & Com- pany pays the doctors; the doctors are exclusive of the Benefit Association. O. And the dentist is exclusive of the Benefit Association? A. Yes. sir: that is a matter of charity: the dentist was put on about a year agcv a^nd he is right at the plant from about 9 o’clock in the morning tn 5 o’clock in the afternoon; he does not po to the houses as the doctors do; and the nurses go to the houses, we aim to keep two doctors nut all the time, and a nurse and one doctor at the plant, and there is quite a sized hospital at the plant. Q. V’hat finally happens to the girls who are workin? for your con- cern — do they leave for other positions nr to marry? A. Oh. well, that’s something that I don’t know: that is a liard thing to say. You would be surprised at the large percentage of married women that are working at the plant. You will find a man coming in and ask that they put his woman to work. , Q. Who collects their wages? A. They do. Public Meetings and Testimony 709 Q. The men? A. Oh, no, no; they won’t give it to their husbands, they give it to the women. Now, don’t misconstrue the meaning of that; you will find that some of the people are saving their money, working men and women; where they are both working, you will often find that they are saving money. And again, I find that those people are pretty well up on religion; take the Polish people for instance: they seem to be very strict. Of course, we see them around the plant, necessarily they have to be around there; what their home relations may be, may be different. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: We have down in the General Assembly a bill now for a minimum wage scale law; I presume you have heard of it? A. Yes, sir. Q. It provides for a commission of three to be appointed to look after these matters. A. Yes. Q. They are starting out at $7.50 a week for the minimum; this, of course, is not for apprentices, they begin lower down than that; what would you think of that? A. Well, Senator, it would not do for any man to say that they would not think well of a minimum of $7.00 or $7.50 a week. Q. Do you think that is too low? A. People are living on less than that, but how they are living you gentlemen know, i Q. I am asking you if you think that is too low. A. A girl cannot i| live on less than $7.00 a week. Q. We have started out at $7.50 a week; it is liable to be arr ended, if and we are asking for information from men that know. A. Yes. 1 ; Q. Of course, if this bill passes, which I think it will, then the if Governor will appoint three good men upon that commission, men who 7’ understand conditions; now, do you think that $7.00 to $7.50 per week is r; too low for a girl to live on and live decently? A. No, I don’t think so. 1[ Q. So, all around, do you think it would be a good thing? A. Yes, i I do. p Q. We have talked with a good many people in regard to this matter, j[, and I want to state now that Missouri, and, in fact, thirty-two states besides this are investigating this matter now. A. I went to one of their t' meetings down in the country; Oklahoma has the same thing. I was down there last week, and do you know that Oklahoma has the same proposition " that we have up here. The business men are fighting it down there. They are making no distinction down there as to stenographers and girls work- ii ing in plants: they are also trying to fix a maximum. They have not I included that in any bill, but they are -trying to. ' Q. The business men in Chicago, and we have talked to a great many people on State Street, and they seem very agreeable to it, and every place that we have been to they think it is a very good thing, t, A. If you will pardon me, let me say to you gentlemen something about the question of marriage out there in the plants: you understand that [ji! all of these women employed out there, or the majority of them, are foreigners, do you understand that? Now, assuming there is anything , ■ wrong going on, it is not on account of money. We know these things go on ourselves. For instance, one man and one woman will run a I I sporting house and possibly have two or three girls; I don’t believe there ! is any money in it. I believe that it is due to the natural desire of these people; that is my honest opinion of it. I believe, coming in contact with ! them, I have some fair idea of it; in other words, what I am trying to I explain is I don’t think any of those girls are reaping any financial benefit for it if anything wrong is going on. ^ SENATOR BEALL: Don’t you think that a girl working for from i, $3.50 to $5.00 a week is liable to go astray? A. There is no question ( , about it. Q. She can’t live on that? A. That is my own opinion. ' SENATOR BEALL: That is the general opinion. 710 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee EXAMINATION CONTINUED BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Do you say, Mr. Charles, that the condition that you are facing at the yards is in a way brought about by the low wages that are being paid, and do you not say that the pa 3 'ing of higher wages will correct it? A. Yes, possibly. Q. These people are living in a district where the housing conditions are not the best? A. They are very bad. Q. If they were paid more money thej* would graduallj- improve the atmosphere in which they live? A. \es, 1 agree with you, but j'ou must bear in mind the enormous amount of money that these cheap laborers get together and send to the old country. You will find that these little banks are doing an enormous business. That class of labor use up every cent of what theyuhave to live on and to send away. Q. There is another angle to it, and I know that you will consider it, and that is; if you would pay more money out there the emploj'ment would be more attractive? A. Yes, that is true. Q. To American-born girls? A. That is true; there is no argument that the presence of the foreigner there is entirely due to low wages, not only men but women. Q. That is because you get foreign labor in there that will accept low wages? A. There is no question about it, not only women but men. Q. I believe that you ought to pay your employes what they can earn; that you should not pay the foreigner who does not speak our language less money than you would pay to our own American-born, because that is encouraging a baneful sort of class feeling. A. Yes, sir. Q. A feeling between the native-born and the foreign-born? A. Especially against the foreigner, because he was doing his work so cheap. I do not know that it would be of any interest to you, but if at any time you would care to come out to the stock yards, I think the packers would be glad to show you, I don’t mean this for any purpose, but I think that they are all trying to help their employes. 1 know that ^Ir. Swift has spent an awful lot of money trying to help their employes, and I believe that if some of you would come out there that you would change your ideas. Q. I have no ideas about it. A. You will be surprised how neat and clean those foreign women are kept. SENATOR BEALL; Do you know how much they are pa 3 -ing for labor in Germany — 50 cents a day? THE WITNESS; Common labor in the 3 'ards now is $1.75; 17’4 cents and from that to 20 cents; the 3 ' will average about 18 cents an hour or 18^ cents. Whereupon, upon motion duly made and seconded, an adjourn- ment was taken, subject to the call of the Chair. SESSION XXVI From employer witnesses, the Committee obtains information I as to low wages paid to husbands and fathers and admissions that the earnings of many such are inadequate for the family support, ^ compelling the placing of young daughters at work. Witnesses 'testify voluntarily, without being sworn, expressing their desire to co-operate with the Committee in every way possible. Twelve ( dollars a week minimum wage for married man is standard ac- cepted generally by those testifying. Testimony of; I = Mr. George M. Reynolds, president. Continental and Com- [ mercial National Bank; ! Mr. James M. Simpson, vice-president, Marshall Field & Co.; Mr. Edward Lehmann, vice-president. The Fair; I Mr. David R. Forgan, president. National City Bank; Mr. Julius Rosenwald, president. Sears, Roebuck & Co.; Mr. John T. Pirie, Jr., vice-president, Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. Chicago, Illinois, June 6, 1913, 10:00 o’clock A. M. j LaSalle Hotel. I The Committee met pursuant to notice. Chairman O’Hara and !' Senators Beall, Tossey and Woodard being present, the following r proceedings were had : f CHAIRMAN O’HARA: For the information of witnesses at today’s ' session, I am delegated by the Committee to announce that none will be ii put under oath. The Committee desires to co-operate with the em- I ployers and the employed to get all the information, which may be j obtainable, concerning the wages paid to men, and the connection of f that payment of wages to men with the wages paid to women. Ij f Mr. George M. Reynolds’ Testimony. i GEORGE M. REYNOLDS, called as a witness before the Com- i mittee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as follows: : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. George' M. 'I Reynolds. i Q. And your business, Mr. Reynolds? A. I am president of the 1 Continental and Commercial National Bank, and vice-president of the p American Trust & Savings Bank, and the Hibernian Banking Association. * Q. Will you tell the Committee, Mr. Reynolds, how many men are employed in the banks with which you are connected? A. Eight hun- dred and thirty-seven. j Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any man in your employ? : A. Five dollars a week, or twenty dollars a month, to office boys — I purely office men that come in from the graded schools. 1 Q. How many office boys have you today to whom you are paying I that wage? A. About twenty-five. : Q- What is the next scale in payment? A. The majority of boys I that come in. come in from the eighth grade of the schools, usually ■ at from $25 to $35 a month. ! Q. How many are there at that age? A. About forty, j Q. And the next in that scale, Mr. Reynolds? A. Well, the next I in scale will be the clearing house, or transit clerks, at from forty to sixty dollars a month, i 711 712 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. How many of those clerks have you at forty dollars a month? A. I could not tell you off-hand. Q. How many at wages running from $40 to $60 a month? A. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t have that. I have the maximum and the average, and I have the memorandum of what we regard as the real lowest. Q. And of the sixty dollars a month; that is the next in the scale? A. Oh, well, it ranges from sixty to one hundred dollars a month, and runs from that up through the various lines of work to three hun- dred dollars a month. Q. Can you tell the Committee, Mr. Reynolds, approximately how many men are employed at a wage of from $40 to $100 a month? A. Well, it would be a mere guess on my part, from $40 to $100 a month, but I expect two or three hundred probably; that is only a guess because I have nothing to do from day to day with the employes. Q. How do those ages run? A. W’hen they get from sixty to one hundred dollars a month, those boj^s are probably from 21 years to 25 years or 26 years of age. We take in none under sixteen years of age, and we take them in as a rule, under the civil service, although we don’t have any set rules in regard to that. None of these boys at all have any experience, and are of very little value to us to start with, and they are used in the beginning to simply run errands in the office, between the officers and the various departments and the various clerks. Those boys stay in those positions for probably six months, and then get a raise of probably five dollars a month, and within a year, probably, an additional five dollars a month, but the vacancies in our force, in view of the number of men that we employ, are so many, that they are rapidly advanced from those lower points all the time, but the messengers, the messenger boys and office boys, who come in on this low wage, have had no expe- rience whatever in business, and for the first six months, as I said before, are of very little value to us, although they get paid up to forty dollars a month; if we could get them with experience, we would much prefer, but we can’t get them. They have to begin at apprenticeship in order to get the experience. Q. Five dollars a week is, as you understand it, a fixed rate for office boys in the city of Chicago? A. Well, I should saj' from five to six dollars a week among the banks; in mercantile houses it is less than that. Still, I am not familiar enough to speak of that. Q. Would you say, Mr. Reynolds, that the fixing of seven dollars and ^ half as a minimum wage for boys, minors, would work an injustice on business? A. Well, I should think that anything that fixed a minimum or maximum price, when you eliminate efficiency, and put it on the basis of mere dollars and cents, it might work a hardship in some instances. I don’t think that the question, so far as the banks are concerned, of dollars and cents, would make any difference especialh'. but I do think it would impair the efficiency, because if 3 ’ou take awaj- from it the merit system and the opportunities for advancement through merit, I think it would impair the efficienc}^. Q. The Committee has been informed in man 3 ^ instances that girls have been paid five dollars a week, and bo 3 's of about the same class five dollars a week, because the 3 ' were inexperienced and not worth more A. Well, that is the point I have tried to make in_ what I have said here: then 3mu would not pa3' an3- attention to efficienc3' or skillfulness at all. You would start ever3' bo3' and ever3' girl at a given price regardless of whether the3' could earn that or not; that would be your theory? ■Q. How would 3 'ou say this five dollars is arrived at as a fair figure for beginners? A. I would say that it is more probabh' a custom than an 3 ^thing else. Q. Don’t you believe that the custom should be based on the cost of living of these bo 3 'S and girls, rather than an arbitrar 3 ' figure of five dollars or six dollars per week? A. Possibh- so. I wouldn’t object to that myself. They have not had any experience in the world in busi- I Public Meetings and Testimony 713 r ness, and there is another phase of it which we would have to take into » consideration. » Q. You have some other figures there, tabulated, Mr. Reynolds? ;; A. We have 827 men in the three institutions, with average salaries of ’ $900 a year, or $75.00 a month. The lowest, as I have told you, is the f | office boy, who begins wdth no experience, and the messenger boy, who i ' begins with no experience, and the highest is $300 a month, under the f;t official positions. ■ _ Q. The average is $900 a year? A. Yes, it lacks one dollar of that in actual computation. _Q. Have you any idea, Mr. Reynolds, or have you ever conducted |i an investigation along that line, as to how much it would cost a man . i to support his wife and a family of one, say a child, a wife and himself, »i! in the city of Chicago? A. No, I can’t say that I have ever made an investigation that would make my opinion of any value to you. I CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I think that is all, Mr. Reynolds; thank >1 you. I Mr. James Simpson’s Testimony, JAMES SIMPSON, called as a witness before the Committee was ex- amined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: Q. Your name, please? A. James Simpson. * Q. And your business? A. Vice President of Marshall Field & Com- If pany. d Q. How many men do you employ at Marshall Field & Company? A. p Thirty-five hundred and ten. |;; Q. What is the average wage, Mr. Simpson? A. Nineteen dollars a >1 week, exclusive of section heads. Q. Nineteen dollars a week is the average of 3510 men? A. No, that is the average of three thousand men over twenty-one years of age; the !j others are under twenty-one. li Q. These men are employed in what capacities, generally speaking? r A. Porters, elevator men, and so forth — salesmen, packers, drivers. I Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any of these men under twenty-one ■ years of age, to make up this average? A. Oh, I should say that $12.50 '■! would be the lowest wage that we pay a married man; I have got it tabu- ilj lated in that way. J Q. You make a distinction in the payment of wages between those paid I to married men and those to single men? A. Well, I say that twelve dollars ii| a week is the lotvest wage that we pay to married men. J Q. There is a distinction between married and single men? A. Yes. ji Q. You pay married men more than you pay single men? A. I would not say that, but we do not want married men to get less than twelve dollars 'li a week in our employ. Q. If you have a man in your employ and he is single, making ten dol- 11 lars a week, when he gets married, do you raise him to twelve dollars a : week? A. That would be our aim; we don’t want a married man in our I employ getting less than twelve dollars a week. I ' Q. Then you have a sort of a minimum wage scale for married men? A. For married men, yes. Q. And that minimum wage scale is twelve dollars? A. Yes. ! . Q. Now, do you have a minimum wage scale for married men with ,| children? A. No, we don’t make any distinction, j Q. You don’t make any distinction there? A. No. j Q. The size of the family you leave up to him? A. Yes. 1 ’ Q. Have you some more figures there, Mr. Simpson? A. No, I think ‘!: that is all I have got here. We pay young fellows, say from sixteen to twen- j ty-one, from eight to twelve dollars a week. I Q. You pay young fellows from sixteen to twenty-one from eight to 714 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee twelve dollars a week? A. Yes, boys below sixteen — we have only got a very few of them — we pay from five to eight dollars a week. SENATOR TOSSEY: That is below sixteen? A. Yes, we have only a very few of them. CHAIRMAN O’HARA; Q. Then for boys of sixteen or over, you have a minimum wage scale of eight dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. And you pay none below that? A. I wouldn’t say that; there is possibly an exception here and there, but it is our aim to do that; as a matter of fact, you can’t get boys for less than eight dollars a week. Q. Why is that? A. Because of the supply and demand. Q. Is a boy of sixteen worth more to you than a girl of sixteen? A. You can’t answer that question; he might be, yes, and he might not be; it would depend on the boy and it would depend on the girl. Q. You have girls in your store who get less than eight dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. You have no boys of sixteen or over, who get less than eight? A. We can’t get them; the supply and demand regulates that. Q. What is the girl to do, if she is as valuable to you as the boy, and she does not get eight dollars a week; what has she to do to get it? A. If she is just as valuable as the boy, we w'ould pay it to her. Q. Isn’t she just as valuable? A. That is a question you can’t answer; that is a hard question; it depends on the boy and it depends on the girl. SENATOR WOODARD: And it depends also on the individual? A. It depends also on the individual. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: I can’t understand how it is dependent on the individual, when we find that boys are getting a minimum of eight dollars a week, and girls of the same age and the same experience are getting less than eight dollars a week; it seems to me it is a matter of se.x rather than of individuals. A. It depends on their value to the business. Q. Let us understand it, Mr. Simpson, do you have in your stores boys who are getting eight dollars a week? A. Possibly yes, I should imagine so. Q. You have some girls who are getting less than eight dollars a week employed as clerks? A. Yes, a very few girls get less than eight dollars a week, are not employed as clerks. They do different classes of work. They work in the auditing department. You can’t get much of a salesgirl for much less than eight dollars a week in our business. I think statistics showed you that there are very few girls that are getting less than eight dollars a week; the average woman, exclusive of section heads, in our busi- ness, gets from twelve to thirteen dollars a week. Q. The girl clerk, who is getting seven dollars a we'ek, Mr. Simpson, isn’t she as valuable to you as the boy who is getting eight dollars a week? A. It depends upon what she sells; it depends upon her sales. Q. Then there is no distinction made in your establishment, between girl labor and boy labor? A. No, their compensation depends on their value to the business; there is no distinction made as between girls and boj'S in that respect. If a girl is worth ten dollars a week to the business, we give it to her; if she is worth fifteen dollars a week, we give it to her; we don’t compare it with the boys’ work. Q. We find here, Mr. Simpson, that the law of supply and demand, practically, in your business, has established a minimum for boys of eight dollars a week, and that such a minimum for girls is not established because you insist the girls are not worth that much money; would a law fixing a minimum wage for girls of eight dollars a week work a hardship on any busi- ness, any more hardship on any business than the law of supply and demand has, which fixes a minimum wage for boj’-s? A. If it were a Federal law, I don’t think it would, but if you make a law in Illinois that does not apply across the line, then it will work a hardship in this state, if you have got a minimum which is very high. I think that it would affect the manufacturing interests more than it would the mercantile interests. Q. Do you think, Mr. Simpson, that, as a matter of fact, depending on Federal legislation would mean a long wait for these girls before they re- Public Meetings and Testimony 715 ceived what this Committee has been pleased to term a living wage? A. Well, it might be. Q. It would be a long wait? A. It might be. Q. Have you any idea of how much it costs a man to support a family i in the city of Chicago? A. No, but I do know that the United States statis- tics show that 46 per cent of the families in this country get twelve dollars ; a week or less; 65 per cent of the families in this country, their incomes is nine hundred dollars a year or less. ! Q. Sixty-five per cent of the families; that includes the families in the I rural districts as well as in the metropolitan districts? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you any statistics that apply to families in the metropolitan districts in cities, say of sixty to one hundred thousand? A. I do not know that that is published in the census reports. Q. What proportion of our people live in rural communities, as com- pared to those who live in the metropolitan districts? A. That, of course, is published, but I haven’t got that proportion at my fingers’ ends. Q. That would be about sixty-five per cent of our people who live in rural districts outside of the metropolitan districts, so that those figures might be open to some discussion, might they not? A. Oh, yes. I am just giving you what I know. The census reports published last year show that sixty-five per cent of the families in this country live on an income of less than nine hundred dollars a year; those are vital statistics. Q. Well, you have never conducted an investigation, Mr. Simpson, as to the cost of supporting a family in the City of Chicago? A. No. Q. How did you decide on twelve dollars a week as the lowest amount that you would care to pay a married man? A. Oh, it is an arbitrary de- cision, based on what other men are getting; it is more or less comparative. Q. You desire to be fair with your workers, unquestionably? A. Yes, sir. Q. That is good business with you, I dare say? A. Yes, sir. Q. And in that spirit of fairness you fixed twelve dollars a week as a sort of a minimum wage scale for married men; would it or would it not, be fair and equitable for the state to fix, after an investigation as to the actual living expenses of a family, a minimum wage to be paid married men; would you, or would you not, welcome legislation of that nature? A. I don’t know that I would; from a selfish standpoint, it would be im- material to me and it wouldn’t make much difference. Q. Speaking in a broader sense? A. Speaking in a broader sense. I don’t know; I haven’t got it studied out enough to say whether it would be better for the state or not. I say this, however, that unless it is a Federal statute, I think it would be hurtful to the state. Q. Hurtful in what way, Mr. Simpson? A. In putting the state in unfair competition with other states. Q. Would not_ the possible harm, temporary we would hope, be offset by the benefit coming from everyone in the state getting a living, a living earned by the male of the family and enjoyed by wife and children as well? A. Oh, I don’t know as to that; I couldn’t say as to that. Q. Is there any connection, Mr. Simpson, any direct connection, be- tween the low wages paid to a married man to support a family, and vice among women? A. My personal opinion is that there is not. Q. None at all? A. No. Q. What is the cause of vice among women, where it comes from economic conditions? A. Environment — home training. Q. Environment and home training, do they not depend somewhat upon the income received by the head of the family? A. Not the mere environment. Q. There is a difference? A. I think so. Q. Mere environment is not dependent upon the physical home at- mosphere? A. I think not. Q. Bad housing has nothing to do with morals? A. Oh, I think 716 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee very_ little; very little. Bad housing is a separate subject. It is bad eco- nomics; it is bad in principle. Q. How are you going to get good housing, Mr. Simpson, without the use of money? A. Well, that helps. Q. Then, in all fairness, isn’t there some connection between wages paid to the head of the family, and the moral atmosphere? A. I think very little. Q. But you will admit that there is some? A. Oh, it is infinitesimal. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Q. You spoke about a Federal law; there are some thirty states that have started on the same line of work that we are on and have appointed commissions similar to this. I was down to St. Louis last week, and I attended two of their sessions there. They had business men down there on the stand and they were asking the same kind of questions that we are asking, and I am of the opinion that this inquiry is going to reach all over the United States; I believe Indiana, Wis- consin, Iowa, and some thirty odd states, have appointed commissions of this kind to seek light on the subject, and we are here to find out and to ask questions, and we are much obliged to you for your coming here. This is all done in a friendly spirit, to help one another, and if j'ou can give us any other pointers, we would like to have them. A. I would like to tell you anything that 3^011 want to know. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY; Now, in the sale of 3-our goods, I believe that you are governed, as a rule, your prices are governed by the suppE' and demand? A. Yes. Q. That is as a rule, but sometimes there are exceptions to ili' A. Yes. Q. In hiring 3'our clerks and hiring your woman help and man help, isn’t that also controlled by the laws of suppE' and demand? A. Yes, to a very great extent. Q. But there are some exceptions to that rule? A. I think that is a controlling factor. Q. And if you should create any law there would still be to ov'er- come that law of suppl3' and demand, is that correct? A. Yes. I think so. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Just a few more questions: a clerk starting in your store, an inexperienced clerk, would get about how much? A. How much? Q. A man clerk, what would be the lowest that 3'ou would pa3’ him — eight dollars a week? A. Yes, I should think so. Q. What is the highest wage he might expect to receive as a clerk? A. Oh, he might go away up the scale; he might get up to ten thousand dollars a year. Q. As a clerk? A. As a salesman, 3'es. We have — I should sa3' that would be the extreme, though we have men that are getting that much. Q. Take the retail stores on State street. 3'ours for instance, what is the highest wage you paA^ any man as a clerk, emplo3'ed on a salar\'? A. I should think it would run up to ten thousand dollars. Q. Commissions and salary? A. Yes. Q. You have had clerks who have been in the store there a great many years? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the greatest period of service in length of time of any man clerk in your employ? A. Fifty years — that ma3' var}' two or three years — possibly forty-five or fifty years. Public Meetings and Testimony 717 Q. How much are those men receiving today? A. Oh, they are re- ceiving all sorts of salaries, all pretty good salaries, all the clerks that have been there that length of time are receiving good salaries. Q. What is the lowest amount paid any man that has been in your employ between forty and fifty years? A. Doing any kind of work? Q. No, as a clerk? A. I can’t tell you that; I haven’t the figures on that. Q. Was there celebrated about six months ago, the completion of fifty years of service by a man clerk in your employ? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you recall the name of that clerk? A. Edward Nevers. Q. What is his address, Mr. Simpson? A. He lives out on Wash- ington boulevard. Q. Has he been a clerk in the store for fifty years? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you mind telling the Committee how much he is receiving to- day? A. Well, he gets a salary of six thousand dollars a year and com- missions, I think; I have forgotten what that is, I think it is about two thousand dollars; I think he is getting eight thousand dollars a year. Q. How much was he paid at the time he started in the store? A. Probably two dollars a week, I don’t know. Q. Then in fifty years, he has come up from two dollars a week to eight thousand dollars a year? A. He has been getting that for a long time. Q. Have you any other instance of that kind? A. Not any other instance of that kind; I suppose not fifty years, but between forty and fifty, I should say; we have had innumerable instances of that kind, I should say, perhaps we have had thirty men. Q. What would you say is the lowest paid to any of those men? A. I don’t know that; I suppose we have old fellows down in the warehouses, one or two, who might be getting fourteen or fifteen dollars a week, who have been there upwards of thirty-five years; they are on a pension really; they come and go as they please, and there is a place for them to stop. They are not worth anything to us today; they are worthless today, but they are kept on the roll. They have lost their value years ago, but they are there and will be kept on the roll as long as they live. Q. Did they ever receive any more money than they are paid today? A. No. Q. They were not paid any more money than they are paid today and you. look upon them as useless? A. No, they are of no use to us in our business. Q. Have you an age limit? A. No. Q. None at all? A. No. Q. Suppose a man sixty years of age should apply to you for work as a beginner, a clerk, would he get the job? A. No, sir. . Q. Then there is a sort of an age limit? A. There might be ex- ceptions, but as a rule, no. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: I want to ask a question or two; your men and your women help are about of equal numbers, pretty close together, aren’t they? A. I think so, about even. Q. Well, now, I want to ask a question and I wish you would answer it if you are not afraid of getting your hair pulled when you get back to the store; take them all around, on the average, the women and the men, are the women as good salesladies, sale for sale, as the men? A. It de- pends on the department; it depends on the department. You take a de- partment selling men’s wear, and a man would be the better salesman, but in a department selling women’s wear, a woman would be the best sales- man; on the other hand, in the carpet department, a man makes the best salesman; it depends entirely upon the department you put them in. Q. Taking the average of all your business, are the women as good 718 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee as the men? Don’t answer that question, if you are afraid to; we will just pass it. A. I can’t answer it except as I have. Q. You know, in passing through your stores, the girls or the women that are salesladies, you know which are the best? A. Well, I would not think of employing a man in some spots, and there are other spots that I wouldn’t think of employing a woman in. Q. On an average, is a woman as good as a man in selling goods? A. Oh, I don’t think I can answer that question intelligently otherwise than what I have. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Let me ask the question then in another way; with your permission, Senator? SENATOR BEALL: Yes. go ahead. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Q. How many clerks are there, men and women, in your employ as clerks? A. Three thousand, we will say. Q. Of the three thousand, _ how many are men and how many are women? A. We will say half and half. Q. Are you sure it is half and half? A. No, I am not sure; I am guessing now, I don’t know. Q. Haven’t you ever looked it up? A. Yes, but I can’t carry all those statistics in my head. Q. Suppose then it is half and half, half men and half women, which half will sell the more goods? A. The men, I think would. Q. I wonder if you could prepare a little table for us, showing the men employed as clerks and the total amount of their sales for any week or any month, and the total number of women, and the amount of their sales for any week or any month? A. It would not get you anywhere, because some merchandise runs up into money quickly, and others do not. ' ' SENATOR BEALL: Won’t it average up? Haven’t you got ladies that sell as high-priced goods as men? Wouldn’t it average up? A. I don’t believe so. Q. I believe that is the point; if we could get at that, whether women are equal to men selling goods in stores. I think that point is well taken. A. I don’t believe it would help you any. SENATOR BEALL: I believe that women are better than men, and always did believe in women, and I would like to get them above the av- erage if you possibly can get it figured out in some way, and I believe you can. Think it over and see if you can give us anj^ information in that line. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The table, if you can prepare it, should show the number of men employed as clerks, and the total of their sales, and the total profit in those sales, and the total wage paid to those man clerks, and a similar table respecting the woman clerks, and then bv com- parison we can reach some scientific deduction as to whether girls are getting enough money as compared with men, and also whether the men are getting enough money as compared with girls; don’t you think that is the way to approach this subject scientifically? A. Yes, I think it is the way to approach the subject; that is, to get it from statistics. | SENATOR BEALL: That is the reason I ask the question; that is the only way, and that struck me just a minute ago. if we could get the average sales, then we could find out whether the ladies were as good as the men in selling goods. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you think that this Committee could really solve this problem scientifically without having the wages paid, the total amount of sales and the profit in those sales? A. Oh, I don’t think that that has any bearing on it; I don’t think it will help you at all the least bit, because the conditions under which the men are emploj'ed are so different than the conditions under which the women are employed; there are spots where you can’t employ one, and there are spots where you can’t employ the other. SENATOR BEALL: I know it, Mr. Simpson; that is a point well Public Meetings and Testimony 719 taken, but all over the country, women are not paid as much as men are paid, are they? A. No. Q. Well, now, if the average woman in your store, on the average of all your help, can sell as much goods as your men and make as much profit for you, and do just as good work in certain departments, we can come to some conclusion whether the woman is entitled to as much salary as the man. It is all over the country that women are getting less salaries than men, and we have found places where they have been paying them as low as two dollars a week, or a dollar and eighty cents a week, and if you merchants could show by some calculation or figures, that the women are selling as much goods as the men are, and are just as good clerks in every way, then I think they ought to be entitled to as much of a salary as the men. A. Yes, surely. SENATOR TOSSEY : Do you think that because they are not re- ceiving as much is because there is a larger supply of women than of men? A. No, my impression is that they are not worth as much as men are. Q. There is more of a supply of women in accordance with the de- mand, isn’t there? A. I think so. Mr. Edward Lehmann’s Testimony. EDWARD LEHMANN, called as a witness by the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Q. What is your name? A. Edward Lehmann. Q. And your business? A. Dry goods business, department store business. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The examination of the witness will now be conducted by Senator Beall. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: I have onh^ got one question to ask him and that is, who sells the most goods on the average, in your business — the women or the men? A. That depends on what department they- are in. Q. In that could you strike an average? A. I don’t know but 1 could answer that question a little hit different. We have got some girls in our store who sell more goods, would sell more goods, in many depart- ments, than men; we have got more girls in our store than men. more high-salaried girls than men. Q. Take the men and women in your store, they are about equal, are they not? A. No, it is about one-third. Q. Could you give us the facts, if a woman would average as much in sales as a man, taking all departments? A. Right off-hand, I would say they do. Q. Sell as much as the men? A. Yes. Q. You think they do? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many men do you employ? A. Salesmen? Q. Yes, on your pay-roll? A. Four hundred and seventeen. Q. Four hundred and seventeen men? A. Yes. Q. Now, what will their averages run? A. In what, do you mean? Q. Salaries? A. The average salary is fourteen dollars and forty- eight cents; that is exclusive of any percentages. Q. Fourteen dollars and forty-eight cents? A. That is our drawing account; then we have this percentage basis in our store. Q. What is the lowest price paid? A. Fourteen forty-eight is the average; the lowest price paid is ten or twelve dollars a week; those are porters and young men around the store. Q. That is your lowest wages? A. Except possibly, we pay boys five or six or seven dollars, or eight dollars a week. 720 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You don’t have any boys employed in the store? A. No, we don’t use them, only the wagon boys and errand boys. Q. I believe there are about eighteen hundred girls in your store? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you a scale for your married men? A. No scale at all; you know they fill out applications. Q. Yes? A. If a married man applies for a porter’s job, he can’t go on that porter’s job for less than twelve dollars a week. Q. That is what Mr. Simpson said, he paid his married men twelve dollars a week. A. If we put them on at all, the^' are put on at twelve dollars a week, but we aim to get these younger men if we can, but we don’t refuse married men jobs. Q. Those men ought to have the preference? A. Yes. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is the lowest wage paid to any of those four hundred and seventeen men? A. Ten and twelve dollars. Q. How many of the four hundred and seventeen are paid between ten and twelve dollars a week? A. There will be about between seventy and seventy-five. Q. Among those seventy or seventy-five people, are there any married men? A. Yes, I think there are; I know there are.- Q. Do you know whether any of those married men have children? A. I don’t know. Q. How much would you say, Mr. Lehmann, that a man could sup- port a wife and one daughter on in the city of Chicago? A. That would be pretty hard to say; I really don’t know. Q. Can he do it on ten dollars a week? A. I should not think that he could. Q.. Can he do it on twelve dollars a week? A. It would be very hard; do you mean if he only had one child? Q. Yes, sir, and she a daughter of about sixteen years of age. A. Un- less she helped somewhat, it would be very hard for him. Q. Then you think, Mr. Lehmann, that the daughter would be forced to help out on the income? A. Well, to get them along fairly well. They might exist on it, but that is about all. But the more income coming in would help them a little better. Q. You would not say, Mr. Lehmann, that in many cases it would be an impossibility for a famih' of three, a father and mother and daughter of sixteen, to exist on ten or twelve dollars a week? A. It would be very hard. Q. Very hard? A. Yes, sir, it would. Q. Then,, the economic condition would force the girl of sixteen out into the business world? A. I presume it would, yes, sir. Q. And in the business world she would come in competition with men, wouldn’t she, in the way of being taken into your store as a clerk? A. She would come in contact with men. Q. No; come in competition with them? A. No, not at sixteen years of age, she would not. Q. You employ no clerks at sixteen? A. No, they have got to start right in and work up. Q. She starts in, and in a j^ear or two she works up into a clerkship? A. Yes, if she is good, she can work right up in there. Q. Then, as a clerk, she does come in competition with men? A. She might, in several years, come in competition with men, but she would not in those first, second or third years, possibly. Q. But when she does become a clerk, she does come in competition with men because she does the work of men; isn’t that true? A. No. she would be in another department; she would have a center table, or Public Meetings and Testimony 721 f « in the middle of an aisle you could not compare that with a girl if she started at sixteen years of age_; she is perhaps twenty or twenty-one or two years old, and then she might be up in the cloak department, or go away ahead of the men. Q. Finally she does compete with men? A. As her ability shows, yes. Q. Then this girl helper as a rule is paid less than the man helper? A. i didn’t say that. Q. Well, do you believe that to be true? A. I don't bellieve that to be true in all cases. Q. You don’t? A. I don’t think so. Q. On the average? A. No, I dont think so. Q. You shouldn’t say so? A. No. ; Q. The point I am trying to get at is that the girl is forced out into i the business world, into the industrial world, by the insufficiency of the ! wages of her father? A. Yes, sir. Q. That in that industrial world, she there, immediately^ or finally, comes into competition with men, and because of that competition forces : down the wages of the men; you don’t think that happens? A. No, I , don’t think so; I don’t so regard it. I think it is just the other way. We : have got girls that started in there at sixteen years of age. One girl in particular — I just cite that because a buyer went to New York about two , weeks ago, and I had in mind one of these girls who is working for us. and I' I said to the buyer, “Why don’t you take Miss Gatz along; why don’t you ; take her along and show her the ropes?” and she said she would be very 1 glad to. This girl came to me and said, “I want to thank you very heartily i: for giving me this opportunity to go to New York.” I says, “I guess you !| deserve it; how long have you been here?” She says “I have been here 1 eight years.” I says, “What did you start at?” She says “Four dollars : a week.” I asked her “What do you get now?’ She says, “I am getting ' twenty-six dollars a week now.” Now, you see, we are pushing her along. The men do not keep the girls back and the girls do not keep the men back; it all depends on their ability. Q. How many men clerks and women clerks have you; how many employes? A. Women employes selling goods? : Q. No; in your store there are four hundred and seventeen men, and li that includes all the man employes? A. Yes, all the men employed. ii Q. You also have a similar classification of women? A. Well, that means what? Girls and everything? Q. Everything? A. I should judge ten or eleven hundred. !| Q. What is the average wage paid there, do you recall? A. Nine dollars, or something like that, without percentages, i Q. Then the average wage to women is nine dollars, and the average wage to men is fourteen dollars and forty-eight cents? A. Without any percentage; the more goods they sell the more salary they earn. ! Q. The average would hold true of both women and men? A. Oh, i| the women have the same, practically, as the men. Q. But on the salary end of it, the average wage to men is higher I than the average wage to women? A. Yes, because of the different classes of work. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. ! SENATOR TOSSEY : Q. Do you think the supply has got anything ; to do with the wages paid to women or men? A. What do you mean? j; Q. _If the supply is plenty, you will get cheaper help? A. No, I ; don’t think so. Q. And if it is scarce, you will have to pay more? A. We are paying i; more for help within the last four years than ever before. !j Q._ That is because it has been scarce? A. No, there is greater op- portunity and greater demand for labor. 722 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. But labor has been a little scarce? A. Yes, sir. Q. And it takes a higher price to get it? A. Yes, sir. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. senator BEALL: Would you prepare a little table for us; take your time to it, and take the average of the amount paid your male and female help, and the sales — on most goods along similar lines — I presume you keep a record showing your profits on all those things? A. In what way? Q. We want to prepare a table, if we possibly can, and I think we can, that is, get the figures from the different merchants throughout the country — A. Let me get an idea of what you want to get at. Q. Suppose you have nine hundred men and nine hundred women, strike an average of the sales of them and show which sells more. A. We have more women than men. Q. Well, take the same number. A. I will see if I can get that out for you. The number of sales would be greater by the women — the num- ber of sales. Q. See if you can find out the profits of them all. A. I don’t know if I can or not. Q. If you will prepare a table, let us see what you can do. A. All right, I will see if 1 can do that. SENATOR BEALL: That is all. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: That is all, Mr. Lehman; thank you. Mr. David R. Forgan’s Testimony. DAVID R. FORGAN, called as a witness before the Committee, was examined in chief b}' Senator O’Hara and testified as follows: Q. What is your name? A. David R. Forgan. Q. What is your business? A. I am president of the National City Bank. Q. How many men are employed there? A. Under officers, as clerks, one hundred and twenty. Q. One hundred twenty as clerks? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the average wage paid? A. The average is within a few cents of eighty dollars a month. Q. What is the average age approximately? A. Well, we are a new bank and our men are rather young; of course, we have employed most of them as boys and promoted them. We have only been running six years, so our average is probably about twenty-five. Q. Among the 120, quite a number of them were with the bank when it started six years ago? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you any idea of the number that started with you? A, It couldn’t be very many, because w-e only started with twentj'-five em- ployes, all told. Q. It would be a comparatively small proportion, then? A. Yes. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any of the 120 clerks? A. The lowest wage paid is $25 a month. Q. That wage is paid to a clerk, a man doing clerical work? A. Well, no, that is paid to what we would call office boys, or probably bell boys; they answer the bell and bring something to an officer from the files, or whatever he wants. Then thej" sit down and wait until the bell rings again. Q. How old are those boys? A. They come in at about 16 or 17 years of age, mostl}". Q. And how many years do they remain as a rule, doing that kind of work? A. About six months. Q. Are there ever cases where they remain longer than a 3 -ear? A. No, 1 should not think they would remain longer than a year; if the 3 - didn’t Public Meetings and Testimony 723 show some intelligence during the year, that we thought we could make clerks of them, we would tell them that they better get in some other line of business. Q. Then that is really an apprenticeship? A. In a way, yes. I Q. And at the end of six months or a year, when they have shown some signs of usefulness, in the future, their wages are increased? A. Yes, sir. Q. About how much would you say the average goes, Mr. Forgan? I A. Well, the average increase is usually five dollars a month, and that I may occur once or twice a year. Q. Now, with that increase, does the nature of the duties to be per- formed change? A. Yes, sir. Q. And what is the gradual change there? A. Well, they can do ■ simple forms of clerical work; we do a great deal of clerical work by machines now, adding machines, and so forth; they can be learning how to handle these things and doing all simple forms of clerical work, such as the listing of checks, the same things over and over again; it is a simple matter, but of course it requires accuracy. Q. When they have reached eighty dollars a month, which is the average paid, about what kind of work are they doing then? A. Well, they are statement clerks, making regular statements to customers for the month, or keeping certain books or putting through the out-of-town checks; they are registered; if we cash a check on Peoria, we have to send it down there to get the money and we have to keep some kind of a record for it while it is gone, and they would make that kind of a record. ' Q. What is the highest wage paid any of the 120 clerks included in this average? A. The highest is three thousand dollars a year; he is chief clerk. Q. Three thousand dollars a year? A. Yes, sir. Q. Then the wage is from $25 a month to $3,000 a year, in this class? A. As clerks, yes. Q. And the chief clerk, as a rule, not in your bank, but in the average 1 bank, as a rule, has spent quite a number of years in the banking service? A. Yes. Q. And generally is a man well along in middle life? A. Well, I I think, generally, but in other banks they get a larger salary. Q. How many of the 120 clerks are receiving more than two fliousand dollars a year? A. There is only two receiving more than two thousand dollars a year in my office. Q. How many receiving more than a thousand dollars a year? A. About forty. Q. Of those receiving less than a thousand dollars a year, are any of them married? A. There may be one or two cases, but we have a rule connected with our pension fund that no one is to get married in our employ who is earning less than one thousand dollars a year, without the consent of the officers of the bank, say the president, and in such case, we would look into it. Of course, circumstances alter cases; the girl whom he married might have some income and then we might consent to it, but without such exceptional cases, we don’t allow our men to remain in the service and get married under a thousand dollars a year. Q. What is the underlying reason for that rule, Mr. Forgan? A. Well, I suppose, as I said, it was a rule of the pension fund, which is a fund ; established by the men themselves into which they pay a certain propor- tion of their salary, and under which they have certain rights when they become of a certain age. If they leave the service they can take what they paid into it out; it is like a savings fund. It is under that rule, more ; for the protection of the fund than for any other reason, that the rule is made; for the protection of the pension fund, against people getting married and perhaps getting into our life or something of that sort, and having a lot of difficulties and being dependent upon the benefits of either the bank or the fund. 724 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Ihis rule, then, is made by the men themselves? A. In our case, it is, yes. Q. And enforced by the bank? A. At the request of the men, yes, sir. Q. You really believe that to be a good work, do 3 '^ou, Mr. Forgan? A. Yes, sir; I do. Q. You believe that no man should marry when he is receiving less income than a thousand dollars a year in the city of Chicago? A. I would say I don’t think any clerk in a bank should marry on less than that. Of course, men have to live differently; a clerk in a bank probably has to dress a little better than a workman would, and things like that. A workman might marry on less than that and get along, perhaps, better than a clerk would on that. Q. Would you say, Mr. Forgan, that the clerk in the bank should dress better than a clerk in a store, for instance? A. No; I don’t think so; about the same. Q. And you make it a rule that any clerk you have must be getting a thousand dollars a year before marriage, do you? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you think, then, Mr. Forgan, that there is some connection between the wages paid the head of the household and the home atmos- phere? A. Oh, yes; I think there is some connection. Q. And that that home atmosphere has something to do with the upbringing of girls in that home? A. Yes, I think so. Q. And you believe, of course, Mr. Forgan, that all men should marry? A. Well, I don’t know; I have my doubts about that. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: If he could support a wife, you mean? A. If he could support a wife properly, I suppose it would be better for him to marry. Q. Have you any girls in your employ? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many? A. Thirt^’-one. Q. What do those girls do, Mr. Eorgan? A. The^-, some of them are stenographers, and a good many of them are emplo 3 'ed at what is called our transit department, in which they write form letters containing the lists of checks, collections and all that sort of things, going to different places. Q. Do you find girls profitable in 3 fOur employ'? A. Yes, sir; for that kind of work they are very good. Q. What is the average wage paid stenographers in Chicago? A. I don’t know what the average wage in Chicago is; I can tell 3 'ou our average; the average that we pa 3 ' our girls is just within a few cents of sixty dollars a month. Mr. Julius Rosenwald’s Testimony. JULIUS ROSENWALD, called as a witness for the Committee, was examined in chief by Senator O’Hara, and testified as follows: Q. What is your name? A. Julius Rosenwald. Q. And your business? A. Mail order business; president of Sears- Roebuck & Company. Q. How many men are emplo 3 'ed by your corporation, kir. Rosen- wald? A. The total number of adult male emplo 3 'es is 4,171. Q. How many minors? A. The number under 21 is 1,289. Q. What is the average wage paid the 1,289 under 21 3 -ears? A. Seven dollars and eighty-one cents. Q. What is the low-est wage paid to an 3 ' male emplo 3 -e^under 21 years? A. The lowest is five dollars. Q. How many are emplo 3 ’^ed at five dollars? A. I haven’t those figures. Q. Approximately, Mr. Rosenwald? A. I have no figures to guide me Public Meetings and Testimony 725 on that. We have the statistics and they are at your disposal, but I haven’t them here. Q. What is the highest wage paid to any male employe under 21 years of age? A. I haven’t that figure here, either. Q. The only figures which you have here is the average, which is $7.81? A. I would not say that that is the only figures; I have other figures. Q. What other figures have you regarding employes under 21 years of age? A. Under 21? I have the average salary, which you have, the maximum starting wage for boys. Q. Which is five dollars? A. Five dollars for boys under 16 and six dollars for boys over 16. Q. Six dollars is the lowest for boys over 16? A. Yes. Q. How many are there in your employ under 16? A. I have no figures on the number. Q. What is the average paid to men over 21 years of age in your [employ? A. The average salary to adult male employes is $18.82. Q. That is the average of those over 21 years of age, is it? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any man over 21 years of age in your employ? A. We hire no man over 21 years of age at a salary of less than twelve dollars. Q. That is, that no man over 21 years of age is getting less than twelve dollars? A. That is my understanding; I won’t make that as a ■statement; he may have come in under another age and he may not have Ireached the twelve dollars salary, but when we hire them, if they are 21; if, when we hire them, they are 21, our starting salary is twelve dollars; 21 years or over. Q. But if they come in at 15 and work up, they might pass 21 and (receive less than twelve dollars a week? A. That is possible; I am not prepared to say what the conditions are. Q. Have you a minimum wage paid to married men in your employ? Yes. Q. What is that minimum? A. We hire no married men at less than ■Twelve dollars a week. Q. How many men in your employ are receiving twelve dollars a Week? A. I haven’t that information. Q. You haven’t the information with you of how many men are ■•eceiving twelve dollars a week? A. No. Q. Have you any statistics, Mr. Rosenwald, as to the number of narried men you have in your employ? A. I have no statistics, Governor D’Hara. j Q. Do you keep such statistics? A. I think we know how many lire married, to the best of our knowledge; of course, if a man would be i inarried without our knowledge after he had been employed, we might not [■ enow of it, but when we hire them we keep a record of those that we enow are married when they are hired. Q. Do you also endeavor to keep a record showing the size of the ; .amily, the number of children in the families of the men who work for 'rou? A. I would not say as to that, but I think we do. ( ; Q. And do you pay the man in your employ who has children more ; :han you pay the man in your employ who has only one child? A. I don’t hink that is taken into consideration. ; Q. There is a minimum wage fixed for married men, but there is no j ninimum wage fixed for married men with a family of children? A. I ,hink that is correct. Q. Have you ever conducted an investigation, Mr. Rosenwald, as ? (o the amount of money upon which a man can support a wife and one ;• :hild? A. No, sir. V ■ Q. Have you ever heard of any such investigation being conducted ;>y anyone? A. No, sir. 726 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Do you believe that such an investigation should be conducted? A. I have no opinion to express. Q. You have no opinion to express on that subject or upon any similar subject that may be introduced? A. Well, I don’t have an opinion; I don’t care to volunteer opinions to this Committee. Q- , You are willing to give the Committee any information, but not any opinion? A. I am willing to give them facts that I know about; I am willing to give them that. Q. Can you prepare and give to this Committee a statement showing the number of men or boys who are receiving five dollars a week in your service, and the number receiving six dollars a week and on up. In other words, of the 1,289 males under 21 j^ears of age, who are getting an average wage of $7.81 a week, will you prepare a statement and give to this Committee showing the number who are receiving the different speci- fied amounts? A. I shall try to; I don’t know how long that will require; probably that will be quite a laborious task. Q. Could you, Mr. Rosenwald, also prepare a statement showing the number of married men in your employ? A. I suppose that could be prepared. Q. Also the wage paid to those married men? A. If it can be gotten, I will be very glad to furnish the Committee with it. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEAL: I have one question, Mr. Rosenwald; what is j'our opinion of the ability as between the male and female employees of your place so far as their quickness and aptness in filling orders, and so forth? A. I have no opinion to express. Q. Well, couldn’t you answer the question, which you think is best, which can do the most, the men or the women? A. I would rather not give any opinions to this Committee except on matters of fact that I know about. Q. But all of the other gentlemen we have talked to this morning were very glad to assist us in the matter; of course, y^ou could not give the same information as they, because you haven’t a retail business, but it is a problem that we would like to solve, if the women are as capable of doing business for the different concerns, as well as men. That is a very easy question. I could tell, it seems to me, by going through the factories or stores, if I had one, whether a man was better than a woman, or whether a man could do as well or better, and I think it would be an easy matter for you; you employ more men than women? A. We employ' more men than women. SENATOR TOSSEY : Doesn’t the law of supply' and demand govern the wages as a rule? A. Well, I think that is purely a matter of opinion, and I would rather not express opinions of that kind. SENATOR BEALL: We are here to learn; you are a man of busi- ness and have been in business all your life, and y'ou have got as much sense and probably more than we have; now, can’t you give us that opinion in your own way; it is very simple, as to whether the woman is as good as the man in the different classes or departments that they are employed in; for instance, take girls packing — take some certain article: can the girls do as good work as the men? Now that is a simple question to answer. We want your opinion? A. I think I evidenced my' good intentions to this Committee on a previous investigation, and that I wanted to be as helpful to them as I could. I am willing to give y'OU any' facts. Senator, of which I have knowledge, but not to volunteer opinions. Q. You are not volunteering anything; you are asked the question. A. There is nothing we will not give you, as I told y'ou when I was here previously, so far as any facts pertaining to our business is concerned: we turned over our pay-rolls to this Committee, and I think we were the only people who did turn over our pay-rolls to this Committee. We tried to be as open as we could be with you; we gave y'ou the name of every female employ'e in our institution, with the salaries paid to them. Public Meetings and Testimony 727 SENATOR BEALL: We are finding no fault with what you have done; we want to sit down and have a plain business talk; every business man in Chicago is willing to sit down and talk and we have had Mr. Simpson and Mr. Hillman and Mr. Lehmann here this morning and we have asked them the same question that I have asked you. In Missouri they are doing the same thing they are here. I was in St. Louis last week and I attended their investigations down there. We are not here to tell you how you should run your business, but trying to ask for your opinion because we know that you have had the experience; and if you have the experience, if you have the good-will -of people, or want to get the good- will of the people here, why, aren’t you willing to give us your opinion? MR. ROSENWALD: I have been through this performance with this Committee on a previous occasion, and I found that the things that were emphasized and brought out, were the things which should not have been; everything was turned absolutely in the direction of trying to make it appear, and to lay particular emphasis on the fact that $5 a week have been paid, for the benefit of the people at large. And I want to say to you gentlemen that I am perfectly in accord with the minimum wage, properly gotten at on a proper basis, as I stated in the previous investigation, but when the investigation is conducted in the manner that this is, I don’t believe that it is tending in a direction to produce results. For that reason I shall not offer an opinion. I shall be very glad to give you any information of facts concerning our business. You can have anything you want, and that does not differ from any other position that we have taken. ; Anybody can have it if he asks for it. Our business has always been an open matter, we have never tried to keep anything secret from the public. We have never done anything that we are ashamed of. You have had ■ our pay-roll, which we gave you upon request at the last meeting that T l| was here. ( :! SENATOR BEALL: You seem to misunderstand me. I believe the Committee, so far as I know, treated you with the utmost courtesy, I am sure, and I am trying to do it. I can’t be any nicer to you than I am ■ now; I can’t talk any nicer to you if I tried every way in the world. If i; I have done anything to offend you, I am ready to apologize. You are not i- complaining of any offence on the part of the Committee, but we can’t 1 help what people on the outside are doing, if you are not finding fault with Y us. If a man were to ask me for an opinion on any matter, I think I would j; be willing to give him an opinion. I might be mistaken, because I have Y lived three score years and five, and I think I have been around about as ji; much as the most of you have; I thought I knew it all before I got on this Committee, but I have learned lots since, and there is none of us who are [;■ too old to learn. ■i MR. ROSENWALD: If you will look over my testimony, I think you I® will find I testified for, I think, about two hours and answered every II question asked me. J SENATOR BEALL: I am not finding any fault with that. I am trying to get down and get some information here and I want you to 'll help me. I can’t be mistaken. I have asked you a plain question and if there is no reason that I can see, for your refusing to answer. MR. ROSENWALD: I cannot reply to questions on which I cannot and have no absolute facts to back them up with. Everything that are facts concerning our business, as I said before, you are welcome to in any : shape or manner. We have nothing to hide. SENATOR BEALL: You seem to be the only one we have found so ■ far who seems to misinterpret our intentions. We have been sent here ’ from the Senate to inquire into certain matters. Now, we are trying to get the question of girl labor and man labor straightened out. Now, if i; you would answer the question one way or the other, as Mr. Lehmann or [' Mr. Simpson have answered the question; and we didn’t first put them t under oath, but just asked them in a friendly way, just as we have met I you in a friendly way, and they have answered. A. I can’t give you that I information; there is no basis for that so far as I can see. I' Q. Don’t you know, as a man of business, whether your female 728 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee workers are as good as your male workers? A. 'That is like asking: Don’t you believe that the women are better than the men? Q. We are talking about the one that can do the work, can make the most money for you; that is our question. A. It may seem very easy to you, but it does not seem very easy to me. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Mr. Rosenwald, you say you have a mini- mum wage for married men of $12 a week? A. So I stated. I stated also that under certain conditions we hired nobody, if we knew he was a married man, under $12 a week. We ask him if he is a married man; if he says he is a married man, then we do not start him in for less than $12 a week. We hire no man for any position that pays less than $12 a week, if he is a married man. If he lies to us, we may hire a man who is married and who may be employed at a lower wage than $12 a week; a boy of eighteen or nineteen or seventeen may be married, for all we know. He comes in and we ask him the question if he is married, and if he says “No,” we may hire him, but to the best of our ability we try to find out, and we hire no married man at a lower salary than $12 a week. Q. Then $12 a week is fixed by your corporation as a minimum wage for married men? A. Yes, sir. Q. I ask you, as a statement of fact, upon what that $12-a-week minimum is based? A. That is based on what we consider to be the minimum wage for married men. Q. You consider that a married man can live and exist upon $12 a week? A. I think that is fair to assume that that is our opinion. Q. I asked you earlier in your examination if you ever had conducted, had caused to be conducted, or had ever heard of anyone conducting an investigation tending to show the lowest amount upon which a man could support a wife and family comfortably, and your answer then w-as “No.” Is your answer now the same? A. I don’t quite understand you; I don’t think I gave that answ^er. Will the reporter kindly read the answer to that question at the time, and the question, too, if I may ask for it. chairman O’HARA: The reporter will go back and read the question and answer. (Reporter reads as follows): “Q. Have you ever conducted an investigation, Mr. Rosenwald, as to the amount of money upon which a man can support a wife and one child? “A. No, sir. “Q. Have you ever heard of such investigation being conducted by anyone? “Q. No, sir. “Q. Do you believe that such an investigation could be conducted? “A. I have no opinion to express.” CHAIRMAN O’HARA: And your answer to that is the same, Mr. Rosenwald? A. I don’t think the question is the same. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will the reporter again read the original questions and answers? (Reporter reads as instructed.) Now, Mr. Rosen- wald, is your answer now the same? A. The question is not the sanie question you are putting into the testimony. I don’t think this question is the same. Q. What is the difference in the question? A. ^ V eil, it is entirely different so far as my conception of it goes; I can’t see any similarity between them. I didn’t answer “No” to the question which you asked of the same nature, or as the record would show, because I didn’t make that answer. That question was not asked. Q. The reporter will again read the original question and answer. (Last question and answer read by reporter.) In all fairness, if you Public Meetings and Testimony 729 desire to amend your answer to that question, having answered it through a mistake, you may now do so. We want to get at the facts, and we are glad to accord you the opportunity to change any testimony that may have been given in error. A If it is a question of whether we ever made an investigation, I said “No.” Q. Then, upon what is based the minimum paid married men of twelve dollars a week? Upon facts as found out during investigations, or from an opinion? A. I should say upon judgment without an investiga- tion, to the best of my knowledge. Q. As a matter of fact, then, Air. Rosenwald, that twelve dollars a week was arrived at without an investigation? A. Yes, sir. EXAAIINATION BY SENATOR BEALL: SENATOR BEALL: Air. Rosenwald, if a man is working at nine or ten dollars a week, and should be fortunate enough to marry, would he get his wages increased to twelve dollars a week? A. I would not know I I’ow that would work out. I don’t know whether there is a provision for that or not. Q. I was wondering if you did increase them to twelve dollars a week. A. I don’t know. I believe the rule is that he is to be advanced, but I would not state positively on that fact; I think that is our rule, that he is to be advanced to twelve dollars a week if he is a married man. Q. You think that is the rule? A. I think so; I would not say positively. Q. Now, Air. Rosenwald, you and I begun at the foot of the ladder and worked up to where we are today. You know what you used to work for, and I know what I used to work for; we know what we got; you know what you did and I know what I did and what I got. Now, 'take females, or the young men and young women throughout the country, "we are trying by every possible means to get some conclusions as regards the relation of female wages to the male wages, and vice versa. A. Yes. Q. Now, we are trying to prepare statistics to show if the female, for instance, take a thousand clerks, 500 men and 500 women, we are trying to show if the female clerks sell as many goods as the men. If they do sell as many goods. as the men, they surely ought to be entitled to recogni- tion in the shape of a wage equal to that of the men, had they not? A. I would rather not answer that, Senator. I Q. Let us ask it, not for an opinion, but for facts. How many women .and girls are employed by your corporation in a selling capacity? A. I jif could not answer that question because I don’t know. We have very few, if any. We don’t sell goods over the counter. Q. It is all mail order? A. I say we don’t; we sell a very small amount; a very, very infinitesimal part of our business is done over the counter. It is only just an occasional customer. Alost all of them write in for their merchandise and send their orders in by mail, and the orders ! are filled in that way. I Q. And the wage of the men and women working for you is fixed upon ^ individual ability, that is true, isn’t it? A. I think so. t, EXAAIINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. ;! SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you think it is fixed so much on individual ’ ' ability as upon the question of supply and demand? A. I should say '' largely upon the ability of the individual. Q. If a number of persons without having the same ability were 1 wanting jobs, wouldn’t that bring down the wages? A. It would not in ! our case; I don’t know how it would apply generally; it would not in our Lease, because we have fixed rates for beginning at certain work, and Lability is recognized as it develops. j Q. Yes, I understand that; but about competition? A. No, we have ' ! no competition. Competition would not regulate that a particle, because ! we have a regular fixed starting wage for different classes of work. 730 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Then the question of supply and demand would not enter into that employment? A. No, sir. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The question of wag-es is fixed upon the ability of the individual? A. I should say so. Q. How do you reach an expression, a financial expression in wages, of the ability of the individual? A. I suppose it is reached in various ways. Q. What is the system used by your corporation? A. If the people show an unusual amount of ability they may be transferred from one department to another, and in that way have their salaries increased by doing work which is of a more valuable nature. Q. There are departments where salaries are higher than they are in other departments? A. Oh, certainly. Q. Why are they higher in those departments than in others? A. The nature of the work requires a higher class of ability; a higher class of intelligence also in a great many cases. Q. Does that higher class of intelligence and abilitj' mean that their work — the work done by the individuals — results in more dollars and cents ■to you, the employer? A. I would say that would be fair to assume. We don’t figure it out on that basis, but I suppose that would be fair to assume. Q. How do you apportion, or divide, the money necessary for the conduct of your business in the employment of hire? A. It is done by the department. It is not apportioned at all; each department uses what- ever amount is necessary for its needs, depending upon the volume of their business at the time. Q. Does each department head come to you with an estimate of the amount of money to be expended in his department? A. No, sir; I don’t have anything to do with it at all; it is conducted through a department: each man has control of his own department. Q. May each department head spend as much money as he_ desires in his department without any supervision? A. He can requisition for whatever help he needs in that department upon the employment depart- ment and state what the nature of the work is that he wants help for. Q. He is given whatever help is necessary'; in other words, he is the judge of how much help wdll be required for the work that his depart- ment is doing? A. Certainly. Q. At regularly stated periods, I presume j'ou have statements made by the department managers of the cost to the corporation of running their respective departments? A. That is done through our auditing department every day; the expenses of everj^ department is known every day. Q. Now, is the expenditure for help in a department regulated by the profit made by that department? A. No. Me have certain depart- ments that lose money right along, so that if it was regulated by that, some people would have to pay us for working there. Q. What departments, as a matter of fact, do lose money? A. Me have certain departments that are unprofitable. Q. Selling departments? A. M-Tll, merchandise departments, cer- tain kinds of merchandise that is not profitable to handle, but must be handled on account of other things that we handle; whole departments, yes, we have whole departments that lose money ever}' year, a good many thousand dollars. Q. In replying to a question of Senator Tossey, you stated that the law of supplv and demand did not regulate wages in your business? A. Yes. Q. But the question of ability does _ regulate, the ability of the in- dividual does regulate the wage paid the individual in your business? A. Yes, I said that. Public Meetings and Testimony 731 Q. That being so, do you at the end of every year take the profit made by your corporation and decide whether the employe has received up to his ability, his full pay? A. We don’t wait until the end of the year. We do that every day in the year in the different departments, de- pending upon ability. If people don’t show ability we start them at a certain wage; if they show ability enough to hold their position, they are inevitably raised until they reach a certain wage; we don’t keep anybody !in our employ that starts out at five or six or seven dollars a week, or eight dollars a week, for any length of time at that rate; after he has been there say for sixty days, if he shows sufficient ability, he gets an in- crease in his salary, and that continues up to a certain point. Q. You say up to a certain point; that point is fixed by what — by 'ability or by your judgment? A. By both; by our judgment and by the ability of the employe. ^ Q. In other words, you fix the price that you consider his ability is H worth? How do you fix that price? A. Somebody has to, and the man jithat he is working for is the man to do it. I tried to state to you that we judge as to the value of the work done by that person. Q. In forming an opinion as to the value of that work, you don’t take into consideration the law of supply and demand? A. No, sir. Q. Nor do you take into consideration the profit they are actually making for you? A. No, sir. |, Q. Then what law do you take into consideration? A. I tried to ' [make myself very plain. I think I answered the question two or three dor four times, that it is the ability of the individual that is in question, -and the value of the work in which he is engaged. Now, if we find that the individual is fitted for work in the higher departments, then when he fitted for that we try to find a place for him in another department and try to give him a vacancy in a department where greater ability is desired or necessary. f Q. All right, that takes cares of the individual, Mr. Rosenwald; but "who fixes, and in what manner, the w'ages to be paid in these various positions? Is that fixed by the profit made by the business, or exclusively upon your judgment? A. That depends upon the ability they pos'sess. _We start them out at a certain wage and let them go up in that depart- /' ment; if they have an ability to go up and increase, we increase their wages ' i [regardless of whether we profit or whether we don’t profit. The profit in ijthat particular department would not affect the wage of that person w’orking in that depatment if they had the ability. Q. Do you wish the Committee to understand that you pay all of the * people working for you as much money as you can afford to pay them? jA. I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that, sir. I have intimated nothing of [that kind. If ten thousand people were out, of employment today and ^wanted work in our store it would not change the attitude of our employ- ment one iota as to the starting wage the}' would pay, or the increase of wages that they would receive for their ability beyond what w'e would I expect it to be if they got an increase in their wages, or if they remained i ; at all. I' Q. Have you a minimum wage now for women of eight dollars? A. i No, sir; we haven’t. ! Q. The only minimum wage you have, then, is for married men? A. No, we have a minimum wage for women and we have a minimum wage for boys, and we have a minimum wage for men, and we have a minimum ^ wage for married men. [ ' Q. For married men, you place twelve dollars a week as the minimum? I ' A. Yes, sir. ! Q. And your women, your adult women, what is the minimum wage 1 for them? A. Adult women, I think it is eight dollars for adult women. , I _ Q. What is the minimum wage for single men? A. For single men, ; if he is 21, that is twelve dollars. I “ Q. For a single man? A. Yes. I I Q. Then your minimum wage for married men is twelve dollars a (. week, and for a single man it is twelve dollars a week, and for a single 732 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee adult woman is eight dollars a week? A. The woman is an adult at 18, and a man is an adult at 21 . Q. You make no real distinction in the minimum paid a single man over 21 and that paid to a married man? A. A married man may be only 20 or 19, and he would still get twelve dollars a week, if he was hired. Q. Then the only difference is one of age? A. I said so. Mr. John T. Pirie, Jr.’s Testimony. JOHN T. PIRIE, JR., called as a wdtness before the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. John T. Pirie, Jr. Q. And your business? A. Vice-president of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company. Q. How many men are in your emploj'? A. The total number of men is 1,207; that is, in our retail store. Q. What is the average wage? A. The average wage is $18.38. Q. And what is the lowest wage? A. The lowest wage is $10. Q. Is that $10 the lowest wage paid to any man or boy in your employ? A. We start on twenty-one years of age; w'e pay some boys less than $ 10 . Q. No man over twenty-one years of age is receiving less than $10 a week? A. No, sir. Q. How many boys under twenty-one years of age are emplo 3 'ed. A. Now, I haven’t it between sixteen and eighteen, but I can give it to you between fourteen and sixteen; I can get that for you. Q. How many do you think there are? A. There are, oh, I suppose, a couple of hundred. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any of them? A. The lowest wage paid to any of them is to errand boys — $4. Q. Four dollars a week? A. Yes, and we have eight of them. Q. All little boys? A. Yes, sir. Q. Now, the lowest wage paid to any man over twentj'-one j^ears of age is $10 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is the lowest wage you paj- to any married man? A. Twelve dolars; that is, we don’t hire any married men at less than $ 12 , but there might be a few instances of them getting married, but I don’t think there are many; but we have no married men, if we know it, at less than $ 12 . Q. How do you reach that figure of $12 a week as a minimum wage for married men? A. Well, we have gone into it very scientifically in this case. Our superintendents have questioned a great many of the people as to their expenses of living, and we have tried to tabulate it from that; it is covering the conditions in Chicago, and we thought from those con- clusions that we reached, that the minimum for married men should be $ 12 . Q. Do you think that a man can support a wife and saj^ one child, and himself, on $12 a week? A. We thought so if it is a 3 -oung child— not a grown child. Q. Can you give this Committee a statement showing how a married man in the city of Chicago can support himself and a wife on $12 a week, itemized? A. I haven’t it with me; I am perfectly willing to give 3 -ou the information we have; I will get it for you. It is some time since we took that. Q. How many men have you at $10 a week? A. I am sorry I haven’t tabulated it that way for you; I have divided it into salesmen and general employes. Q. Will you read the statement as 3 'ou have it? A. Work rooms, buyers, and so forth, salesmen, we have 429; this is the retail store; married men 219, and single men 210 , ranging from $10 to $60 a week- average, $18.97. Do you want the other? Q. Yes. A. The general emplo 3 -es, 610; married men, 268; single, 342; salaries ranging from $10 to $60 a week; average, $15.36. \ ou don t want our buyers, do you? Public Meetings and Testimony 733 Q. It shows the range of wages? A. We have twenty-one buyers; wenty of them married and one single; the average is $87.22 a week. In he work rooms here we have 142; eighty-four married and fifty-eight jingle; average wage, $17.37 a week. Then here is some that get higher Images than that. Q. Most of the men in your employ seem to be married; that is true? Yes. Q. In the class of salesmen, Mr. Pirie, the average is $18.97 a week? Yes, sir. Q. And the range is from $10 a week to $60 a week. A. Yes. Q. What is the most numerous figure, about $12 a week? A. Oh, I hink it is more than that. Q. That is, if you were to classify, in which class would be the greatest lumber of the men? A. I think they would be between $20 and $30 a veek. Q. But your average is $18.97 here. You make the statement that so nany men are getting $10 a week and so many $11 and so many men $12 i'.nd so many men $13, and on up? A. Yes. Q. Which one of those figures is the popular figure, so-called, at vhich the greatest number are working? A. About $20. Q. Then, in this classification of salesmen, what is the average period )f service of the men in that class? A. I could only give you that from nemory. Some remain a great length of time and some only a short ime. I would rather get more information before I answer that question. I Q. Let us get some specific case. A. Yes. 1 Q. Have you any men who have been in your employ for twenty rears? A. Oh, many; yes. i Q. Any longer than twenty years? A. Some longer. I Q. What is the longest period of service? A. I think forty-seven i-ears. ’ Q. Have you any man who has been in your employ over twenty 'ears who is now a salesman and who is getting less than $20 a week? ;V. No, sir. Q. You haven’t one? A. No, sir. Q. Have you any men in your employ as salesmen who have been |vorking over ten years, and are now getting less than $20 a week? iV. There might be one or two, but it would be very exceptional. * Q. There would not be many of them? A. Very few of those depart- pent managers started at less than $5 a week. Q. We are not trying especially to do anything for the department managers, Mr. Pirie. A. I wanted to show you how those $5 and $6 and 10 a week people can be promoted. i Q. Do you think their promotion helps the other fellow who remains jown there and who is not promoted? A. That is up to him. j Q. Outside of the classification of salesmen, in any of the other lepartments have you any other man who has been in your employ in any lapacity for a period of years in excess of twenty, who is now receiving 5ss than $20 a week? A. Well, I think not; I didn’t examine the records !dth that end in view. I cannot answer you positively, but I think not. f there are any, there are only one or two. • SENATOR BEALL: Well, Mr. Pirie, I want to ask my same old uestion of you; we are trying to prepare statistics now, between the ^ages of women and the wages of men based on the ability of each. Now ou have been around and been in business a long time, and you get :round the store and you know which are your good salesladies and which re your good salesmen; in your opinion, how do you think they compare, re women and the men, as salesmen or salesladies? I know you might ay that one is selling fine dresses and such things and they get the most, ut there is somebody selling jewelry. Take it on the average, all the way irough, how do your clerks compare, the male and the female, as to [bility to sell? A. The ability is about the same. Do you want to know 734 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee about what I think they ought to earn? I think they ought to get the same where the abilitj'- is the same; they ought to get the same. SENATOR BEALL: Could you prepare a table for us of sales by the ladies and sales by the men: MR. PIRIE: Yes, I shall be glad to. I think that where ability and service rendered is about the same, that they ought to get just about the same, and they do. SENATOR BEALL: That is about what the balance of the testimony is, except this one fellow, who wouldn’t answer anything. I wanted just a matter of opinion, but if you could prepare a table of that kind, we would like to have it. It don’t matter if it is done in ten days or a week, or any time this month; when you get time to do it, let us get it. MR. PIRIE: I will try and get it out for you. . SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you think the question of supply and demand controls in hiring people? MR. PIRIE: Yes. SENATOR TOSSEY: You heard Mr. Rosenwald testify wLen he said that they didn’t take that into consideration in his store? MR. PIRIE: Yes. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: How long is it since you made an investi- gation and reached the conclusion that $12 a week w'as about right as a minimum for married men? A. .1 think it is about a y'ear and a half; I am not quite positive. Q. There was an investigation made a year and a half ago? A. Yes, sir. Q. In your store? A. Yes, sir. Q. By your store individually, or in connection with other stores? A. Our store individually. Q. I wish 5^011 would furnish us with that. A. I will try- to get it for you. Mr. John J. Mitchell’s Testimony. JOHN J. MITCHELL, called as a witness before the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. John J. Mitchell. Q. What is your business, Mr. Mitchell? A. I am president of the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank. Q. How many- men are y-ou employ-ing in that bank? .-K. Two hundred and seventeen; I say 217; 201; there are 217 employed in it, and 201 are men. Q. What is the average w-age paid? A. Now, if you will let me answer with this memorandum which I had made hurriedly- this morning: I didn’t understand just what you wanted in this investigation, or what nature this investigation was going to take, and I did not prepare myself with anything. I came in this morning, and as I came in I saw that you were going to inquire about salaries paid, so just as I got here, they gave me this memorandum. This shows that fifteen messengers average $42 a month. Bookkeepers, they- have not given the number of bookkeepers, but the bookkeepers have reached $90 a month; sixteen women averaging $80 a month; ten policemen averaging $81 a month; 180 clerks, and that includes the bookkeepers, $120 a month average. Q. Wave y-ou any- other figures on y-our statement there. ]Mr. Mitchell: A. No, sir; those are all the figures that were furnished rne, and that very hurriedly, as I came in from the country- and just had time to .get down here. Q. Have you any rule at your bank regarding the minimum wage paid to married men? A. I don’t think so. Public Meetings and Testimony 735 Q. You heard Mr. Forgan tell of some rule in effect at his bank? A. I don’t think we have any such rule as that. I think a question some- times has arisen where a young fellow who was only getting possibly fifty dollars a month, a young messenger boy, got married, and we promptly gave hiiu his dismissal for the reason that we did not think he could support a wife on that. Q. You dismissed him because your best judgment was that he could not support a wife on $50 a month? A. Yes, sir; that is it, absolutely. Q. That left the bank open to danger? A. Yes, sir. Q. What was the nature of that danger, in your opinion? A. That his expenses would exceed his income, and the demands on his income might get away with his judgment if it didn’t with his integrity, and we could not afford to have a man with us that we knew was living beyond his salary. y. That is the position generally taken by banks, is it not, Mr. Mitchell? A. I think so. Q. That is based upon a good, sound business judgment? A. I think so; an employe that is getting $8,000 a year, if we find that he is not paying his bills and that he is running in debt, we dismiss him in the same way. A man who is extravagant in his expenses and has not got the money to spend regularly is liable to get into trouble. Q. Now, Mr. Mitchell, it is the policy of your bank not to employ a man who is receiving fifty dollars a month and who marries; do yoU think it is good business judgment for any man to pay to another man who is married less than fifty dollars a month? A. Well, I would answer that simply by saying that 1 employ a good many men personally outside of the bank and I don’t pay any of them less than fifty dollars a month, but that is not as a business proposition; competition in business is such that they may be obliged to pay less than that. Q. Has your bank lost any considerable amount from the thefts of employes? A. No, sir; we don’t in our bank; we are the only bank in this city that does not require bonds from our employes; and with one exception, which was a four thousand dollar defalcation, where a young fellow went in to help the teller and put his hand right into the money drawer and took four thousand dollars; he was arrested, was convicted and sent to the penitentiary for six years; that is, with that exception, we have never had a defalcation, and that man was getting something like fourteen or sixteen hundred dollars a year; that is the only instance to my knowledge that we have ever had, but we have to keep watching them all the time, to . keep changing them all the time, and it is by eternal vigilance that we probably don’t have any. I Q. Have you any idea, Mr. Mitchell, of how much money it would • cost a man to support a wife and child — say a girl of 15 or 16 years of I age — here in Chicago? A. Well, that depends a good deal upon the mother and father. You take a German, who is thrifty, and he will get along on a small amount. You take the average American and he has got to have a good deal more. His ideas as regards economizing are very different from those of the German. Now, in the little towns— I live in the country six months in the year and I have a number of employes and have paid them for years at fifty dollars a month; they come in the morning and i go at night. They have raised families, some of them have five or six boys and girls; they are respectable and they send them to school. They ! are intelligent and have good sense; they are good people and they go out and hustle for themselves. Now, all that is done on fifty dollars a ■ month. Now, that same class of people in the city, they want amusements I that they don’t have in the country. The opportunities for the spending : of money in a large city are much greater than in a village. A greabmany ‘ of those people would be a great deal better off if they went to the country . instead of staying in town, but you can’t get them to go; but the other people live comfortably and creditably upon fifty dollars a month in the little towns. Q. In Chicago, how do you find it from your observation? A. Well, there are lots of very respectable men and women that are not getting more than that, that are comparatively respectable, and they are sending 736 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee their children to school. 1 have a number of instances that I know of where janitors are getting fifty dollars a month and they are taking care of their families; they are sending their girls to the public school, and they seem to be thoroughly respectable. Q. In those cases they get their rent free, do they not? A. In some instances, yes; in others, no. I have two men in mind that have their own little place and they are getting fifty dollars a month, and they have saved money from the very start in connection with it. They are thrifty Swedes, both of them. Q. Have they children? A. They have children, one of them having three and the other has two. Q. Are some of the children grown? A. They are now up, I think the boy in one instance is a young man of 23 or 24; I think he is employed by one of the railroads at the present time; they are self-supporting children, but they have been able to raise that family up to a point where they could support themselves. Q. Would you say that the average father, having a wife and a daughter of 15 or 16 years of age, and receiving at the most a salary or wage of fifty dollars a month, would be forced to send the girl out into the business world? A. I would say that that compensation would require that the girl or boy would have to assist the family as soon as they were able to do so. Q. And in the business world would that girl come in competition with men, or with man labor? A. Well, comparatively they never have; they never have been paid the wages of men; I don’t know of any place where they do. I think theoretically that they should be, but practically they never have been. Q. When these girls go out and are paid less than the men are being paid, do they not in a sense affect the wages paid to men inasmuch as it is in the line of competition? A. I would think that that might fairly be inferred; the fact that they could get girls to do work that they otherwise would have to get men to do, at less wages, would probably keep it down. Q. These girls would be forced out into the world through an in- sufficiency of wage paid the parent, so that it becomes, by that line of reasoning, a sort of a circle? A. Well, even if j'ou paid that parent a substantial amount in advance, still, that girl or boy would be forced to come out. I don’t believe if they were paid instead of fifty dollars, if they were paid seventy-five dollars a month, if a man had two or three children, that those children would not be forced to go out and seek emploj-ment. Q. What suggestion, if any, have you to make, Hr. Mitchell, to this Committee? A. I have no recommendations to make, gentlemen, in con- nection with it. I have been away all winter and I haven’t given much thought to the situation. It is a very important question and one that affects a great many business interests, and of course a great many men and women and should- be given a very great deal of careful, thoughtful attention. I don’t know whether it would not be wise to have it done through some scientific commission, as I would suggest to my Democratic friends on the tariff question, to have some certain conditions followed out; to have the question studied by men who were adequately posted and understood the situation and let them accomplish it and follow it up. This suggestion is, of course, without any reflection upon my political friends here, but it always has seemed unfair, to be frank about it. that women were doing the work of men and were not receiving the compensa- tion that the men are. But it never has been so the world over; women don’t get paid as the men do. I suppose there are some physical defects with the woman, possibly, that might cause that; you can't really depend upon them for especial efforts and extra time like j-ou can many times require of a man. In other words, a man is on deck all the time and through physical conditions a woman cannot possibly be, and that makes a little difference in ■^act. Q. Do you thiuK it quite fair that any woman should work for less money than she can live on? A. No, I think that that is a very un- Public Meetings and Testimony 737 fortunate situation that they are apparently obliged to do with; I will admit that freely. Q. How should we remedy that, in your judgment? A. I don’t know whether the law can do that or not. Of course, the matter of supply and demand is regulating that at the present time; if they could not get plenty of girls at six or eight dollars a week, they would have to pay more for them. Now, whether it is proper for the State to come in and say what minimum should be paid, I am not prepared to say. I think that any increase in wages would come out of the purchaser, finally; I think that prices would be raised all along the line. They are in competition with : outside lines of business, and there are wages beyond which they could not go and meet the others in competition, and that would have to be 1 considered. But so far as the department stores are concerned, they have a remedy within themselves; if they have to pay more, why they just ■ put it onto the laces and silk and buttons and things of that kind. Q. They would do that rather than take it out of the profits? A. I rather think that that is where it would come, gentlemen, in all fairness; I don’t think it would reduce the cost of living a bit. Q. You believe, Mr. Mitchell, that a minimum wage law should be icnacted in connection with a maximum profit law? A. Well, that may be the next suggestion; I am prepared for it. I EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. ® SENATOR BEALL: Things have changed since you and I were boys in Alton. A. Yes, no question about that. Q. Especially as to the difference in wages? A. Yes. Q. There is considerable difference between when I was married forty-six years ago and the present time. A. I got five dollars a week 'when I started in. j Q. And I started in at two and a half. A. Oh, I beat you. Q. Your father and brother were better fixed than mine. But you ^brought out a while ago that you did not bond your men in your bank. 1 [A. No, sir. ^ Q. I had heard this before, and it is a very good thing, but what is llyour reason for that? A. We thought there was just some little humilia- y'tion to say to a man that you believe that he was honest, but that you ^>’|were not going to take any chances on him and that you were going to i.bond him. I think there is more loyalty to the bank with the knowledge pthat they are put upon their honor, rather than under a bond; that there would be a better feeling and we would get better services from our men, ||iand we have found that so, and we have started out with that principle j trusting our men, and at the same time making shifts and changes so I 'that the opportunity for slipping could not be offered, and it is working j!so satisfactorily that we have always followed it. f i Q. How long has this been going on, Mr. Mitchell? A. That has i Teen going on for forty years. I Q. How many females do you have in your bank? A. Sixteen. I Q. Do you corrSider them as efficient as you do the men, in doing I their respective tasks? A. Yes, and in some instances much better. % When it comes to a stenographer in a bank, the average girl stenographer, I .:in my judgment, is equal to any man, and they get in with us at the same .’i,; salary that we pay the men. j Q. That is a question that I have asked all of these retail store men, j jjand these men, all except one, have answered us, and he won’t give us Ian answer, and they have all said the same thing, that they thought the Vi girls were sometimes as good or better. A. Yes. j ■; Q. Now, Mr. Mitchell, have you any further suggestions that you 1 can give us; you know what we are trying to do and what we are here i for; we are trying to look after the girls and we are trying to find out ' why a girl with equal ability with a boy or man should not receive the ; same salary as the boy or man. A. Well, I think that is largely a question ; of the situation of supply and demand There are so many girls that can 738 Report of the Ielinois Senate Vice Committee onl}^ do certain lines of work, that do it and are in such abundance that they will keep the cost of that labor down. I think it is simply a question of cost, of supply and demand. If girls were not to be had, they would pay more for them; that has always been the case, but 1 don’t know whether it always will be or not. It is so in Europe, and it is so everywhere else. ) Q. I was in Europe. I was over there last year for four months, and ! I can’t compare labor conditions in this country with rvhat I saw there. > A. I hope not, because the w'omen there do most of the work. Q. I was there and I saw women working in the fields, some with , babies on their backs, working for twenty-five cents a day. A. I think, ■ as a rule, that employers of labor in this country are gratified to feel that they are able to pay wages that they are able to pay their help today, rather than the wages that are paid in the old country, and I think that everybody would rather pay more for what they are getting today than to have labor reduced, if it was a question of one or the other, but at the same time there has got to be consistency in the situation. Whereupon, upon motion of Senator Beall, an adjournment was taken until 2 o’clock P. M. of the same day. SESSION XXVII ; Illinois Steel Company official questioned concerning his I knowledge of moral conditions in Gary; also gives information as to wages paid in steel mills; gives $1.95 as minimum day wage of married men in employ of his company. Traction company head submits wage figures taken from payrolls. Superintendent of Schools favors immediate extension of vocational education. Bank president opposed to marriage for men earning less than $1,000 a year. Department store manager estimates cost of living increased 15 to 20 per cent in twelve years. President of a large mail order !, firm disagrees with Mr. Rosenw.ald and believes that the law of ■ supply and demand does influence wages. Vice president of The |: Fair supplies further information with particular reference to male II workers and their wages. Testimony of: Mr. Theodore W. Robinson, vice president, Illinois Steel Com- pany; Mr. Henry A. Blair, chairman, Board of Directors, Chicago Railways Company; Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, Superintendent of Schools; Mr. James B. Forgan, president. First National Bank; |; Mr. Joseph Basch, general manager, Siegel, Cooper & Com- !■ pany; jl Mr. Abraham Harris, president, Chicago House Wrecking Company; t Mr. Edward J. Lehmann, vice president. The Fair. . I Chicago, June 6 , 1913, 2 o’clock P. M. I LaSalle Hotel. I I The Committee met pursuant to adjournment, the same members I libeing present, and the following proceedings were had, to-wit : Mr. Theodore W. Robinson’s Testimony. THEODORE W. ROBINSON, called as a witness before the Com- 3 mittee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as ■ follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. I ! CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Y^ou may state your name. A. Theodore I W. Robinson. . I Q. What is your business? A. First Vice-President of the Illinois ' Steel Company. . 1 Q. That is a corporation? A. A corporation? , I Q. Of Illinois? A. Of Illinois. , Q. How many men are employed by your corporation? A. About ; twenty-two thousand. i Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any man of the twenty-two thousand? A. One dollar and ninety-five cents a day. j Q. Does that mean six times $1.95 for a week? A. One dollar and t ninety-five cents for ten hours work. ^ Q. Do you employ men by the day and give them but two or three I lays work during the week? A. Oh, no, no, no, we couldn’t keep the men i we did that. Q. How many men are employed at $1.95 a day? A. I can’t give ^'Ou those figures, Governor. 739 740 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. What figures have you? A. I can give you the average figures per man in a general way. Q. What is the average wage paid? A. The average wage paid is $2.74. Q. Two dollars and seventy-four cents per day? A. Yes. Q. In a general way, what do the men do; what is the nature of their ernployment? A. Of course we are in the steel business, and that begins with the smelting of the ore until the finished product is turned out in the shape of rails and bars and what not. It takes in not only the smelting, but the work at the furnaces and the conversion of the ore into steel, and the rolling of the steel, and so forth, in the various departments. O. Those men are doing what you would term hard phj'sical labor? A. They are doing physical labor. Q. Labor of a nature that would require strong muscle? A. Not entirely, no; not entirely; there is a great deal of mechanical work performed; a person pulling a lever, it doesn’t take a very strong man to do that. Q. These men are paid by the day? A. Yes, wq have day men and month men. Q. What is the highest wage paid to any of these men? A. Why, if I remember correctly, we have men who are earning $300 and $400, and possibly some that are earning more than that. Q. What is the nature of their employment? A. What is termed “heating”; that is, heating the steel and rolling the steel; that is skilled labor. Q. They are paid higher salaries because of the skill that they possess? A. Yes. Q. Where are those men employed? A. We have mills at Joliet, South Chicago, Milwaukee and North Chicago, and Gary. Q. Do the men as a rule live in the neighborhood of the plant? A. As a rule, yes. Q. And does your corporation regulate the condition, or, in a general way, supervise the condition of the neighborhood in which the men live? A. Only indirectly. We have no tenants. We have our visiting nurses, our hospitals, our physicians, and we do a great deal of welfare work and things of that character, but we are not landlords in that sense. I might modify that to a certain extent. In Gary, it being a new town, we have had to do something for those men. Q. How many men do you employ at Gary"? A. We have about seventy-eight hundred men at Gary. Q. What proportion of the population of Gary work for you; that is, your employes constitute what proportion of the total population of Gary? A. I can’t answer that because there are a good many industries outside of the Illinois Steel Company there, and I didn’t have those figures in mind. Q. Gary is outside the jurisdiction of this Committee and I am simply asking for information as bearing on the general subiect. At Gary, because so many of your men live there with their families and children, has your corporation interested itself in the direction of cleaning the moral atmosphere of the town? A. As far as we can, through a general scheme of education, for instance, at Joliet, we have what we call our Steel Works’ Club, and through that club, as the instrument, we hold educational classes and lectures and work of that nature. We do, directly' or indirectly, a great deal along the lines ymu speak of. Q. The Committee is interested in Gary, because at a previous session it was shown that girls were taken from Chicago to Gary, Indiana, and sold into white slavery there at Gar_v, and the Committee would like to know what effort, if any', the corporation that y'ou represent, is making to remedy conditions there? A, I can’t answer that. Governor; I really don’t know. Q. As Vice-President of your corporation, is it your opinion that a I Public Meetings and Testimony 741 moral responsibility in the connection indicated should be accepted by you? A. Yes; as is evidenced by the fact that with the club at Joliet, with our visiting nurses, with our hospital work, yes, we endeavor as far as we may properly to benefit the community. Q. Does the corporation that you represent control, directly or indi- rectly, any of the real estate in Gary? A. By a subsidiary company; not jdirectly by the Illinois Steel. Q. What is the name of that subsidiary company? A. The Gary Land Company. Q. And that is controlled by your corporation? A. Not by the Illinois Steel Company, no. t Q. But there is a connection? A. Through the United States Steel I sCorporation. Ili Q. How much of the real estate in Gary is controlled by your subsidiary corporation? A. I can’t answer that question. Governor, inas- Imuch as I have nothing to do with that; that is not an Illinois Steel ; proposition at all. Q. This is merely illustrative information that we are seeking. A. I (would be glad to give it to you if I knew it. Q. May I ask* you this: are any of the houses of ill-repute at Gary, into which Chicago girls are taken and sold into white slavery, situated on land owned or controlled by the subsidiary corporation? A. I don’t know, but I should seriously question if that was the fact; certainly not if the corporation knew it. Mr. Knapp tells me that that location is down I in what we call “The Patch,’’ and I, of course, know nothing about that, but I dm perfectly safe, I think, in saying that there is no land used for any such purpose if the corporation knows it; there is no question about that. Q. I believe that; but I was trying to find out how far your corpora- jtion has accepted its moral responsibility. A. Only the moral influence of any body of men who are desirous of bettering the community in which they live. Q. Your corporation, as you have stated, is interested in the welfare of its workers? A. Yes, sir; in the way we are interested in the conditions (Under which our workers live. Q. If you were to find that some man working for your corporation iwas paid inadequately, an inadequate wage for the support of his wife i 'and family, what would be your course; to increase the wage? A. I would answer that. Governor, by saying that to the best of my knowledge and belief, the wages we are paying are adequate for the support and sustenance j of a family. < . j ^ ^ j Q. Have you ever conducted an investigation, or caused to be started 1 ' an investigation, seeking to ascertain what is a fair living wage? A. Only in a general way. Governor. Q. In what general way? A. We endeavor at all times to keep in touch with inside conditions; you know as well as I know how that is. Q. Basing your reply upon that general information, what would you ' say is a fair living wage for the man who has to support a wife and family? j A. We recently raised our wages, I think three or four months ago, from i $1.75, as I recall it — I am giving you the minimum now — to $1.95. We did I that on account of general existing circumstances as we saw them, desiring to be fair and liberal with our men, and desiring to have, as we do have, j their hearty co-operation. Our policy is not to see how little we can hire ; men for, but rather how much can we afford to pay a man for any given I character of work they do for any given efficiency. [ Q. In fixing the wage paid to your men, you take into consideration the profits made by your corporation? A. That would simply be an indirect factor as representing, if you please, the general prosperity of the community and the country. Q. Might I ask if your corporation this year were to make a profit j larger than last year, would it, in readjusting its affairs, give the men in its employ a wage higher than they received last year and in proportion 742 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee to the increase in its profits? A. We don’t attempt to handle the measure of wages directly upon profits or upon losses; neither do we attempt when the adjustment of wages is under consideration, to take into consideration factors, of which that naturally would be but one. Q. Now, Mr. Robinson, going back; did I understand that you stated what you considered to be a fair living wage for a man with a family? A. I stated that in paying $1.95 a day, which is the minimum for common labor, we considered that we were paying a wage which we considered a fair, just wage. Q. That minimum was increased from $1.75 within the last two or three months? A. Yes, sir; three or four months, as I recall it. Q. A man getting $1.95 a day, and with a family, generally lives where? What sort of a place does he rent? A. Many' of our men own their own houses; many men rent and then take boarde'rs, and if so, there are many men who board with those who own the homes. Q. Do any of the people who work for you live in so-called tene- ments? A. Practically none; not that I know of and not as I understand what you mean by tenement. Q. Do they live in crowded quarters? A. No, no, no. Q. How are the housing conditions? A. The housing conditions, as a whole, are very good. Q. Have you ever conducted an investigation to ascertain what pro- portion, if any, of the men working for you, have savings accounts in the banks? A. No, I have not, although I have a general knowledge to the effect that our men are prosperous. Q. By prosperous, you mean what? A. Thrifty, saving men. Q. You mean that many have savings accounts. A. Oh, ves; many men had them for years and years and own their own homes. Those men are advanced as opportunities permit and they are increased because of their own skill and efficiency. We work under a system of promotion wherever the opportunity will permit. Q. You have boys in your employ, too. A. We have a certain number of boys; most of them are really young men. I judge eighteen to twenty-one years of age. We have some of them apprentices. Q. What are they employed at? A. Principally messenger boys; I am speaking now of the younger boys— messenger boys and the sorting of nuts and light labor, of that description. Q. The messenger boys are paid how much? A. Let me see. I think I have the figures here. Governor, to show that. I see that the average paid all of the young men under twenty-one years of age, amounts to $1.96; that is the average of them all. D. Per day? A. Per day; now that includes boys who are working the first year as an apprentice; for instance, for $1 a daj', and who during the second, third and fourth years are gradually advanced to $2 or $3 a dajr as the case may be. This average is $1.96, which includes them all — apprentices and others. Q. What is the average period of service of men in your employ? A. I can’t give you those figures; we have men in our employ who have been there, to our knowledge, thirty years. Q. Have you any men who have been in your employ thirty years who are receiving less than $20 a week? A. I think not, although I would not say positively. O. Does the average man with wife and family get enou.gh money for his service to your corporation to keep up a home without the other members of the family being compelled also to go out into the business world? A. They certainly get money enough to raise a family respect- ably. When vou sajr go out into the business world, you and I went out into the business world and everv man or boy goes out into the business world. Your son goes into the business world: when he starts in high school or technical college he pays for that privilege. I claini if a boy or girl comes from a family, who are not financially able to give their children that educational opportunity, they at least should have the Public Meetings and Testimony 743 opportunity of learning a trade or a profession in the shop or elsewhere, which will gradually bring them to that state of efficiency where they will likewise be able to make good wages as they go on in life. So I would again say, possibly I may have misunderstood you, but that phrase, “forcing them out into the business world,” — we are all forced out, and properly, too. Q. I am referring now especially to the girl, Mr. Robinson; the man who has a wife and a daughter of 15 or 16 years; he is working for your corporation, and he is being paid the average of $2.74 per day; on that $2.74 a day, can he support his wife and daughter of 15 or 16 years of age without the daughter being forced out to get a job to help out? A. My answer would certainly be “yes.” Q. I ask you, Mr. Robinson, if among the men working for your corporation, the men .who are the fathers of such daughters, there are any considerable number who have daughters that don’t go out to work to help support the family? A. I can’t give you any definite information on that. Governor, I am sure; I really don’t know. Q. What has been your observation — does the average child, the girl child, in your industrial colony, go out into employment? A. Not until they would at least finish the public school system. Q. By public school system, do you mean the high school? A. Statistics show that there are comparatively few that go through high school; as you probably know, 90 per cent of our school children leave 'school at 14 years of age. Q. You would say that girls go out into employment at 14 years of age, and they have the usual education given to girls up to 14? A. At the age of 14 statistics show that the average child, both boy and girl, leaves school; if they go to take care of the household with the mother, or they ,may go into training of some kind, or into industrial life; I have no definite statistics on that. Governor. Q. As man to man, Mr. Robinson, do you think that it is right for any girl 14 or 15 or 16 years of age to be forced into employment in order ) to help support the father’s home? A. I again would question the word .’“forced,” Governor. Every girl, whether it be in the family of the rich '^or in the family of the poor, after they leave school, whether they are 1-f or 18, if they are not going to be drones in the human family, have got (to undertake something in the shape of education, whether it be training j for a stenographer, or whether it be in the training of a higher education, ; we have all, naturally every woman and every girl has naturally when They leave school, they have got to do something. I Q. Mr. Robinson, the average girl who goes into a store as a clerk or who goes into a factory as a working girl, in that factory, does she f come usually from a rich home or a poor home? A. Naturally from a ■poor home, I would say. : Q- Wouldn’t you say, in a sense, that the poorness of her home has ]; forced her into that kind of work? A. I think you mean, possibly, that ■, the average... girl is under the financial necessity of earning her livelihood; I assume that that is what you mean, which of course is the fact, abso- ■ lutely, to assist in gaining a livelihood, whether by assisting at home or ji getting out and earning what she can. ; Q. Have you any girls in your employment? A. We have about ;H40, all told, among the 22,000; 150 possibly. i Q. What is their occupation? A. Stenographers, typists, telephone ' operators. i Q. What are they paid as a general thing? A. The average of ; $60.77 a month. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Take vaphers and men stenographers, which give you the best service? your stenographers, your lady stenog- which do you think are the best, and A. I think from a standpoint of efficiency. 744 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee while I personally prefer women from the standpoint of efficiency, there is not very much difference; it depends upon the individual. Q. You think that a man and a gfrl ought to have an equal chance in this world; of course you can’t hire girls in your factory, but take it in the stenographic department and in stores, if a girl does the work that a man does and does it equally as well as he does, do you not believe she should receive the same wages? A. No. Q. Why not? A. First, for physical reasons. Q. You misunderstand me. I said if she did the work equally as well and as fast as the man? A. I would call your attention. Senator, to this fact, the very important element in the employment, or in the advance- ment of any individual man or woman, the advancement of that individual, whether it be man or woman, naturally lies in the expectancy and their capacity to go forward to higher things. Now, on account of the well known limitations, women cannot expect, in the industrial world, to reach the heights that man can. Q. You misunderstood me. You put a boy into your business world and that boy wants to build himself up in it; the girl expects to be a stenographer; she can’t go higher, and therefore her occupation is not as great as a man’s. A. Well, I will have to say that girls could not go as high as men; her field is more limited. Q. She could not go any higher in your employment; take these stenographers that you are paying sixty dollars a month for; those girls cannot expect to go higher? A. Some of them do. Q. You take a boy 16 or 18 years of age and they go up, step bv step? A. Yes. Q. Therefore, after a girl has been there, if she gets the chance the boy gets, she could not avail herself of it, but if the boy gets a chance, he is going to work higher? A. Yes. Q. Therefore, up to that time that she gets married, for instance, if the girl is as good a stenographer as the man, shouldn’t she be entitled to the same wages as the man? A. I will say “No,” as a practical proposition. You possibly know, and I certainly know of certain well known presidents of large railroads that center here in the city of Chicago, who started as stenographers. Women could not possibly do that. Q. That may be true, but at the same time if a woman does the work allotted to her as well as a man does the work allotted to him, if that work is of the same character, should she not receive the same amount of pay? A. My point is, while I agree with all you have to say, there is this much in addition, that when I hire a stenographer, a man stenographer, you understand that I am hiring someone who, if he has got mental capacity to recognize what is going on about him, may go on up. Y'hen we hire a woman, the chances are that she stays right there on account of conditions that you and I know of. Q. You and I agree on that; there is no question on that. But suppose you were going' to hire a stenographer and nothing but a stenog- rapher, and a girl was as good as a man, don’t you think that the girl ought to be treated as well as the man? A. I think practically she is. Q. That is exactly what I was trying to get at. A. I think she is. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: Does the law of supply and demand enter into your wages? A. The law of supply and demand. Senator, influences every industrial consideration to a greater or less extent; it is by no means the consideration that influences us. Q. You have a bonus system in hiring your men? A. Well, we have and we haven’t; I don’t know as I exactly know what you mean. We pay certain men by the ton, on a certain basis; we give a bonus, also as a bonus for special work well done, at different periods of the year; of course, that is in addition. Q. That you say is in addition to the regular salary? . A. Those things are in addition to the regular salary. Public Meetings and Testimony 745 Q. One of the witnesses this morning stated that the law of supply and demand in his particular business did not enter into the wage question at all; he didn’t regard that as any item. Do you regard it as cutting any figure in your business? A. Why, I don’t think so great a figure; 1 said it would cut some figure. Q. Some figure? A. In every industrial enterprise, in my opinion, we have to recognize it. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: When did your people have a raise? A. About February. Q. Last February? A. Yes. Q. That is as a whole? A. Just as to the rank and file. Q. Of what per cent? A. If I remember it, it was something like 10 per cent; it was not a straight increase, you understand, but it averaged something like that, as I recall it. May 1 make just one suggestion to you? I think it is of a great deal of interest. SENATOR BEALL: We are all here to learn. MR. ROBINSON: There was one thought that has come to me in the discussion in connection with this question. It turned, your conversa- tion turned to questions particularly upon the girl who was receiving five dollars a week and being forced out into the business world at five dollars a week. You asked a question of several of the gentlemen of what sugges- I tions they had for the betterment of those conditions. I would like to suggest that there are two things which you should consider, and which I presume you probably have considered, and one is that in all of these discussions, you have got to recognize the laws of economics just as sure as you have got to recognize the laws of the physical being; if you go contrary to either one of which you will get yourself into trouble. As R "bearing on that, I wish to say this: that my opinion is that if the girl is [given the opportunity, and if the boy is given the opportunity, of increasing : |his or her efficiency, she or he will very quickly get a larger wage, arid as ^ibearing on that, you have right now, before the Senate, an educational f bill for vocational training, which is based on this very thing. We have, I so I am told, a matter of twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand boys and I girls between 14 and 16 years of age in the city of Chicago who are doing 4 nothing, derelicts wandering around the streets. If you will enact some -Taws that will tell those young people to acquire a training which will ^ Tead them to greater industrial efficiency, you will go a long ways toward ■ ip solving the problem which you are studying now, in my opinion. One Another thing: I have heard discussed the matter of industrial service. _ I ^ have known where a girl in domestic, not industrial, but in domestic service, H lhad ambition to study and become a trained nurse, getting twenty-five ■j . dollars a week from now on. And so it appears to me, when these girls !!and young men are forced to go into the W 9 rld of industry, if something j could be brought forth to dignify the question of domestic service; now there is a prejudice against that, but if they can remove that prejudice ■< against that, so that young girls, who have no home of their own. can ' get such training which would lead them to higher things. If the girl it who has no home can get five dollars a week and thereby gets her training, S it will in the end give her an earning capacity much greater than she can v hope to expect in almost any other line. I believe that while you are V handling these important questions, that some consideration should be t t given to the fact that among these girls, who are getting these low wages, ,! many are getting them simply because they are acting practically as * apprentices. I thank you. I agree with you most thoroughly in what you ? ’■ have said in most respects. •j SENATOR BEALL; And I agree with you directly in regard to what j you have said with respect to domestic service. 'J ; CHAIRMAN O’HARA; The evidence introduced before this Com- i mittee has shown something like 50 per cent of the women who went into I prostitution, and whose cases were investigated by the Federal service, ' came from domestic service; something like 50 per cent of them, if I I 746 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee , remember correctly. An investigation by the Federal authorities showed 1 that to be the fact, and it appeared that was because the hours of employ- i ment and the conditions were not regulated. Is it your opinion, or is it ( not, that the regulation by the State of the hours and conditions of girls } in domestic employment might have the effect of giving dignity to that kind of female employment and thus attract to it a large number of young . women? A. Of course, that is a form of employment itself, which would i be subject to a very extensive discussion on both sides. SENATOR TOSSEY: What suggestion would you have to offer to dignify that service? MR. ROBINSON: It is a rather difficult and complicated question to answer, and should require careful study. SENATOR WOODARD: Wouldn’t teaching them domestic science do that? MR. ROBINSON: Very largely. SENATOR WOODARD: Or other vocational education. MR. ROBINSON: Yes, there is no measure, in my opinion, that so closely touches upon this whole subject matter as the vocational bill which is now before the Senate. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: What is the number of the bill? A. That is the Cooley bill. Q. That is what you people recommend? A. Absolutely. Q. I am going to ask you a question: in our investigations we have been talking on domestic affairs, and people complain to us and say that they cannot hire domestics, that they won’t come to work in the house. We had a girl on the witness-stand in Peoria, a fallen girl, and she told her story; she said she worked out; she had to get up in the morning at half- past five and work all day; at night the men folks came home at all times, she had to get two or three suppers, and she could not get her dishes done and her work done up until some times eight or nine o’clock at night. When she had a beau come to see her, she had to take him into the kitchen or out into the park, or in the backyard, or wherever she might be able to see him, and she says to me, “Do you suppose I am a slave? I want some of my hours to myself.” You can’t hire domestics; and nowadaj'S they pay $5 or $6 a week and board and room, but the girls will not go to work in domestic service. They will go to work in the factories, but they will not be a domestic; now is there anything that you could suggest; how are you going to remedy it? A. I think that might be a subject well worthy of careful and scientific investigation on the part of some people, a commission or otherwise. Q. Domestics have no pleasure, or very few of them, and they get them after nine o’clock at night, and there you are. If they could sit out on the porch or in the yard or some place, any place to take care of their beaux. A. As I said before, I think that that is a matter that would require very careful and scientific investigation and careful thought. Q. This vocational bill, you would recommend it, would you? A. That is the result of at least five years’ hard work, of scientific investiga- tion of many of the conditions that we have been discussing here, not only in every state in this country, but practically every country abroad, attd it is, without doubt, based upon the most scientific, careful, exhaustive investigation ever made in the United States of America. In m}- opinion, you have in that bill the best vocational bill of any state in this country. EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. Q. Are the men working for your corporation organized, A. Yes and no. We run an open shop and there are union and non-union men working there. Public Meetings and Testimony 747 Q. Is that the Cooley vocational educational bill? Is that the one you ire referring to? A. Yes. Q. Is that endorsed by the labor unions? A. That bill is drawn, and »vas to a certain extent, influenced by the finding of the committee of educa- :ion appointed by the Federation of Labor and reported before Mr. jGompers in Detroit, or Toledo, two years ago. There has been some question, as I understand it, raised on the part of some of the labor leaders here in the City of Chicago, but it is a measure, the conditions of which and the provisions of \vhich absolutely meet with the findings of fhe General Federation of Labor, Mr. Gomper’s body. Q. Is it not the fact that the bill is being opposed by representatives bf certain, if not all, of the labor unions in this state? A. I have under- stood that there has been certain opposition to it; how far that goes. Governor, I don’t know. I know and you will find that it is a measure that has been advocated by the national body and has been introduced in various states and endorsed by the labor leaders. Here in this state there seems to be some special objections which have brought forth more or less opposition. Mr. Henry A. Blair’s Testimony. HENRY A. BLAIR, called as a witness before the Committee, was pxamined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: I EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. j CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Henry A. Blair. I. Q. And your occupation? A. Chicago Railways Company, Chairman |of the Board of Directors. Q. How many men are employed by that corporation, Mr. Blair? A. Eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine. f ' 1 Q. What is the average w^age paid? A. Sixty-nine dollars and twenty jcents, and that is divided up in this way: the trainmen receive $75.63; the car shops, $65.58; track department, which is mostly construction and labor, $52.63; office, $91; engineering, $63; operating, $79, making an laverage of $69.28. There are 4,879 men in the train department; 984 in the car shops; 1904 in the track department; 236 in the office and 557 in .the engineering department, and 209 in the operation of cars. Q. Have you an age limit, Mr. Blair, in your corporation? A. No, I sir. j Q. In regard to conductors there is no age limit? A. No, sir. I Q. Under wdiat system are conductors and motormen engaged? A. They go through the employment department, or employment departments, jand they are examined for physical conditions and so forth; and if strong, able men, they are taken in as motormen or conductors. I suppose there 'are a number of the oldest men, conductors, who have been transferred 'to other departments, either swdtchmen or something of that sort, or to the barn. Q. Have you any particular employment at which you keep at work men that might be generally classified as old men? A. I don’t think so. Governor; that comes entirely within the operating department, and I don’t know that I could answer that question entirely satisfactorily, but they are transferred to, for instance, the barns; they are stationed at the barns; a great many of the older men that can do work, they are about the .cars doing work that they could not do as motormen and conductors; then 'we have a large number of barns. Q. Now, at the barns, Mr. Blair, what are those men paid? What would be a fair average of the amount paid to men at the barns? A. I 'don’t think there would be any change; we haven’t any changes; we keep |Our men along. Our wages are regulated by the unions and we make a 'contract with them; it is simply a question of the time that they have been in the employ. I 748 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. All of your men are union men? A. All of the trainmen. There are some non-union men in the shops, I think. Q. In the shops do the men get less money than the trainmen get? A. No, I think not; there are certain men in the shops, and probably they do. I think the average is a bit over that of the barns; the car shops average $65.58 and the trainmen average $75.63. They work a greater number of hours. The minimum hours for trainmen is nine hours, while in the shop it would be six, seven or eight hours, because the shops don’t run as the trainmen run. I think that would account mostly for the difference. Q. Have you any idea, Mr. Blair, of the minimum wage that should be paid a man with a wife and family to support? A. No, I have not, Governor; I never have studied that carefully enough to give an opinion. Q. In your employ no difference is made between a man who is single and a man who is married? A. No, sir. Q. In fact, the wage is not based upon the sufficiency or the insuffi- ciency of the wage paid to support a wife and family? A. No, sir. Q. Do you believe, Mr. Blair, that there should be an industrial condition in which the minimum living wage paid to the head of a family should suffice to support the entire family? A. I do; I think it could be brought about where such a problem could be worked out; I think they ought to get a little more. Q. Have you any suggestions to give to the Committee along that line? A. Well, I don’t know that my experience in the business world has been so much in the way of a commercial life as it has been in the banking field and with the traction companies, and I have dealt with men very largely. The problem is too big for me. I think it should be ver>- carefully thought of. and I think the evidence should be given the greatest consideration, and this Committee should give its best efforts and should be given the greatest support to bring about the result desired. O. One other question and I am through: your average wage to men is a little less than seventy dollars a month? A. Sixty-nine dollars, in- cluding all classes. That includes boys and labor of all sorts; it includes all in our emplov. For instance, I simply take the statement for April here, which has been handed to me; there are 152 men in our emnloy in the claim department that earn over $100 a month; there are 888 men that earn between $90 and $100; there are 1.346 men that earn between $80 and $90: there are 1,044 men that earn between $70 and $80, and it goes down in that proportion. The minimum wages that we pay — nine- hour wages: a person working for two hours, we pay for nine hours. The maximum is eleven hours. It was agreed among the men themselves and it was adjusted in that way, I think, where up from the first year they come in at 23 cents per hour, and at the end of the sixth year they receive the maximum charging for three months, so they increase according to their ability and so forth. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: I suppose those schedules are fixed by the union? A. Yes, they are absolutely. Q. And you were pleased on both sides? A. Yes, it was fixed by arbitration, and Justice Carter was the umpire. Q. For how long did you have that schedule? This was for a term of three years. The one before this was for three years and I think this is for three years. O. At the end of three years you have a new schedule? A. Yes. O. When did the old schedule expire? A. It exnired. and this was dated back as of August the 12th, so this expires in 1915: I am not sure whether it is three years or four years. I was away at the time of the arbitration. I am not sure whether it was three or four years, but I think it is thre e years, though. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: There was a division among the members of Public Meetings and Testimony 749 I I he commission fixing that schedule? A. There was a minority report. ' think Judge Scanlan made a minority report. Q. He was an arbitrator, appointed by the men? A. He was arbi- rator for the men. I don’t think it was a question of wages; I think the aien were perfectly satisfied with the wages; it was a question of arriving it the maximum perhaps, a little quicker. SENATOR BEALL: Have you any women in your employ? A. jifes, sixty-nine. Q. What do they do? A. Mostly stenographers in the office; their average is $63.26. Mrs. Ella Flagg Young’s Testimony. ELLA FLAGG YOUNG, called as a witness before the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as follows: ' EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. j' CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Ella Flagg |Young. Q. Your occupation? A. Teaching. I Q. And your official position? A. Superintendent of Schools. ' Q. For the city of Chicago? A. Yes. I Q. Mrs. Young, what do you think of the proposition of vocational ieducational training? A. I think that when the schools rise to a full (Understanding of that, that we shall have as few complaints made re- Igarding schools, as it is possible for anything here on earth to have, i! Q. What will the effect be of vocational education as bearing upon (industrial conditions? A. If they have vocational education, industrial (education, the American workman and workwoman will have a higher ^tconception of what it is possible for him or for her to do in the line of Iwork to which he or she is chosen; if they have simply vocational train- ling, we may have a lot of cogs to the machine that will start off fairly ■Iwell, and reach the limit of aspiration and power in about two years. liDo I make myself clear? }| Q. Vocational education brought to perfection, or near to perfec- I i'tion, would require how many years of a student’s time? A. That would i. depend upon the vocation to some extent. I think that the day is coming, (|and not far distant, when the training in the school from the first will be ||a training for knowledge as a tool and not as it is now, to a very large Si extent all over the world, a training for the impression upon the mind 1 of that which has been done, instead of the training school to be used I in the future. Now the question in vocational education is to train is the doing, and at the same time have the mind at work behind that. Training to doing so that the ability to do a thing and its environments :: is acquired, and the mind very soon drops out of its mere habit, ill Q. The practical purpose of vocational education, is to make the y.boys and girls able to support themselves; isn’t that the end sought to , be achieved? A. Not alone; you will have to put something else in there if you accept vocational education that I have in mind. It must not only fit the boy and girl to do the work so that the individual will ' ; be supported well by the industry, but also to set an aim in the mind ; of the boy and an aim' in the mind of the girl to -besome something. I ' And I don’t mean by that all of that old thought about president of the i United States and so on; but all of these various lines of work that we 1 ; are trying to do now, is to work out an understanding of the many lines , of occupation, so that when the boy goes out of school he does not j simply drift into something; he has learned to work with his hands and [ to use his mind upon his work, and in the study which we endeavor to I make of occupations, he has found out already that he is possessed of r ! talent or desire in certain directions, and he would like to work in those I [ lines. ; i Q. One of the ends aimed at by vocational education is to plant in G the mind of the student an occupational ideal; to change the ambition 750 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I of the American boy from the one commonly expressed, to become president, to becoming proficient, or almost proficient, in the line of work in which he individually is fitted; is that your idea? A. Yes; which would fit his endowment or training; the school gives him that endow- ment. Q. The fundamental thing is to make first the boy or girl, who has completed the system of vocational education, self-supporting? A. Yes. if the first you have stated full}" were accomplished, it would frerjuently comprehend the second; self-support. Q. You believe that anyone with an ambition is capable of self- > support? A. I have no confidence in these ambitions that are in the air, with no foundation. Q. Then, we will say that when the boy or girl gets through with that system of vocational education, he has an ambition and he has the ability to make a living. A. Yes, sir. Q. Would you say that, under the system of vocational education, you can complete the course of instruction by the time the boy or girl reaches the age of fourteen or fifteen? A. No. We have between six hundred and seven hundred boys and girls, a great many more boys than girls, in continuation work; doing their work during the day and coming to us in the evening and working there along the lines that make them more proficient; whether it is electricity training or the scientific side. We have also in Chicago a class coming from the .factory of the R. T. Crane Company, two rooms-full of apprentices, who come one morning in the week; they come at half-past eight in the morning and stay until twelve and are taught, not to do hand work (we have got no factory), but they are taught to believe that they should burden their minds with a knowledge of the things on which they are working. Now, the car- penters, they send the apprentices three months in the year for three years to us all day long, and we give them at first purely what I call academic work, for lack of a better name; we give them mechanical draw- ing and mathematics bearing on wood work, and reading. We have added to that in the last few j"ears manual training. Young fellows eighteen to twenty years of age come to us with hardly any knowledge of the foundation of municipal, state or national government. Now we have added to it some advanced forms of woodwork. At first the unions and the skilled laborers smiled and would not concede that we could teach anything to their apprentices about carpentry, but they come to us now. SENATOR BEALL: Is that an industrial school that you are talk- ing of? A. Not onlv an industrial school, but we have three technical schools, as we call them, because the industrial school is rather limited to trade work, and in Chicago we are not doing pure and simple trade work. We are trying all the time to keep improving the trade work, but at the same time to put something into the life, so that when the boy gets through with his work, the eighteen, twenty or sixteen year old bov, in the evening when he gets through with his work, that he is not going to be satisfied with the lowest form of entertainment that the city can offer. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is the age of the average girl or boy leaving the public schools? A. Do you mean leaving the eighth grade or the high school? Q. Dropping out of the system alto.gether? A. I could not give you that; I could tell you the age at which we begin to lose them auite markedly, and that is the age of fourteen, and the class of children whom we lose generally at that age, belong to this great class that need particularly to do hand work of some kind; not to be limited to books. It is strange, we have what we call three vocational schools. The boys and girls that have dragged along, get to the middle grades, are tired of school and would rather ,go to any place in the world than to school, and so they begin to be truants. MY have three vocational schools, where thev work half the day on hand work and half a day on book work, and it is one of the strangest things that ever hapnened in educational work, that with that work, half a day only on the book and half a day with hand work. Public Meetings and Testimony 751 ’they are keeping up with the other children that are working all day on ibooks. I Q. These children, who leave school at fourteen, do they come [usually from the poorer homes? A. I should naturally say yes to that, land yet, in a school down on the South Side, in the stock-yards district, 'ffrom which you could scarcely find five per cent of the pupils who were [doing advanced work, five per cent of the pupils that had passed through The eighth grade, we started this vocational work and one hundred per 'cent of those in the upper classes have gone on to the high technical (school. They are supposed to be children of poor people, but as soon fas you get implanted in the mind of the boy or girl the idea, “I \vant to "be that, and they are teaching me how to do that work to be that,” Ithen you have struck a responsive chord in an otherwise reluctant and {dormant mind. I have never had so much faith as to the ultimate good (that these schools will do as I have had since I have seen work that jhas been done in and about these schools. j Q. A percentage of boys and girls is lost to the public schools, jis it not, because of poverty in the homes? A. I suppose so. j Q. You haven’t an}^ way of telling us definitel}^ what that per- jcentage or proportion is? A. No, really we are always shy of two [things in the public schools; one is making an inquiry into the condition i of the family, and the other is probing down into their connections, 1 and yet I rvant to say, on the other hand, that there are a great many j children that are going to our public schools, who are fed and clothed " by their teachers. { Q. There are a great many of them fed and clothed by their i teachers? A. Yes, sir, and nobody knows it except a few teachers. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: Why, Mrs. Young? A. Why are they fed and clothed? Q. Yes. A. Because their parents are poor. We have in certain schools what is called penny lunches, in four schools, where the mothers go out to w'ork. At noon the children w'ant to be out around on the streets, or run home and get a crust of bread or something of that sort, or maybe some beer; and with these penny lunches, they are not fed like paupers; we feed in these four schools about tw'o thousand children a day. Q. What do you give them for that penny? A. We have to have a variety; it is rather odd; they know which days are soup days and which days are doughnut days, and which days are rice and cakes. Q. A penny does not pay for it, does it? A. No, the women’s clubs pay for it; there are fifty-seven women’s clubs in this city and they have what they call an extension committee, and that extension com- mittee always attaches itself to the public schools to introduce and help inodernize some form of work or support it until the Board of Education is satisfied that that should be maintained by the city. Then the city takes it of¥ their hands, and instantly those industrious women have something else. Those are the women who started the vacation schools and they supported them for years; afterwards the Board of Education saw that the vacation school was a desirable adjunct to the reeular schools; then these women started out and came to me and wanted to know if there was anything else they could do. I said, “Yes, they had better try penny lunches. I think the food is not so palatable or so good as it should be; I should think that women who are heads of families, women from the fifty-seven clubs, ought to be able to go in there and help us out on this.” They immediately took that matter up, and they supplied the deficit. There is a deficit right along and they have been supplying it. The Board furnishes equipment and all that, but they furnish the food. Q. The effect is that the child is beter prepared for study, with more food? A. That is what the principals of the schools say, that there is a marked change in those children. 752 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Physical well being has much to do with the mental, do you find? A. Yes, sir. Q. And also with the morals? A. Undoubtedly. Q. There is no doubt about it? A. Of course, you get along where the physical well being may pass be3^ond the stage of well being, and be — I was going to say — coddling of the body, and then you have the decentive, you see from the fine conditions of the body. Q. Would you say there are two dangers — one the danger of the very poor and the other the danger of the very rich? A. Yes; that is what they say — the extremely poor and the extremely rich are all the time wandering over the earth — one traveling, the other wandering, but they are both doing the same thing with soul and body. Q. Do you find that there are quite a number of girls who are sent to the public schools, and who come there without enough to eat? A. I have an idea that there are many more children that are not well fed then we know about; they may eat large enough bulk, but they are not well enough fed; a much larger percentage than we suppose, but we are meeting that; we are trying to meet that in our teaching, in our household dietetics. Q. How many children are enrolled in the public schools of Chicago? A. We had enrolled 306,000 in the day schools, not counting the evening schools. It is not counting the branches that come to our evening schools, but it is counting those that come to our continuation schools, the car- penters, _ electricians, plumbers and the girls from the department stores, but not including the evening schools. We had about 20,000 in the evening classes. Q. If the father is paid a wage inadequate to support the wife and the family, and as a result the daughter attending public school until she is 14, has not quite enough to eat, would saj' in a general way that her mental and moral growth might be retarded, directly because of that inadequacy of wage paid the father? A. That would be a pretty hard question to answer. We know that some of the strongest men and some of the strongest women we have had in this country have been inadequately fed. I should say, first, it is a great loss to the children, to the .girls and to the boys. Take the girls and the boys who have simplj^ rj^e bread and poor coffee or beer for breakfast, and then have them come to school, then go home at noon and get something of the same sort; I should say that they could not be well fed, and I would venture it as an opinion that those children cannot do as well on that sort of food, or as efficient work as those who are better fed, or, I might saj’, properly fed. Q. Do you care to express an opinion as to the advisability of the enactment of a woman’s minimum wage law? A. Well, I have expressed myself. I am always afraid of a minimum wage law. They undertook to have a minimum salary for teachers established in Chicago some j-ears ago; they undertook to have it established bj^ law. Now, as soon as you do that you have special legislation. That was my position at that time. Now, when you have special legislation, before you get through with that law, you will see the day that you will wish it had not ever been enacted. I believe that this was about ten j^ears ago. If we had had the minimum salaries fixed by law for the teachers in Chicago, then it would mean that every teacher must begin at that lowest salarjq and when the cost of living advanced — I didn’t think at that time that it was going to advance as it has advanced in this country the last few j-ears — when the cost of living advanced, that minimum wage would not enable one to meet the reasonable demands of her position or his position as a teacher; that is the danger of a minimum wage. Q. You refer to a minimum wage fixed in dollars and cents? A. Yes. Q. I mean one that is flexible, that can be changed; that minimum always to be a living wage. A. Do j'ou believe that could ever be done? SENATOR WOODARD: This bill provides for a change once a ^-ear if necessary. MRS. YOUNG: I wonder if j-ou could follow things up that waj’? Public Meetings and Testimony 753 CHAIRMAN O’HARA: There is the element of experiment in every- thing. MRS. YOUNG: Of course, if you have a flexible minimum wage; but to go back to my original point as to special legislation, there are so many things that can come up. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: As a general principle, you believe that the girl and the man worker should at least be paid a living wage? A. At least — most certainly. Q. And you believe that the man who has a wife and children should be paid a wage adequate to the support of the family? A. Yes, sir; you mean more than simply enough for food and clothing, don’t you? “Man cannot live by bread alone.’’ Q. Then, if a minimum wage for women is necessary to protect the health and promote the happiness of the girls, and the welfare of the women, do you believe that a minimum wage law for married men would prove of benefit? A. Oh, certainly; I don’t see how you can limit it as to men or as to women. I think it must be as to both. Q. You believe that sometimes the inadequacy of wage paid to men, who are the heads of households, permanently injures the girls and the boys of those families? A. Oh, certainly. Q. You have ascertained that to be the case as superintendent of the public schools of Chicago and coming into contact with these of thousands ; of children? A. I have come into contact with it as principal of the large t schools. jj Q. Do you believe that girls from these homes, where there is in- i[ adequacy of income, when they go out into business, become, directly or q indirectly, the competitors of the male heads of households? A. As a :■ stenographer, probably yes; as a teacher, yes, and yet not. In both of d those cases, I fully believe that a man of ability always rises above the position in which the low salaries are paid, either as stenographer or j! teacher, within two or three years, while the great mass of women do not i. rise above them. Q. Why is that, Mrs. Young? A. Well, in teaching, a man who goes 111 ■ in as a teacher in the elementary schools at the salary paid, would continue E': to advance one hundred dollars a year; he would be a man who would look t; to the future, probably a man desiring to have a home and a family, and would naturally look forward to that time and would work for advance- 1 ment, while a woman who would go in at that wage, into those places, would remain there; and many of them do remain there. The average woman expects to marry, or to be married — I would put it in the passive — , and she usually^remains there. Q. That is an ambition, isn’t it, if she wishes to be married? A. She doesn’t go around saying, “I must marry, I must marry,’’ not in that way, but she thinks of it just the same, and she thinks that it is only a question of time when she may leave teaching and go into the home, and she does not endeavor to advance like a man would. There are manv who do endeavor to rise above the lowest schedule of salary. But that man, you would not want that man in school if he did not advance. I remember a superintendent, Mr. Howland, maybe you remember him here. He used to say that he didn’t want that kind of a man in the schools. I never said that; of course, I think it is a good thing for him to begin there and stay there a short time, but it is a different thing to teach in the high schools. There they run up to $2,600 a year in salaries. Q. Mrs. Young, your theory is that there should be some ambition implanted in the minds of both the boy and the girl? A. Yes. Q. And that generally, in the case of the girl, that ambition has to do with the home? A. Yes, a man has that idea, too; that is basic in the nature. If you have got a nation full of unmarried men I would not give much for your nation. SENATOR BEALL: Good. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is the ambition implanted in the mind of the girl who leaves school at 14, comes from a poor home, comes into 754 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee a factory, on a wage of five dollars a week; what is the ambition that is implanted in her mind? A. To get out of it. Q. That is her ambition, to get out of it? A. Yes, sir. Q. What ways are open to her to get out of it? A. klarriage, or some other line of work. We have many girls who come into our evening continuation classes who are in those cheap lines of factory work, whose minds have become filled with the idea that they ought to do something that leads somewhere, and they come to us in our evening continuation classes, and many of them have been fitted for work in better lines and have lifted themselves above the cheap factory places. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: As the head of Chicago’s great public school system, is it your opinion that a factory which pays girls two or three dollars or four dollars a week is a benefit or a menace to the community in which it is situated? A. A menace. Q. It is a menace? A. Yes, sir. Q. What would you suggest as the remedy for that? A. Send the employers to school. They have a school of civics and philanthropj' here in town; that might be a good place for them. Q. What is that paper you have in your hand? A. That is a sched- ule of salaries paid. We have different schedules; jmu take the elementary schools and the highest salary is $1,200 and the lowest salary is $650. That would make $925 the average; that is simply in the elementar}' grade; but the moment one becomes an eighth grade teacher, she or he is paid a little extra, and the head assistants receive $1,500 a j-ear. The men in the manual training elementarj^ schools are in a group by them- selves; thej' begin at $850. and they run up to $1,500. It takes them seven years to reach $1,500, and that means every forty weeks out of fifty-two. I think that the most of those men also teach in the evening schools, and there they receive $3.50 an evening, and the evening schools run about one hundred evenings in the year, and that would be $325 added to the $1,500. They are young men. The women teach household art and science and cooking, and the salaries run from $850 to $1,300. SENATOR BEALL: What do you think of our Normal Schools for fitting the teachers to teach in the public schools? MRS. YOL^NG: I think the Normal Schools have advanced in their method of preparation of teachers, the most markedlj' of anj- class of schools that we have. The time was when teachers in the Normal Schools were theorists; they did very little in the wa^- of preparing teachers to go in and make their work a part of the life of the boys and girls. They have advanced most wonderfully. SENATOR BEALL: We are asked for a great deal of money for them, and I guess they are worth it. MRS. YOL'NG: Yes, you take teachers who haven’t had an^- prep- aration; if you had a fine horse, j'ou would not let a man come in and take charge of it who had never had anything to do with a horse, or knew nothing about horses. SENATOR BEALL: Me will agree with you on that. I wanted some information, that was all. I wanted to find out. \Ve have appro- priated for a new training school at Champaign and one at Normal. MRS. YOL^NG: I think the money is well spent. The L’niversity of Illinois is doing a tremendous piece of work in the uay of developing the practical education of young men. I don’t know as it is doing so much for the women. One thing that you have got to take up in connection with this wage question, and that is, when you speak about what a man can earn, can live upon, are the women trained so that they know how to spend the money for the housekeeping most advantageously? It is really a tremendous question, and that is my greatest objection to girls going so early into the work at factories, that they don’t learn about economical housekeeping. Public Meetings and Testimony 755 1 1 ' j EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. I SENATOR TOSSEY: You are acquainted with what is known as > the Cooley \^ocational School Bill? A. Yes. ^ Q. Will you tell us what you think about that bill — whether you en- ! j doi:se it or not? A. No, I don’t endorse it because of the split in the (f school system. If you put that wedge in, and have part of the public i I! money appropriated for the training of boys, from fourteen to sixteen, you . j: will have another wedge put in soon, and then you will have another > wedge, and then I would like to know where your public school system i I . will be after awhile. I think there should be, I think there is and should be ; a method of teaching which develops and expands the minds and powers i of the children in accordance with the fundamental ideas of government. I SENATOR BEALL: I understand you to say you don’t endorse ! S that bill? A. No, I do not. Q. Do you endorse any of those bills down there? A. I would have i to qualify that answer as to that. SENATOR TOSSEY: I understand j^ou to say that you endorsed I vocational training? A. Oh, yes, I do. Mr. James B. Forgan’s Testimony. 1 JAMES B. FORGAN, called as a witness before the Committee, was - examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: |l EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN, i " CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. James B. Forgan. i Q. And your occupation? A. President of the First National Bank, j Q. How many men are employed in that bank, Mr. Forgan? A. I have a memorandum here which shows that we have 597 persons em- Ij' ployed — 580 males and 17 females. ji Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any man in your bank? A. Well, I we commence with bell-boys. There are 48 of them; the lowest wage is ■ i $240 a year — $20 a month; the minimum is $216, and the maximum $276 I a year. The salary starts at $18 a month and the average service is a I year and a half, and the average age is fifteen and a half years, and all of our boys of 14 to 16 are limited to eight hours work a day. Then we ! take them above that and we have them classified as follows: I This is the employes below what we call the officers; this is below ! the officers — below the official staff; I don’t think you want to investigate I them, because they are all in pretty good circumstances. Managers of departments, clerical departments, we have got nine, averaging a monthly salary of $260 a month; the average yearly' salary is $3,120; the minimum is $2,500, and the maximum $4,500. i Assistant managers, there are thirteen of them, getting an average monthly salary of $200 a month, and an average yearly salary of $2,445, a minimum of $1,700 and a maximum of $3,100. I Then we have what we call general men, that is, men who have been trained in the office and can be put behind a clerical desk. They get about $180 a month, on the average; average yearly salary $2,180, a minimum $1,400, maximum $2,600. Then there are the payers, or paying tellers; they are very well paid men; they are experts; there are only four of them, and they I average in salary $350 a month; average yearly salary $4,190; the i minimum is $3,400, and the maximum $5,000 a year. Assistant payers, the men that handle money and get it ready 1 for the payers, there are eleven of them. The average monthly I salary is $133; average yearly salary $1,600; minimum salary $600; maximum $3,300. f Receiving tellers — fifteen of them — get a monthly salary of $180; i average yearlv salary $2,150; minimum of $1,500, and maximum of I $2,400. yS6 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee i Assistant receiving tellers — nineteen of them — average monthly salary $105, average yearly salary of $1,250; minimum of $960, and maximum of $1,300. There are thirty-eight bookkeepers, average monthly salary $128, average yearly salary $1,330; minimum $1,200; maximum $1,600. Assistant bookkeepers, there are fifty-seven, average monthly salary $73; average yearly salary $872; minimum $600; maximum $ 1 , 100 . Currency assistant tellers, that is, sorting and handling currency to be sent to Washington for redemption, nineteen of them getting an average salary of $100 a month; average yearly salary $1,220; mini- mum $900; maximum $3,000. Clerks, 216, getting an average salary of $91 a month; average yearly salary $1,100, minimum salary $420, maximum $3,800. Messengers — they are the young men that we have come up from bell-boys, and come right in from high school at the age of 17 or so. They come in to learn the business and we put them to work as messengers first. We pay them an average monthly salary of $43, an average yearly salary of $515, minimum $300, maximum $l,0OO. The ones that get a $1,000 are somewhat different from what I have explained, but these men are probably average men, like letter-car- riers, that come in as permanent messengers and do not expect to dvelop beyond that; they come in presenting drafts, and go from one bank to another, and one thing and another. Those are men. The rest would be quite young, under age. The salary to start with, as a messenger, is $25 a month, and the average service of a messenger is two years. The average age of a messenger is seventeen and a half years. In regard to the females, we have twelve stenographers, and they get an average salary a month of $96, an average by the 3-ear of $1,155, minimum $900, maximum $1,650. We have two telegraph operators getting an average salary of $90 a month, the average salary is $1,070 a year, minimum 3-early salary $840, and maximum $1,300. Of course, there are only two and that means that one of them gets $840, and the other gets $1,300. Telephone switchboard operators, there are three of them, getting an average salary of $57, an average by the 3'ear of $680, minimum yearly salary$540, maximum $840. I wish to say that, in addition to salaries, the bank supplies the midday meal to the people that are employed b3- us, at its own expense, which is quite a matter of saving to the clerks and messengers. Q. Is that a good custom for other emplo3-ers to adopt? A. I think from our standpoint it would be. We_ are sort of forced to do it because of our very short hours of public business, running from 9 o’clock to 3; we can’t afford to give very much time for lunch in the middle of the day. With 587 people in our employ, besides officers, _we could not let them out for an hour or so in the middle of the da3-. We have to take lunches in relays and it is served quick. We have a lunchroom in the top story of the building and they do it all up in about thirty minutes. senator BEALL: Do they all sit down at the same time? MR. FORGAN; No, in relays, but it only takes them about twenty minutes to get their lunch, because it is all prepared and well ser\-ed. It is not altogether for their benefit; it saves time. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Have you an3- rule regarding the amount of salary a man must receive in your employ, if he marries? MR. FORGAN: That is not a rule of the bank. We have a rule in connection with our pension fund. The emplo3-es of the bank have a pension fund, which is partially paid by the employes and a portion by the bank, and into which the employes contribute 3 per cent of their salary. The bank contributes much more than the employes do, and we have built up a very substantial fund there from which the emplo3-es derive benefit. After they have been fifteen 3'ears in the employ of the bank if they break down in health, the bank takes care of them and gives Public Meetings and Testimony 757 |, them as many fiftieths of their salary as they have spent years in the bank. That is to say, a man who has been there fifteen years would receive fifteen fiftieths of his earnings, running up to twenty-five fiftieths as the maxi- mum, and that would be one-half salary that is paid to men who break down in health. It is paid to his widow if he dies, and it is paid for the 1 benefit of his children until they are 18 years of age. It follows the children if the widow gets married again. It stops as to her if she marries again, but the children get it up to 18 years of age. Q. Do you believe that a man with a wife and family to support should receive a minimum salary of a thousand dollars a year? A. I want to explain. I will answer the question and say that it is a part of ;i the system to which they contribute themselves. The man that is not ii earning a thousand dollars a year should not involve the pension fund ( with liability for his wife and children, for he is not contributing enough || to it. ' Q. You adopt the rule suggested by the pension fund? A. Yes, i the penalty would be that they would lose the benefit of the pension j' fund if they got married before they were getting a thousand dollars a f year. j Q. They would not be discharged? A. No, but they would lose i the benefit of the pension fund. Q. Have you any married men who are receiving less than a thousand ;; dollars a year? A. I think not; we have had to break the rule once j: or twice. We have had to break the rule and add a hundred dollars to a |i sayary under certain circumstances, for young fellows who were in a ;| hurry to get married. We have done it when we had a nice young il fellow and he would not quite reach that amount, we would make it up I' rather than to let him lose the benefit of the pension fund or let him ;i go; we put him so that he could do it legally. i Q. Mr. Forgan, do you think that a man earning $12 a week can j: support a wife and family here in Chicago? A. I can only say I could 1: not. I don’t know how anybody else can. I don’t know how that could ;! be done. It is too distant from what I have to do, so I have nothing ; to say. Q. And you don’t care to try the experiment? A. And I don’t care to try the experiment. Q. Is it a fair presumption, Mr. Forgan, that the children of the I, man being paid $12 a week must leave school at an early age and go to I'l work? A. Yes, we have a selfish way of looking at that. When we 1 employ a boy that is not of paying age, one of the first inquiries is, are j his parents in position to support him? I think you can see the reason |! for it. We can’t afford to have anybody who is dishonest working in the bank; the opportunities are too big, and therefore the question of 1 whether he can be properly supported or not is one of the questions to !| be investigated before we employ him. We see the father and make arrangements with the father with the understanding with that boy that ' we pay him enough to live on, but with the understanding that the father il wants him to learn the business and for a year or two he will be supported. I When I started the business, I got as much a year as these young fel- lows get a month. I got five pounds the first year, ten pounds the second, fifteen pounds the third, and twenty pounds the fourth; that was i my first four years in the bank and I thought I was getting quite an ' advantage and it was quite a privilege to get the position. [ Q. Then you think that the inadequacy of wa^e has something to ' do with the power to resist temptation? A. Decidedly. A young fellow ; gets into spending more than he is earning, gets into debt, he may get in ' debt to some pretty hard creditor, who is crowding him or pushing him, ' and it is undoubtedly a strong temptation to him to temporize at first, I perhaps thinking he can help himself to something to meet that emer- j gency, and in meeting that emergency he gets in from bad to worse. Q. Most of the dishonesty in life comes from such conditions, does it I' not? A. I think so, from pressure of circumstances, yes. Q. What suggestion have you to make to this Committee, in the^way T)f laws that might give to the man who has a family to support, a living 758 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee wage; and to give to the girl and to the boy who is working a living wage; without working an injustice upon the emploj'er? A. I don’t think that I can make any suggestion. I don’t think I have any suggestion to make. The work of the Committee, as I see it, is so complicated, I would have to follow it out the way you are following it, by a very careful study. I have never gone into that study myself; I have never had the time, for one thing. Things flash into my mind about the dissi- pated man or the spendthrift and the man who does not take care of his money when he makes it, or uses it for a poor purpose, as a good many of them do, as compared with the man who husbands his resources and takes care of them and applies them in a proper direction to care for himself and his family; there is so much of that that comes into it that I get confused. I must say that I haven’t got any idea or any theory that I could suggest. Q. Have you considered the matter of a minimum wage; that is, leg- islation looking in the direction of a minimum wage? A. Yes, but I could not say that I thought much of it. I have seen it discussed in the news- papers, largely in connection with the work of this Committee, but I think it is an open question whether a minimum wage law is desirable, from a social economic standpoint. Mr. Joseph Basch’s Testimony. JOSEPH BASCH, called as a witness before the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Joseph Basch. Q. And your business? A. I am in the retail dry goods store business. Q. With what company? A. Siegel, Cooper & Company. Q. How many men do you employ there, Mr. Basch? A. We employ eleven hundred men — a thousand to eleven hundred men. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to these men? A. When I say men, I mean we employ adults, 780; we employ 150 of the age between 18 and 21; we employ one hundred between 17 and 18, and then we emploj' around fifty at or about 16 years, making a total of 1,080. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any man or boy in your emplo\'? A. The lowest wage paid any boy is six dollars. Q. Six dollars a week? A. We haven’t paid a lower wage for bot'S than six dollars a week. Q. That is your minimum wage for boys? A. Yes, sir. Q. What do those boys do? A. They are as a rule apprentices: they enter our houses and are promoted; thej- are started in the different channels in which their mind is running and according to the application that they show. Q. How long an, apprentice period do they generally serve? A. We have had apprentices that developed within eighteen months or twenty months; then we have had some that took two years to reach a higher wage or better position that pays a higher wage. Q. Now, of the men outside of the apprenticeship class, what is the lowest wage paid? A. The next pay is eight dollars. Q. What do they do? A. These are the boys that have developed from the 16 and 17-year wage class, and they walk into positions that they have developed into. They are perhaps six months stock boys, messenger boys, they are in the auditing department, some are inclined to do book- keeping, some are in our advertising department, in our publicity bureau: some of the boys will develop in our publicit 3 ' end, and start there at a- salary of eight dollars. Q. Now, Air. Basch, what is the lowest wage, the lowest amount of monejr that you paj' anj- of 3 'our man clerks? A. The lowest wage that Public Meetings and Testimony 759 ( I l| we pay men — that is, we have a class here between 18 and 21, we pay ;! them ten and a half as an average, up to the 21-year period. Q. They are clerks, are they? A. They are stock men and beginners of the selling force; beginners in the selling force. Our sales help men begin at twelve dollars; that is about the salary. , Q. About what is the average salary paid to man clerks? A. Fourteen , dollars and ninety cents — that is, the selling force. Q. Then you would say that fourteen or fifteen dollars is a fair 1 average wage for a man clerk? A. For that sort of work. Q. Does fifteen dollars a week get you a pretty good clerk? A. A fairly efficient clerk. We pay as high as forty dollars. We have salesmen I to whom we are paying eighteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty-five and forty ; i dollars a week. Of course, you understand that. I Q. But fifteen dollars would get what you would consider to be a i; pretty fair clerk? A. Yes, sir. Q. He has got to have some experience? A. Yes, sir; he enters at twelve dollars and develops very quickly into fifteen dollars; it depends I; entirely upon his ability. Q. You have a minimum wage to married men? A. We don’t employ ; any at less than twelve dollars. Q. How long has that rule been in effect? A. Always has been; ; that is, as long as I can remember. Q. Always has been? A. I think that we have had that rule at least for twelve years. Q. That is, twelve years ago you paid no married man less than ii twelve dollars a week? A. No. Q. And today you pay no married man less than twelve dollars a b'week? A. We do not. Q. Do you not believe, Mr. Basch, that the cost of living has increased ■ii in these last twelve years? A. I believe that certain commodities have Ml increased, only. I don’t believe everything in the home or everything in L foods, or everything in wearing apparel has increased. I think the foods *' have. Most of the foods have. Meats, for instance. I think the develop- 1 1 ; ment in the production of manufactured lines is so enormous, the work II room facilities, transportation facilities and consumption of all of it having > entered into the larger production and cost, enables us to give a small I article for less money than we were able to furnish it twelve years ago. ' In other words, we are selling a better suit of clothes today to a man for fifteen dollars, in material, quality of cloth, in trimmings, in make and [. in style, than has come to my notice in at least twenty years. It is a II! beter article, better fitting and better made. I Q. Averaging it all up, the price of food, the price of rent, and so ‘ forth, would you say that in the last twelve years the cost of living has I gone higher or lower? A. I think it is generally higher, but I think it ; has just started, from my own experience as a general department store j man. It is exaggerated to a degree, from my experience as a department j " store man. Q. What percentage would you say that the cost of living has in- j, creased in twelve years? A. If the household expense is represented by i n 50 per cent in food, that 50 per cent in food, I believe, is the greatest in- 1: crease in the cost of living. The balance, I doubt whether that is in keeping j with the advance in foods. In other words, I think you get a better P apartment today for twenty dollars a month than you could twelve years I - ago, much more sanitary conditions than you could twelve years ago. I believe you can furnish your home at a less cost than you could twelve : years ago. We are selling brass beds today for perhaps 50 per cent, I quality for quality, less than twelve years ago, and that is only one of I the items. I think the cost of furniture generally, you would get a better article for the same money today than twelve years ago, and also in many , other lines. .j; Q. Well, could you say, Mr. Basch, that the cost of living has in- creased in the last twelve years 12 per cent, or 15 per cent, or any definite ! i 760 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee figure? A. I would average the estimate of increased cost of living to be from 15 to 20 per cent. Q, Higher than it was twelve years ago? A. Yes. Q. Then this twelve dollar minimum wage paid by you to the mar- ried men is really based upon the cost of living twelve years ago? A. No, it. isn’t, because we haven’t many men at twelve dollars, and we haven’t perhaps any more than we had then. Those are men that began at twelve dollars. Q. Do you think that twelve dollars will support a married man. and his family at the present cost of living? A. I could not say as to that. I might say that the ability of the housewife is a large factor, perhaps as large a factor as the ability of the husband to earn. I have seen twelve-dollar-a-week men in that situation of life save money and come home to a cheerful home, and I have seen men, married men, with an earning capacity of double that amount, who are not as fortunate in their surroundings at home. It is altogether an economic question, you know;’ money-spending is not always productive of the greatest amount of comfort or happiness. Q. You would say, then, that a man can support a wife and children on twelve dollars a week? A. That depends on the wife, to a great extent. Q. But he can do it? A. Yes, it is being done, but we don’t en- courage that. Q. It is being done by some of the people who work at your store? A. To a very small degree, yes; we have such men. Unfortunately their capacity is small, their earning capacity being limited to twelve dollars a week wage; they do twelve-dollar work. Q. Do you believe that a man who is receiving twelve dollars a week and has a daughter can afford to keep her in school until she is 19 years of age? A. I think he can; schools are free; I think a thrifty mother will provide that. Q. It is possible, you think? A. They do exist. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: When you testified before, how many girls did you say you had in your employment? A. If I remember right, about nine hundred — no, pardon me, thirteen hundred; I don’t remember the exact number. Q. The number being equal, an equal number of girls and an equal number of men, did you ever study to see, or do you know if the girl is as good a salesman as the man? A. I am happy to state that we have some girls in some lines that are much better than men, and are paid splendid wages. Q. We wish to get at statistics now, to know if the girl is equal with the man in earning ability. Whether you can answer that question off hand, I don’t know. Maybe you can. Take a girl, sa.y 5 'ou have five hundred girls and five hundred men and they are all working in equal places, would the sales of the girls equal the sales of the men, or would they have the ability to sell as much goods as the men? You ma 3 - have men selling fine Persian rugs, and he would, of course, outsell some of the girls selling ribbons, but take that girl and put her on the jewelry counter; we want to find out if these girls are as good saleswomen as the men are. A. The positions for the women are largely created for them to fit their physical condition. Q. I understand that. A. And it is not possible to expect the un- tiring efficiency or general efficiency in a woman that j-ou will look for in a man. Q. No, you cannot use a girl as you would a man. A. You could not, no. Q. But what I was trying to get at — it was an idea of mj- own — was Public Meetings and Testimony 761 whether the girl or woman was equally as efficient as a man. A. In a great many lines they are. Q. Then, if you put that man right in her line, would he do as well as she? A. I think we have lines in our business where women are much more efficient than men would be and they are getting the salaries of men and as high salaries as men in our house. For instance, you take women buyers. Q. Put this man that is more efficient in his line, put him over here in the girl’s line, would he do as well as the girl does, or you may reverse it — either way? A. Well, it depends on the line entirely. Q. In other words, do you keep an account of the sales of the girls and of the men, and the profits of the men and of the girls? A. We keep an audit of their sales, yes. Q. Would it be too much trouble for you to furnish a tabulated account of that? A. I will be glad to furnish you anything you want. Q. If you could furnish us with that, we will be pleased to have it. A. I will be very glad to do it. Do you want to know the percentage and the earning capacity of the two classes on the same kinds of goods? Q. Yes, take your average, all over your store; so far as your judg- ment will go. A. Of course, the common theory always is that a man must be fitted to assume responsibility, and they will seek positions of responsibility. SENATOR BEALL: I sat in a store here a few weeks ago, my wife was up here buying something, and I sat there waiting for her, and I ' watched the men and the women clerks waiting on customers, and what I saw was that the girls were flying around and seemed to be more expert than the men were; the men seemed a little lazy, but the girls were running '! from one to another, and they were flying around and making sales, about two sales to the man’s one. I watched them there about an hour. I was looking all through this store I was at. That is how this idea came into ' my head; if a woman is capable of selling as much goods as a man is, I ; think she ought to be treated the same. MR. BASCH: You will find that she is, as a rule. We have women ' who go to Europe for us at a big salary, the same as men. SENATOR BEALL: Mr. Lehmann told us of a new girl they sent east with one of their buyers to buy goods, for instruction, but there was one man only who refused to give us any answer. I don’t know what his reason was. I asked him question after question and he refused to give I us the information. I don’t see what he acted that way for, because we i are out here to learn. You say you are willing to give us those tabulated reports? MR. BASCH: I will be very glad to. I think I can frame up some- thing in the way of reports. SENATOR TOSSEY : I would like your opinion about this vocational educational bill; that is, a little in line, I believe, with what you testified before, that you thought that home training, or home environment, had more to do with the immorality of girls than other things. Don’t you think that this vocational education will prevent the boys and girls from going astray and give them a method of livelihood to occupy their minds? MR. BASCH: You are starting them out with an ambition, and you bring them to us where they can be fitted for better wages; as it is now, we are a school for them to give them an education. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You believe it is a fine thing for a boy or a , girl to have an ambition? A. Yes, yes; that is true. Q. We all have; I believe every man his an ambition of some kind. A. Yes, sir. Q. But do you think a man could harbor a very high ambition on an empty stomach? A. Governor, the empty stomach does not exist. Really not. Mr. Robinson testified here and told you here that today in the city of Chicago there were twenty thousand boys and girls unem- ployed, without any inclination or any ambition to do anything. That 762 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee 1 vocational school will wipe that all out. Apprenticeships in all branches i of industry will wipe that all out, absolutely. ' ' SENATOR TOSSEY: In the minimum wage law that we frame we ) would have to take into account the apprentices. ' MR. BASCH: Oh, yes; slcill must be respected; you can’t put an • unskilled individual on a par with a skilled person; you could not do it; v it is not possible to do it and it is not fair; it would be unfair business, i I am very earnest about it. You could not do that. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Wouldn’t you say that the fair position for ’ us all to take is that every person that works shall get in return for his or her work a living wage? MR. BASCH: Absolutely, in return for work; absolutely, but not the shiftless, the idleness of the forty per cent of them, or indifference. Q. Let’s see; here is a girl wTo is working and she is an idle girl; she is a lazy girl;_ what are you going to do to her? A. You bring her in to us and we will get ginger into her if anybody will. Q. How will you get that ginger into her? A. By associating with her elements who are ambitious, but not by association with out-of-door individuals. Q. What do j^ou mean by out-of-door individuals? A. Oh, meeting ! persons on the streets, dance halls or places of amusement, or certain ( districts with so-called playgrounds — I don’t know what they call them. It is absolutely true that we have a great many children who ought to be at work. Q. How do you get ginger into them? I am asking this for informa- ; tion, because we have heard in one factorj', not in the city of Chicago. ' where they got ginger into them by grabbing them by the arms until their arms were black and blue. That is how they got ginger into them; it was by physical means. Now, we want to hear suggestions of another way, possibly an entirely correct way. Take a girl who comes to your place, is naturally lazy and you want to make a good worker out of her, what is your way of getting ginger into her? A. Those who apply for work are generally those who are desirous of going ahead, and that is a very gratifying sign of ambition, and the fewest of them, the very fewest of them, fall down; those who do, we have a school that is operated by some of our superintendents. W’e have very able women who are in charge of that work, and they show them the difference; they show them the other side, what the opportunities are, the better side, the side of the opportunities, and the prospects; the prospects the^^ put them to upstairs. Some of the girls may be fitted for office work, others for the selling force; some may be fitted for the work room duties; some ma^- not be fitted for anything we have for them at all; some may be better fitted for i household work; so much depends on the judgment of the individual, as well as u pon the judgment of the concern, to direct their particular abilin'. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Frankh', iMr. Basch, is it not 3'our opinion that, as a general thing, it would be a hard matter to get ginger into i the girl who was not receiving enough money to pay for her living? | A. Well, again. Governor, I must say that the not enough money part ? is one that we experience rarely. We find that most mothers are willing ■ to continue their furnishing of home and lodging and food so long as they have to be an apprentice and have to learn. This minimum wage that we pay to girls, beginners, that is a very desirable income for the : girl, perhaps, to pay for the necessary clothes, or car-fare or her lunch. They are often contented with that for the first six months, perfectly contented. Q. Let us see; what is your minimum wage paid to women, iMr. Basch? A. We haven’t a girl in our house today at less than — I don’t think — less than five dollars; that is, apprentices, of course. Mr. Abraham Harris’ Testimony. ABRAHAM HARRIS, called as a witness before the committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as follows: Public Meetings and Testimony 763 EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Give the reporter your name. A. Abraham Harris. Q. And your business? A. Chicago House Wrecking Company. Q. You are president of that company, Mr. Harris? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many men do you employ there? A. Four hundred and sixty. Q. And how many women? A. About 208. Q. Do the women do practically the same work as the men? A. No. What do the men do? A. Well, the men do all kinds of work; we have men in the machine shops, structural iron workers, men in the lumber yard, salesman, and the women are working in the office. Q. They are office women? A. Office women, stenographers, and things of that kind. Q. You have no women in a clerical capacity? A. No. Q. What is the average wage paid to your men? A. The average wage is about seventeen dollars and a half. Q. A week? A. A week. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any man or boy? A. We have three or four boys around the offices, about five dollars a -week, I guess. Q. That is the lowest? A. Yes, just little errand boys. Q. Leaving the boys out of the question, what is the lowest wage paid to any man? A. Two dollars a day. Q. Does that mean twelve dollars a week? A. Twelve dollars a week. Q. That is the lowest wage paid to any man in your employ outside of two or three errand boys? A. I think so. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any woman in your employ? A. Well, we have a few errand girls that get about the same as the errand boys get. Q. They get about five dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Aside from those few errand girls, what is the lowest wage paid to any woman in your employ? A. 1 don’t know; the lowest would be perhaps seven or eight dollars. Q. Seven or eight dollars a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are most of the men in your employ married men? A. No, I don’t think they are; I don’t know. Q. Have you a minimum wage that you pay to married men? A. Well, I don’t think we have; no. Q. You never have made any classification according to matrimonial ends? A. No, we don’t classify them; it is all on ability. Q. Outside of the errand boys, you have paid no man less than twelve dollars a week? A. No. Q. And is it your opinion, or is it not, that on that two dollars a day he can support himself and family? A. Yes. Q. Do some of those men, to your knowledge, support families? A. There is no doubt of it. Q. Do you think it possible for a man to support a wife and a child, say the child being a girl 14 or 15 or 16 years of age, upon twelve dollars a week, in the city of Chicago? A. Well, it is done. Q. Have you, from your own observation, ever noticed any instance in which it was done? A. Well, I can’t recall any, no, but I surmise it is done; there is no doubt of it. Q. You could not tell the committee how a man is able to do it, could you? A. By practicing economy. Q. Do you think, Mr. Harris, that girls are sometimes forced into 764 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the business world because of the inadequacy of the wage paid the head of the household, the father? A. I think that is possible. Q. Is it your opinion, or is it not, that that forcing of young girls into the business world has a harmful effect on our society as a whole, inasmuch as it may tend to break up the home life? A. I don’t think so! Q. You would not say that when a girl is forced into the business world, because of the inadequacy of the wage paid the father, that the girl is deprived of some of the home atmosphere? A. Well, she would be deprived of some of that home atmosphere, but if that atmosphere is present, the same thing would occur when she came home from work, she would be in that pleasant atmosphere. Q. You would say as a general thing, Mr. Harris, that a girl 14 or 15 years of age who is forced, we will say, into a factory, or into a store, at that immature age is in as wholesome an atmosphere as is that girl who is at home under the guidance of her mother? A. Well, I don’t know; I would not say anything about that; I don’t know; I know she would be in our employ. Q. Have you any girls of 14 or 15 years of age in your employ? A. I don’t know the ages of them; I think we have a few little girls there, the few that I mentioned. I think they only work, perhaps, during the vacation season; they get a permit to work. They want to do some- thing; they are ambitfous to do something. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR TOSSEY. SENATOR TOSSEY: Do you think the law of supply and demand governs the price of female labor in your establishment? A. Well, j^es, it would have an influence. Q. It would largely govern? A. Yes, and the same thing applies to labor of all kinds. Q. Some of the witnesses here have testified that they did not think that we should take that into consideration at all, and some of them said that they did. A. I know there are times that we can’t get labor and we have to pay more for that labor, and we do it. Mr. Edward J. Lehmann’s Testimony. EDWARD J. LEHMANN, called as a witness before the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Edward J. Leh- mann. Q. And your business? Vice President of The Fair. Q. How many men do you employ, Mr. Lehmann? A. I don’t believe I have my schedule the way you would like to have it, Governor; I didn’t know, when I came over, just what you w'anted. We have 1,580 altogether, of which 264 are under 21 years of age. Q. Of the 1,316 over 21 years, how many are married men? A. I haven’t got the married men separated at all, because I could not get it that way. Q. Have you a memorandum showing the salaries paid the married men? A. No, but it is understood in the store that no married man gets less than twelve dollars a week. Q. That, you think, is based upon actual figures of what it costs a man to live? A. No, I don’t think it is. Q. What is the average pay of the man clerks? A. I could not say, but I think in our store it is about — well, in the neighborhood of six- teen or seventeen dollars, because we work most of our man clerks on per centage basis. I know the men that are paid on the per centage basis average $18.06. Our total average for men over 21 is 17.36. Q. How many men go to make up that average? A. One thousand, Public Meetings and Testimony 765 three hundred sixteen; I want to state that I have omitted 32 men here that w-e have had, that I didn’t put in that average; 32 of them that average eight and a half; their average age is 58 years old. They really don’t do much work; they watch the conveyors that the boys don’t jump into them, or slide down. They are most of them cripples; there are 32 of them. Q. What do you pay those men? A. Eight dollars and a half. Q. What are they, pensioners, largely? A. Pensioners; they don’t do any work; they come and go when they want to; they have nothing to do only watch to see that the boys don’t jump down the conveyors. Q. Outside of those men, Mr. Lehmann, what is your age limit? A. We haven’t any age limit. Q. Isn’t there sort of an unfixed age limit? A. Nothing more than if a man has been in the employ of any store, after a certain age, we let him come and go as he wants to and pay his salary; that has been the rule in our house; we haven’t^ any age limit at all. If a man has been in our employ any length of time, we always take care of him whether he comes down or not; in fact, a great many of them, we would rather they would not come down; they are an annoyance, a hindrance more than they are a benefit, although their salaries go on. Q. Have many men been in your employ quite a time? A. I wouldn’t say how long, but there are quite a few there that have been there quite a number of years. Q. Are there any who have been there ten or fifteen years who are getting only fifteen or sixteen dollars a week now? A. I should think there would be possibly a few down in the warehouse or shipping de- partment. Q. Take a man who has been with you ten or fifteen years, and he is getting fourteen or fifteen dollars a week — what is ahead of him? A. There is really not anything ahead of him, because a fellow who has been there ten or fifteen years, he can’t earn more than ten or fifteen dollars, he has not got it in him. They have got to the end of their capacity at that price. They don’t seem to keep up with the procession, or go ahead; they are mostly in the laboring class. They are more what you would call the foreign class, the lower class; more in the laboring end of it. It is the individual’s own fault; it is not in him to go any further ahead; if it was in him he could advance. We have men, as I say, that started in at six dollars a week, that are getting from fifteen to twenty dollars, fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year; not many of them, but there are some. Q. What could you have done with such a man when he entered the store fifteen years ago that would have made him worth more today? A. Well, I don’t know; I don’t know what you could have done with him, because it was not in his makeup to advance. He is not smart enough; he is not intelligent enough. Q. Would vocational education have helped him? A. It certainly would have in his younger days; he would have been a brighter man; it would have changed his environments as he went along, but he kept down in the lower rut. Q. Is it the fact, as you understand it, that the average man never gets very much above the fourteen or fifteen-dollar class? A. No, I wouldn’t say that; the average fellow, did you say? Q. Yes, the average fellow. A. Why, no, I would not say that; I can show you young fellows that come in there and work for eight or ten dollars a week as boys, when they are 15 or 16 years of age, and have advanced in the store; then they have left our store and got into other business, and gone ahead, and I find them getting a great deal of money, different places. I find that there is a small per centage of people who stay at one fixed salary all the time. Q. What is the average wage paid to men in your store? A. Seven- teen dollars and thirty-nine cents. Q. Then when I say the average man never gets very much above the fourteen or fifteen-dollar class. I have not made a mistake; I have 766 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee not mis-stated it, according to your figures. A. No. i'ou have not mis- stated it in that way, but it is on account of change in our stores. Another thing: I don’t suppose there is enough room in our store for a great majority to go ahead. There is a limited number of positions for them, which would naturally keep them down. Q. That is what keeps the average fellow down to the fourteen or fifteen or sixteen-dollar class? A. It may be there is something wrong with the fellow. Q. Do you believe in a minimum wage law? A. I believe in a minimum wage law if it were a national law; 1 believe if it were in one state only, I believe it would hurt all the business; it would hurt the state. This is a question, if it was national all the way around, would not the merchants and other parties raise the price up and make condi- tions almost the same? Q. If they did, do you think there would come in connection with that minimum wage law, a maximum profit law? A. I suppose that is what it would result in; otherwise, if salaries went up, merchants would raise their prices and conditions would be the same. Q. You think a national minimum wage law could be enacted without working an injustice on the consumer and without the enact- ment of a maximum profit law? A. Well, I can’t sa 3 " that; it might force an increase in prices some, but possiblj^ it might be so infinitesimal as not to be changed as a whole. I think that a minimum wage national law might work out all right; I begin to think it might, but I think it would have a tendency to raise prices; the competition irt department stores is so keen, if we raise prices individuallj', we don’t get the busi- ness. We spend too much money in advertising, and if we did not get the business we would be out of it. Q. How much do the State Street stores spend in advertising in Chicago newspapers? A. I think that the eight stores on State Street in the last j^ear have spent something like two million and a half for advertising purposes in the daily papers. Q. Then would you saj^ these girls, who are being paid small salaries on State Street, are supporting in a verj- great sense, the newspapers in the city of Chicago? WYll, the question is, if we don’t give it to the newspapers, whether we won’t have to give it to something else in order to get the women down to buy the stuff. SENATOR TOSSEY: In other words, what 30 U have to pa^- the girls is controlled by the law of supply and demand largely? MR. LEHMANN: By the law of supph' and demand, yes — in a way; now, if we had our full quota of help for The Fair, and there were 10,000 people outside looking for employment, we would not discharge those girls in order to hire other girls at a lesser price, and if we need a lot of girls, we can’t get them, and we naturalh' have to pa^- an\- price they demand, so naturally, it is a question of supply and demand. SENATOR TOSSEY: It would cut down the wages, too, if the supply was more than the demand? MR. LEHMANN: Yes, I think so. SENATOR TOSSEY: I mean employers generally. MR. LEHMANN: Yes. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do 30 U think there has been an increase in wages paid the girls in rmur store and other similar stores in the last few months? MR. LEHMANN: Well, to be truthful, I should not think but what there is a change; I think the agitation has been causing the girls to demand more money, and to get it. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Are you paying more money in your store? MR. LEHMANN: I suppose the average holds .good as to us. In fact, we have a hard time to get help all the time. \ ou take the cheaper stores — what I mean by cheaper stores, the popular priced store — in the way of help, the popular-priced stores are equipped with girls, appren- tices, teaching them all thej"^ know, and when the^’ get a certain knowledge Public Meetings and Testimony 767 they iuimediatel)" go down to the higher-priced stores, not that they send tor them or that they get any more money at all, but it seems to be imbued into the girls that they would rather work for Marshall Field or Carson, Pirie Scott & Company than for us, and they all leave The Fair and go down there, so that the popular-priced stores are all the time a kinder- garten for the other end of the street, as we call it. That is what makes ■the popular-priced store a pretty hard proposition on beginners, and that is why it shows our average female help is paid lower than the others. Q. Do you think, Mr. Lehmann, that many girls sacrifice money for the sake of working for what they consider the higher class stores? ,A. They would not sacrifice anything so far as the salary goes. I EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. I SENATOR BEALL: How many girls have you employed there? I could not say, I don’t remember, but I think it is approximately seventeen hundred. Q. They are about even up? A. Well, not quite, j Q. Just approximately? A. I think they are about the same. If we have seventeen hundred girls, we have fifteen hundred and eighty men. Q. How do they compare in ability in salesmanship? A. That is :a difficult question. ■ Q. We are trying to get up some tabulated statistics on that. A. Women work in different departments; take in certain departments, the men will sell more than the women, but that is because the merchan- dise brings more money. Q. Suppose they are both equal, both have an equal chance? A. If you put them in the same department, where the sales are about the same amount of everything? Q. Yes. A. Oh, I think as a whole the man might be a little better salesman, because they can stand the grind better. ] Q. You are at The Fair? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you keep any data of the sales of the girls and men? A. Yes. I Q. Do you believe that you can furnish a statement? We would [like it to publish, to see how they would compare. A. I don’t believe ithat would give you much information, because the girl will average far ;more sales than the man, because they are in departments where the Isales are smaller, while the men are in the larger departments. Q. You say that the sales of the girls will run much smaller than jjthose of the men? A. Yes. " Q. In other words, the girls will make more sales, but the amounts [iare smaller? A. That is the idea. I Whereupon an adjournment was taken until ten o’clock A. M. the following day, Saturday, June 7th, A. D. 1913. ■ ■ '• "r"z svfiSi SESSION XXV rn.- . rio - :0 I Presidents of two universities discuss actual cash value of com- plete college training for young men and women as demonstrated in the earnings of graduates, and the importance of vocational edu- cation and practical training for children before graduation from I the public schools. Bank officer gives his views. General manager ! of traction lines considers $1,100 a year reasonable allowance to i cover living expenses of a family of five. Testimony of: Prof. Harry Pratt Judson, president, University of Chicago; Mr. William T. Abbott, vice president. Central Trust Com- pany of Illinois; j| Mr. Abraham W. Harris, president. Northwestern University; ; Mr. Leonard A. Busby, general manager, Chicago City Rail- way. |. Chicago, Illinois, June 7, 1913, 10:00 A. M., Hotel LaSalle. The Committee met pursuant to adjournment. Chairman O’Hara j and Senator Beall being present; Senators Woodard and Tossey being ■ absent on account of sickness in their families ; Senator Harris being ; present, representing Senator Tosseyi Prof. Harry Pratt Judson’s Testimony. HARRY PRATT JL^DSON, called as a witness before the Com- » mittee, being examined in chief by Chairman O.’Hara, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. i !' CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will you give us your name, please? A. i Harry Pratt Judson. j Q. Your occupation, Doctor? A. Teaching in the schools. Q. You are connected with what institution? A. With the Uni- versity of Chicago. o Q. You are president of the University of Chicago? A. Yes. Q. Doctor, what is the average age of your male graduates? A. Well, that I can’t answer, for the reason that we have so many different branches in the university; those that graduate from the college, I fancy to be between 23 and 24; those that graduate from the law school, three or four years later than that, and from the other professional schools -three or four years later than that. Q. Those graduating from the colleges average about what age? A. i Twenty-three to twenty-four years of age; approximately twenty-three, I ! should say. I Q. How' many do you annually graduate from the colleges? A. I li don’t know exactly; I did not know exactly what you wanted when I j came here; if I had known that I could have brought the exact figures with I me. We will graduate, I think, about four hundred from the colleges this j year. ;l Q. That is a fair average, is it. Doctor? A. Yes, something like j that. I Q. Do you follow up your graduates; have you any system of I records? A. No, not exactly, other than those of teachers. They file I their names with us and we follow them up. We haven’t any method I of following them up, but we know more or less about them. I Q. From the knowledge you may have of your graduates, after they 769 770 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee leave your school, what can you tell the Committee as to what happens to them? A. _A great variety of things; they are all engaged in some useful occupation; many in professions, some in law, and some in busi- ness. Of the young men, a considerable majority of them are engaged in business occupations. We graduate many women; some of them ultimately marry, you know. Q. Most of them marry? A. Yes, but we have no exact figures on that. Q. The young man leaving the college after graduation entering busi- ness, as a rule how much money is he able to command? A. That I could not answer, the conditions are so variable; there are all kinds of businesses. I have no data under that heading. Q. How many years would you say elapse after graduation before the average graduate is in position to marry and support a family? A. That varies, but it is a very short time as a rule. I hear from my young men very often, and they usually marry within two or three years, some- times later; but I think the most of them are in position to do that if they wish to do that, in that time, two or three years. Q. You would say that the young man who goes through a univer- sity, such as Chicago, and who graduates between the ages of 23 and 24, is generally in a position to marry and support a family by the time he reaches the age of 25 or 26? A. Oh, yes, yes, and sometimes before that. Q. You are in favor. Doctor, of shortening the college course? A. Yes, and also the school course; I think there is too much time spent in the preparatory schools — needlessly spent. I don’t mean to say that the time is wasted; any of that is of benefit, but more time than is necessary. Q. What is the age at which you believe a young man should go into active life? A. I think that the average young man should take his college degree by the time he is 20 or 21; it will take him after that, if he is going into law or medicine, three or four years before he will be able to earn a competence; if he is going into business, he will enter imme- diately, but if a man is going into the legal or medical profession, through legal or medical schools, he ought to begin his practice by the time he is 25. By that time a young man who graduates in the colleges and goes into business ought to be pretty well established in business. Q. Is it your opinion. Doctor, that the shortening of the course of education so that the young man can enter active business life at 20 or 21, or a professional life at 25, would aid in solving the present industrial situation? A. To a certain extent I think it would, because it would tend to earlier efficiency, and the core of the whole question is efficiency; of course, you understand, we theorize on the lines of efficiency. I think in the school life of a person at the present time, too man3r j^ears are spent in the elementary schools; that is, in the eight grades. No matter what we teach these children in former school life, they want to be happj^ and healthy and use their hands, and then they want to forget about half of what we are teaching them; I think that can be done in less than eight years. Q. How many years would you say? A. We have an elementary school in connection with our department of education, and we find that they have been able to do it in seven years; children are just as high up in their high school work after getting through on seven instead of eight, and I think the time will shortly come when it will be done in six. Q. Would you shorten the high school course? A. Not in j-ears. I think the high schools are teaching too many things; they fritter away their time on too many things. Then I think the first year of college course is unnecessary. It is a part of the high school work. I would say the high school, four years, devoted to more intensive study; and shorten the real college work to three years; cut off the first y-ear as being a useless repetition of the high school work. I believe in time that things will justify this. Q. You would change the course of studies in high school? A. Yes. Q. How would you change the high school course. Doctor? A. By merely having any given student study fewer things. What I have in Public Meetings and Testimony 771 mind is this: it is not enough to go over a certain thing; you haven’t mastered anything at all when you have gone over it; it will not do to [Stop it until it is a matter of habit to him; that is the only way to accom- plish, is to take fewer studies and pursue those studies a greater length of time. Q. Concerning vocational legislation, have you any opinion to offer this Committee? A. I think that is one of the most important things that we have before us today, and it has a very important bearing on our colleges and our schools and on the efficiency of our industrial life. I Q. Are you familiar with the measure known as the Cooley Bill? A. I suppose I am; at all events, I have heard about them when they were introduced. Q. Have you any opinion to express to the Committee concerning the Cooley Bill or any other bill on vocational education? A. I prefer jnot to express an opinion about any one of those particular bills, ex- Icept in a general way. First, I think that all of the bills contain merito- rious things; second, the difference is in theory rather than in practice. My hope is that the General Assembly will see its way clear to give us ja bill which is best adapted to this state. I would rather put it that way than to offer any one bill. It is more important that you have a ibill instead of any one particular bill. Q. Some persons have expressed the fear that vocational training 'will result in the establishment of classes in this country? A. Of classes? Q. That carpenters would bring up their children as carpenters, a igood deal as the English system is; now, do you consider that fear well founded? A. I do not. I do not think that is well founded. My ob- fservation is that whatever a man does he usually wants his boy to do ! something else. If a man is a carpenter, he is more likely to educate his boy as a stone mason. I don’t believe that that follows at all. Q. Have you any idea as to the cost of living in the city of Chicago; ithat is, the cost to the head of the family to support a family, say of three, lin the city of Chicago? A. No, no, I haven’t any adequate knowledge on that subject; it depends on an infinite multiplicity of certain circum- [stances. I don’t see how you can estimate it; T don’t know. Q. Senator Harris suggested that you may have some opinion as to (the average cost of the student going through the University of Chicago? A. Yes, I have some data on that, Governor. I have a theory, of course. Q. What, is that theory? A. A student may spend more or less, according to his or her habits and according to whether he or she is .economical or extravagant. A young man was telling me the other day, .only yesterday (I was talking with him on that very subject), that a boy [could go through the colleges comfortably on four or five hundred dollars a year, but that required economy. i Q. That is a school year of nine months? A. Yes, and I want |to say in that connection that a great many of our young men earn their own way, either in whole or in part, a great number. Q. In that connection would you say. Doctor, that it is possible for any young man, without any means, to come to Chicago and go through ,the University of Chicago without outside help? A. Without outside jhelp? Do you mean other than his own activities? j Q. Yes; can the average young man do that? A. It requires ex- ceptional energy, possibly, and ambition, but not exceptional abilities in a man who really wants to do it. I know a little about that; I began sup- porting myself when I was fourteen; I didn’t cost my father anything after that, and I know it required hard work and plenty of it, and self- jdenial. That is, I didn’t have the pleasures that boys usually want. Q. You say, Doctor, that some of your students find that they can support themselves for nine months and go through the University on four ’or five hundred dollars, and yet that requires economy? A. Oh, yes. Q. This Committee has learned of some married men in Chicago who receive only twelve dollars a week; that is less money than a student liat the University of Chicago spends to support himself? A. Yes. 772 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Would you say that the payment of that twelve dollars a wee! to the head of a household could be described as inadequacy of wage'. A. Why, that depends entirely on the point of view; it depends on wha' the man earns. It might be adequate to support his family, and it mighi be an adequate wage because he does not earn any more. Q. Viewing it from the particular viewpoint of the family? A. Tha' would not be a question of wage; it would be a question of income; i' would be inadequate to the support of his family, I should think. Lei me say that this same student at the University of Chicago pays a tui- tion fee of $120 a year, which you have to pay out of that, which wouk leave him $380. Q. Is it your opinion that this inadequacy of income might resul in either a mental or moral handicap to members of the family? A It might so result; on the other hand, it might be the cause of its work- ing both ways. What I mean is, the laborer himself might have such i mental or moral handicap as to be not worth more; it always reacts on the family. Of course, it must have some result, yes. Q. Now, because of that inadequacy of income, is it not a fail presumption that the members of the family would be forced out intc the industrial w'orld at an early age — say at fourteen or fifteen years o age? A. Probably. Q. And at that age, they would be not as well prepared to battk with the world as possibly the girls who go through j'our universit}^? A • Oh, certainly not, although I am a little handicapped in answering tha' because I began at that age myself, to battle with the world withou' help. Q. But your case probably would be an exception rather than the average case. Doctor? A. Oh, I don’t know; not a bit; in that day 1 knew a great many of my fellows who did the same thing. Q. Now, if a girl of fourteen j-ears of age is forced out into the industrial world because of the inadequacy of income received by the heae of the household, would that girl in a sense, being forced into the business world, become a competitor with the man worker? A. It de pends upon the vocation. That might be the case, of course; and ii some cases it is the case. In some cases she might be called upon tc compete with man workers, and in other cases, she would not be callec upon at all, so it is only partially true; largely true, I would say. Q. Take in a factory running with machinery, in that case the com petition would be there? A. It depends on the machinery;^ there art machines that can be run by a younger person without the intelligence and without the physical force of an older person, and they would no' be apt to call on this older person anyway; it might be, of course, no exactly the occupation of a man. Therefore, she might come in compe tition, and she might not come in competition, with the man. Q. If, however, that girl or woman w^ere paid a wage smaller thar a man could live on and upon which a man could support a family, i might be an excuse to the employer not to pav an adequate wage to thi head of the household, or to the man? A. Possibly. Q. Following this line of reasoning, is it not your opinion that in adequacy of income creates an industrial circle: the head of the house hold is paid an inadeauacy of income and the girl is forced into the work, because of tha,t inadequacy of income paid to the head of the family and she in turn becomes a competitor of other men, keeping down thei: Avages, so that their children are forced out into the Avorld under th( same circumstances? A. That might be true. Of course, that is a ver} complicated Question and I would not want to answer it without study so that I could give an intelligent ansAver. Q. If the thought Ave have been pursuing be correct in a genera Avay, does it not folloAV that the oayment to the man of a Avage that con stitutes inadequacy of income is harmful to society as a Avhole, and there fore a proper subiect for regulation by the state? A. ^\ ell, it deoend on different considerations. He ought to be paid AA'hat he earns. Ther' are two totally different bases upon Avhich payment for Avork may b' > Public Meetings and Testimony 773 based. First, on what a man earns, on his efficiency, and his ^efficiency ■may not be equal to earning enough to support the family. Q. Then would you say. Doctor, that the state, realizing that a man should be paid according to his efficiency, should provide that the mini- !mum of efficiency should receive as a minimum wage, a living? A. I don’t fthink that is necessary. Governor; as 1 look at it, if you will allow me to [state. ' Q. Surely; we want your opinion. A. This question, as I look at lit, is rather efficiency before anything else by people who work with their heads or hands or both, people who belong to three grades: those iwho are efficient, those who are semi-efficient, and those who are inefficient. iNow, the people who are efficient, there is no trouble about their earnings, df they are really efficient and ambitious, they can create enough wealth ^so that their situation in the world is secure; they can earn far more than any minimum that the law will fix; those are the efficient people. 'When you come to the semi-efficient people, of whom there are a great many, that is another question; they may or may not be able to support I a family; they may or may not be able to earn enough to support a 'family, and no law can make them any different. Now, when you come 'to the inefficient people, there you come to the great mass of people who are down and out; tramps, and such. My theory is that much crime of the world is recruited from this class. The efficient people will take care of themselves. As to the semi-efficient people, what we need is aid in various ways to make them more efficient, to transfer them to the other class. Such work as this industrial education, as you have it in mind, is one of those many agencies which might reduce it to that effect. Q. Doctor, the law presumes that anything tending to decrease mar- riage is against public policy, as I understand it; is that your understand- ing? A. As a whole, yes. Q. Then an industrial system that makes it impracticable for any considerable number of our male citizens to marry is against public policy? A. Yes, sir. Q. Following that line of reasoning. Doctor, again may I ask if the State is not justified in decreeing that the minimum of efficiency shall always command the minimum of a family living? A. I don’t think so; I think that is a matter for the national laws to remedy. Q. If because of inadequacy of wage, men are not able to marry, does that contribute to the immorality of the community? A. Probably . it does. Q. In that manner, inadequacy of income would have a connec- j tion with the general immorality of the community? A. Yes, I would I say inadequacy of efficiency, which is the cause of the other. I Q. Doctor, I should like to ask what is the basis of the money value ! of the individual’s industrial efficiency? A. The amount of wealth he can create, the potential wealth, business activity. ' Q. The man who is working for another — what determines his in- I dustrial value in money? A. The amount of product, business product that his work will create. I Q. If a man is working for a factory — is making boxes, we will say — the value of his work would be dependent, would it not, upon the profit made by the factory or the employer? A. On the business products. Of course, they don’t realize the profits they expect to make; nevertheless, I a man should get compensation for his work; he does not share in the I risks wholly of the business; the employers do. Q. Do you believe in a law providing a maximum of profit? A. I do. ' EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. Doctor, you brought out a point in your testimony that Vve have had a great controversy about. In the place that I am from, Alton, in our high school there they have devoted the last two years of school to the students, preparing them for college, when not probably to exceed five or ten per cent of our high school graduates ever go to college. They 774 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee I liave to go to work. And many of the people there in town have taken their sons out of the high school and have sent them down to St. Louis to a business college to learn business. There are very few of our men, business men and manufacturers, who are college men. When we opened up here, on one of our former occasions, we heard these State street merchants, and 1 do not believe that there is one of them that ever graduated at any college, and some never got above the eighth grade. When 1 was mayor, this question came up, and we had quite a con- troversy about it, and 1 would like to ask your opinion on it. In your judgment, do you think it is a good thing to give the last two years of high school work to preparatory work for college? A. I think that any boy who has been through a good high school, well taught, is prepared for and should be admitted to college anyway. Q. Most of the colleges, or a good many of them throughout the country, won’t take them in unless they are prepared for college. A. Some of the colleges won’t admit them; many will. However, the in- creasing tendency is to admit any student who is w'ell informed. Do you mean whether it is good policy to give two years of preparation in high school for college? Q. Yes. A. I should say no. Incidentally you mean to htting boys for going higher — for going on if they want to do it, but that is an inci- dent of a secondary nature, not primarily. Q. That is the point. I thought that seven years was long enough for a boy to go; I know that a great many have been taken out of our high school in the last two years. A. I know what you mean; 1 don’t w'ant to take your time any longer. Q. Well, we are here to learn. A. I will answer your question by saying this, in regard to the high schools in Chicago: a very large per- centage of the boys who enter the Chicago high schools do not attend them over a year, or two years at most, and then they drop out. They don’t drop out on account of poverty, but because they don’t want to be bothered by school; they want to be earning money. A very small percentage, not over ten per cent (my figures may not be entirely accu- rate), ever graduate from college. In the Crane Technical High School the boys — a large proportion of them (perhaps more than three-fourths) — go through and graduate; I think that answers y'our question. Senator. Q. Yes, that is a question that has bothered me for a long while. I had it argued to me when I was mayor, and the people were divided in their opinion. They said that the boys, there was no use of taking them out of high school, to let them go two years and then take them out and let them go to some business college and learn common, every^-day business transactions; that is your idea? A. Yes, j'es, common, every- day business transactions ought to be a part of the high school course. Q. All we had was Green’s spelling book when I was a boy. A. Well, you learned a lot out of that; I never got to go to school but two years. I presume I would have gone longer onlj^ I escaped from the teachers. Q. Now, you take the difference in schools now and when you and I were boys, and the different kind ,of teachers they have, and the expense it is to keep and maintain those schools, on the people and on the state? A. It is enormous. Q. Now, I want to ask you another question: Where I live, at Alton, we have the oldest college, I guess, in the West; the McKendry' College, down at Lebanon, is another one. Those colleges can’t exist, simply because they can’t hire the faculty; it has broken up our small colleges be- cause they go to the university; how does the university conflict with your institution? A: I will answer that question by going back. M’hen our institution was founded, some twenty- odd y-ears ago, there was some ap- prehension in the educational world that a large educational institution might affect injuriously our neighboring state universities. We did not believe it, and the point of fact is that, insteading of injuring them, it benefited every one of them in this way-. Of course, in the first place, it was an incentive to them to do better by- the state institutions; and, second, Public Meetings and Testimony 775 the legislature did better by the state university than in any other twenty years before that. But beyond that, it has spread the idea of university education more and more throughout the country. If a boy comes to some university from some small town, all of his friends learn about it, and they get a desire to go to some university; and where one boy will come to us, maybe other boys will go to Illinois or Wisconsin, or Michigan Uni- versity, where they would not have gone otherwise; so, you see, the in- fluence was helpful and not hurtful. Q. You say it costs $120 a year for a student at your university? A. The tuition fee. Q. At the University of Illinois, it costs them $24? A. Yes. Q. Can a young man go to your college and learn as much, as many things as they teach in Champaign? A. It depends on the particular field; they have a great many things at the State University that we do not profess to teach at all. We have no agricultural or engineering courses. Of course we have college work. But we have other work that they have not. Our graded work is longer, I think, than theirs. Q. It is your opinion that the last two 3 fears of high school work should be given to every day business training? A. 1 think the high school work, and not the last two years, but the whole course, ought to be for making the student more efficient in his life work; that is, adapted to the great majority of those who go there. I would not confine it to the two last years; I would run back into the elementary schools the same way. Q. Doctor, if the boy or girl has no intention of going to the uni- versity, is it advisable for them to begin the study of either Latin or Greek in the high school? A. Well, I don’t think it is imperative. I think that the study of Latin is useful for any boy going through school, but it is not at all imperative; so far as Greek is concerned, distinctly no. He :j can get that later. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR HARRIS. SENATOR HARRIS; Doctor, your contention is that inadequate in- come is the cause of a lack of efficiency upon the part of the individual? A. As a general thing. Senator, not in every case, but as a general thing. Of eourse there are exceptional cases. Q. You consider that an efficient man would get sufficient wages to keep him and his family? A. In the long run, yes. Q. Now, would you consider that a person who went through the P University of Chicago is efficient? A. Most of them are; some of them, ii I am sorry to say, are not. Q. Don’t you know that any number of graduates of the Chicago .and Illinois Universities are not making a sufficient living wage? A. Grad- " uates of the University of Chicago? i Q. Yes. A. I don’t know it to be a fact; I don’t believe it to be ; true. There are some, of course, always, in any institution, but I think they are a small number comparatively. I believe that the great masses ’ of our graduates do earn a decent living. Q. Do you consder that an efficent man is almost always sufficient!}' able to earn a living? A. Yes. The difficulty lies, as I take it, you can provide by law for what you think a man needs, but no laws can ever : govern what a man wants. Now to establish a law fixing a minimum wage, it comes out of what you asked me before, or I would not speak of it. !, I assume that is based on what you would consider the normal, healthy man and his family, consisting of himself, his wife and a daughter, as I j believe you stated, would need. Now, when he gets that you have no idea as to what he and his family want in addition. He always wants more than he has; and that is one of the best things in the world; other- wise we should not get ahead and make things go. If the man has what I you think will support him and his family in a decent way, perhaps he has I half a dozen girls and they want a lot of other things, but the father is I in that walk of life where he can’t supply them. Therefore, in order to 776 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee get them, they find tiiat they .can secure those things by going out into i occupation, and you can’t stop them. Therefore the law won’t help the situation a particle as I view it. It is simply the human wants that can t be, controlled by law. Mr. William T. Abbott’s Testimony. WILLIAM T. ABBOTT, called as a witness before the Committee was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will you give the stenographer your name? A. William T. Abbott. Q. And your occupation? A. Vice-president of the Central Trust Company of Illinois. Q. How many men are employed at that bank? A. Outside of the payroll force, 247 . Q. What is the average wage paid them? A. It is a little over a thousand dollars; I think exactly, one thousand three dollars and some cents. Q. What is the lowest wage? A. The lowest wage, of which we have very few, is $25 to $ 30 , which was testified to by other bankers yes- terday, to the boys who come in last and begin as messenger bo3'S. Q. And the bookkeepers, what is the average wage paid to the book- keepers? A. I don’t classify my wages. In the case of certain lines of employment in the bank they run from twelve to fifteen or eighteen hun- dred dollars, and some who become heads of departments, or hold respon- sible positions, like tellers, run higher than that. I should sa3' that, gen- erally speaking, the bookkeepers are paid about the average or a little less. Q. Have you any minimum wage for married men? A. No. Q. Have you a rule similar to that spoken of b3' !Mr. Forgan as exist- ing in his bank? A. No, as a rule I think the 3'oung men in the bank, possibly, are of that temper of mind that they are not likely to be led into matrimony until they are assured of a reasonable income which would enable them to get along. Q. How much do you think a man_should have in the cit3- of Chicago, to marry and support a family on? A. I could answer that. Governor, only from my own knowledge of the , cost ,of necessities of life, and it is my deliberate judgment that a man on a- salary ,of a thousand dollars a year can afford his wife and small familv' a comfortable support; that is, proyiding he is not trying^to, make a splurge to equal his neighbor, who has an income of say three, jhousand, and who, in his turn, is tr3-ing to make a splurge equal to the man with an income of five or six thousand dollars a year. In other words, the thousand dollars affords a comfortable living, but they can’t have an automobile, and the3' can’t take man3- trips to Europe on that salary or income. Q. The State of Illinois then is pa3-ing its legislators a comfortable living? A. With perquisites. I have been ver3" much interested in Dr. Judson’s statement, in which he — perhaps I ought not intentionalh’ to correct the Committee — and 3mu used the term “inadequate income’’ in place of “inadequate ^vage” — because when it comes to that, we all of us have an inadequate income. I think that I could count on the fingers of my two hands every person who thinks he has an adequate income. Q. Have 3'ou any information on that subject that 3'ou desire to impart to this Committee? A. I have onh’ studied these matters as any intelligent man ought to, but I have made no special investigation such as qualifies me to give the Committee an3- definite information. You want my honest opinion, don’t 3'OU? Q. Absolutely? A. I want to sa3- then that so far as concerns em- ployment in a bank, I believe the establishment of a minimum wa.ge, we will say even for the different classifications of employment, would be the most effective means of crippling human ambition that human ingenuity could devise. You find a man, who has no skill, a situation; sometimes he Public Meetings and Testimony 777 IS given life employment. The moment that occurs, he will lay down on the job under such a system. You have removed every incentive for increasing their efficiency, or their usefulness to the institution. So long as the boy knows that his chance for advancement in that institution is dependent upon making good, he is going to work hard, irrespective of the wages he is getting. The intelligent employe, the intelligent young man in any employment, ought to know that the first few years of his life, during that period, he has got to give service, perhaps out . of proportion to the wage that he is then receiving, in hopes of advancement. Now when you remove that incentive and the boy is working on a minimum wage, he knows that the state is going to compel his employer to pay it, so what is the result? I am telling you that my judgment is that that boy will never get above that minimum wage. And let me say just one other thing: if all the salaries paid, which you have heard testified to, which on an average run from $75 a month to $83, as you were informed by the different witnesses, if that seems a low salary, you must remember that there is probably no business in the world in which the relation of supply and demand is so large a factor, in salaries paid, as the banking business. The supply is so much greater than the dernand. Young .men look upon a position as statement clerk or bookkeeper in a bank a good deal as the laborer said to the bishop when he saw the bishop passing by with a fine suit of clothes on; he said, “Sometimes I think I would like a bishop’s job; it is a nice clean, easy job.” There are a great many who would prefer to go into the banking business because it is clean work and shorter hours, and would take smaller salaries than the same men could earn if they wished to apply themselves harder to work in some ojher lines of employment. Q. Mr. Abbott, you have expressed the opinion that the establish- ment by the state of a minimum wage would ruin the morale and destroy ambition? A. I really think so. Q. Then I will ask you if already in your bank you haven’t a minimum wage? A. Well, yes and no. The amount paid to the boy when he starts in there is, as Mr. Reynolds said; that is the customary amount paid to boys. Q. Doesn’t that constitute a minimum wage, established by -custom, which is always the forerunner of law? A. No, because the boy after continuing there for a little while, and being given a chance to demon- strate his efficiency and probable chances for promotion if he did not improve, would be told that there was no chance for any further promotion and that he would better start in some other kind of business. Q. What difference do you draw between a minimum wage fixed by custom, or by individual employers, and a minimum wage fixed by law; the minimum wage fixed by law being upon the theory that every human being in society has a right to a living? A. Oh, yes, I think there is a great difference. For instance, a minimum wage of $25 to $30 per month for boys is expected to last but temporarily, and the boy at the end of his first week or two — if he has not demonstrated his capacity for increased efficiency- — would be allowed to go and get into some other employment, whereas if the minimum wage was fixed by law, why, he or some other equally inefficient person would of necessity have to be retained there. Q, Why? A. Because you would not be able to -get any better boys. Q. Why? A. That is the way of it. Q. I don’t exactly see it that way, Mr. Abbott; if your minimum wage 'fixed by law requires that the boy or girl in employment shall receive as ■ a minimum a living, instead of an arbitrary figure set by custom as a minimum, as at present, how is that change from one minimum to another to affect materially the conduct of your business, including your system of employment and discharge? A. Well, I don’t see how the law can say that anyone must be paid a living wage. I don’t see how it possibly can, because nobody can be paid by an employer more than he earns. If a boy comes in at $25 a week and can’t earn $10, he ought to go somewhere else. Q. Let us endeavor to get at it in another way, Mr. Abbott. When a girl is fourteen and she goes into employment in a factory, where she stands all day on her feet, is that a good thing or a bad thing for a 778 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee girl s health? A. There is no room for argument on that proposition. Q. Might it shorten her life? A. Certainly, certainly. Q. If in addition she receive an inadequacy of income, as a result of which she has not a healthy place to sleep in, nor enough food to eat, nor enough warm clothing to wear, might not that still further shorten her life? A. There is no argument about that; there is no question about it Q. The state prohibits the taking of life, does it not? A. Yes. Q. Now, hasn’t the state the same right to prohibit that which, through another process, leads to the same end, the shortening of life? A. Undoubtedly. I follow you exactly. Q. Then we are not so far apart? A. No, I don’t think so. The most of the arguments in the world arise from a failure to properly define the points of argument to start with. I do wpt to say one thing: I find that in our institution, for the same work, girls are paid at least equal to or, in some instances, greater salaries than the men for the same work. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. Q. How many girls have you? A. Let me see — between twenty- five and thirty. Q. And mostly stenographers? A. I should say about half of them; the others are tellers in the savings department; I have three women bookkeepers in my department. Q. One question brings on another: those girls you have employed there do their work as well as if you had men there, or boys? A. Well, personally speaking — strictly speaking, from a personal standpoint and not from an official standpoint — the kind of work that the women do in my department, I infinitely prefer them to men. They are prefer- able in any work which requires a careful degree of accuracy, and pains- taking attention to an infinite number of little details; in that they are very much superior to men. Q. Don’t you think that if a girl or a woman can do a certain class of work as well, or better, than a man, that she should be paid equal or better wages? A. Yes, and we pay them. Mr. Abraham W. Harris’ Testimony. ABRAHAM W. HARRIS, called as a witness before the Commit- tee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara, and testified as follows: CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Will you state your name, please? A. Abraham W. Harris. Q. And your occupation? A. President of the Northwestern Uni- versity. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR BEALL. SENATOR BEALL: As I have to leave in a few moments, I would like to ask you a few questions. I was mayor of the city of Alton three terms, and we had quite an excitement in our school as regards the boys and girls of our high school. The Board of Education, and I think the majority of them, were opposed to the last two j-ears of their going to high school. During the last two years they didn’t have any particular study, only fitting themselves for college, the last two j-ears solely a col- lege preparatory course, and a great many of our men have taken their boys out of the high school and-sent them to a business college in St. Louis because they wanted to make business men out of their bo3's and not col- lege professors, and not over five per cent of the boj'^s that go to the high school ever go to college. Now, I would like to ask j'our opinion. Doctor: do you think it is right or wrong to use these last two j-ears of the young man’s time preparing him for college, when he is not going there? Wouldn’t it be better to give him a business education? A. I think that a high school ought to do both. I think it would be a great wrong to disregard in tbe two years of high school the special needs of Public Meetings and Testimony 779 iny large proportion. I would include both girls and boys. I feel that it is quite as important to train pupils to use an income as it is to train them to get it, and while men ordinarily make the income, the greater part of ill money that is made is spent by the women, and I am inclined to think that there is quite as much need for efficiency in spending as in earning. Take the great body of women, nine-tenths of whom are going to enter into some walk of life, and put them in school, and give them no special training, is certainly blindness in our school system; and the high schools, as well as the lower schools, ought to give the girl the best training for the business she will ordinarily follow. We sometimes teach bookkeeping to boys _and not to girls. Not very many boys have use for bookkeeping, but every woman, with hardly any exception, ought to know how to keep simple accounts. If you have ever looked over a woman’s accounts, lyou will find that not many of them know how to keep them. SENATOR BEALL: I was talking recently with a lot of people that were up to my house, and among them were several graduates from the high school, and I made the remark, I said, “If the price of any article is a dollar and the discount is fifty and five off, how much ■will that article cost?” and there was no one who could answer that ques- tion. They said they didn’t learn that at school. That is a fact; they could not tell me what that article cost. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Senator Harris, will you conduct the ex- amination of Dr. Harris? EXAMINATION BY SENATOR HARRIS. Q. Doctor, how many students have you in your school? A. About j,4,800 or 5,000. Q. And they are divided up about evenly between men and women? A. There are perhaps one-fifth women, perhaps a little more — about jfifteen hundred, I should say. Q. What is the tuition fee? A. It varies according to the different classes: in college, liberal arts, it is $120 a year; in the law school it is $150; the school of commerce, $175. It varies somewhat according to the amount of work. . Q. Can you approximate. Doctor, the cost of living per year for your students in college? A. No, I haven’t any figures that would enable me to give you an accurate statement. I would suppose, including traveling expenses, it might not run very far from six hundred dollars, but that might be quite a ways off. Q. You have dormitories and such things as that? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you keep track of any of your students when they leave your college? A. Oh, yes, in a general way; of course, we keep quite an accurate record of all of our graduates where they are. We don’t attempt to keep track of their income; there is no way in which we can do that. Q. You have some theory about what they make after they leave your college? A. No, not very definite; not definite enough to give you any figures. It is difficult to get at it. Now and then a class will make a census, but even those results are very incomplete. Q. The graduates mostly follow professions? A. Out of the_ Col- lege of Liberal Arts, I should say the largest number go into business. Of course, our location leads to unusual results. A college in a great city like Chicago would be apt to have most of its members go into busi- ness; college students, some of them, are going to teach; a few of them I will go into the ministry, a great many will go into the other profes- ‘ sions, but those who stop at the end of college, I should say sixty per cent, go into business. I am talking of men now. ' Q. Do you feel, like Dr. Judson, that inadequate wage is a matter I I of inefficiency? A. In the last analysis, it must be, but there is a good 1 Ideal of luck about it. You take two men of about equal ability, or about * I equal character, and one does much better than the other; there might ' be some particular personality which might have something to do with it, 780 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee but I think that men are very blind to think that merit has to be related in just exact proportions. Q. What is your general idea about a minimum wage? A. I am rather at sea on that; I do believe that every man and ever3' woman ought to have a living; it should be a broad, modest living, of course. But how that is possible or best to be brought about, is not entirely clear in my mind. But the community ought to see to it that there is a fair living provided; that principle has been recognized for many' years. What the effect of a minimum law would be is impossible to tell. I feel that young women in the city, who are trying to establish themselves in business and who have not really completed their education, • because the young woman who starts in is really still in her educational period, I feel that they ought to in some way be taken care of. Four or five dollars a week, or whatever it may be, is not sufficient to properly keep her, and the deficiency should be made up in some way. Q. Can you conceive of any' manner in which they can be taken care of unless the state steps in? A. Well, I think this thing might be done: I believe we ought to register all women who are working under a cer- tain wage, in order that their cases may be followed up. Of course, there are a great many girls who go into business as apprentices; they don’t use that term, but that is what it is, and are yvorth very little as a begin- ner. They are in their homes, the great majority' of them, and they' re- ceive probably not any more than a part of their expenses. The situa- tion is not very much different than that which existed when they were in school, and if all homes were able to take care of them, that might be the best way', but there are others who are thrown upon their own re- sources, and they must make their own way. I think that one of the most pitiful situations you can imagine is that of a young girl who is forced to take care of herself without home help, and I have no hesita- tion in say'ing that the community' should help. If there is no home to help the completing of the education, the community' should take a hand. If we registered them, we could get it fixed. I am convinced, how- ever, that something must be done, and a well-studied, carefully' pre- pared minimum wage for girls looks as if it would be a good thing after proper investigation, thought, and research. Q. A great deal of stress has been laid, and is laid by' employers upon efficiency; of course, the supposition is that efficient men can alway's get a job; now, if colleges like the Northwestern University and the Chicago University turn out efficient men, I should not consider a thousand dol- lars a year a sufficient wage for that class of men; still, is it not true that there are any number of them working in these banks around town for that, or possibly less? A. Oh, y'es, undoubtedly'; of course, many young men are willing to work for less than a thousand dollars in a bank, but that is a pretty poor result. I don’t say' that the number of cases is very' large, if you will investigate; but you take certain professions and we see every now and then that a college graduate averages less than a thousand dollars. But that is not a very' large number, and also there are some college men who go into the ministry'. Q. Isn’t it a fact that numbers of college graduates that go into the skilled trades, make more money, as a rule, than the college graduates who go into the professions? A. Oh, no, I think not; my judgment would be that that is not the fact. Q. Then let me put the question differently: Is it not a fact that members of the skilled trades make more money, as a rule, than college graduates? A. No, I would not think that to be the fact; that is not the fact; it is very far from the fact. You take the average college graduate and he is once on his feet, he will very far outstrip the other. There w'ere some statistics brought out by an engineer in regard to engineering estimates. He took an estimate based upon the records of one of the very largest engineering concerns out here in the Y est — I forget ^yhich one — he took the case of men who were laborers, without much of any skill, and then the skilled laborers, and then the engineers. Of course, the laborers got to work first, so they began to earn first. For a while they yvere ahead of the proposition. Then they were passed in a very short Public Meetings and Testimony 781 time by the higher class of laborers, the skilled laborers, and in ten years from the time that the first class went to work, the college graduate, the engineers, which were the last really to go to work, had overtaken and passed both the other classes in their earnings, although the engineer- ing class had not been working half as long. Of course, there are some ■men who earn very large wages. Q. We found yesterday. Doctor, that in some of our largest retail establishments here, the average wage paid to man workers, is in the neighborhood of sixteen or seventeen dollars a week; now that being the average wage paid, it would rather suggest that in the average family the head of the household is not getting enough money to support a wife and family on, and that being so. Doctor, isn’t it a fair presumption that in jsuch a home — the average home — the average working home — the daughter is forced out into the industrial world when she reaches the age of four- teen or fifteen, the age when she needs a little extra clothing and her expenses become a little heavier; would you think that that is a fair pre- sumption? A. Yes, I should think so. Q. Then as she is forced out and has to do something, and she does get part of her support from the home, she can afford to sell her time for less money than the man who would be entirely self-supporting, and as in some of our factories they have machinery, for instance, that re- quires merely a human being to run it; there is no efficiency required, just a human being; human help must be harnessed to that machine; also in some of our retail places, in selling certain goods, it is more or less a mechanical process and a girl can do it as well as any other human being, practically; now doesn’t the forcing of that girl into the business world or into that employment by the inadequacy of wage paid to the head of the household, bring her into competition with men and thus tend to re- duce their wages? A. The more workers, practically the lower average salary, probably, unless the production is to some extent increased. I have no doubt that if you withdraw the woman from commercial enter- prises, you would find that wages would go up. Q. If wages went up, the heads of the households would get enough money, possibly, for them to keep their girls at home? A. In some cases they would, but I don’t think they would in all cases. What I said before, in regard to the efficiency of spending: there are some people who would be just on the border line in any case. It is an extremely complicated problem. There are certain lines of work which women have done for ages, and which I do not think could be carried on by men; you could not supply them. Here in the city you have a great number of steno- graphers; if you I repared women to do that you could not get men to do it. There would be simply a reduction in the amount of such work. For in such a line of work as that, women in my opinion, are very much better on the average than men. Q. Why do you think that the woman is better? A. In the matter of details, I think that a. woman is very much better than a man, on an average. If you put a man to work bringing up two or three children and keeping the house going, and working from the time he got up in the morning until bed time, at all times, at one thing and another, almost any man would go crazy in two or three months, but the woman will prosper on it. The notion that a, woman is weaker than a man is only true in some lines. In some businesses, where you need to take charge of large details, a woman will ordinarily beat a man. She goes at it in a way which does not seem to work on her nerves. A man is quite as nervous as a woman is. That is true too, in vocational life. The notion that a woman could not do some of those things as well as a man has been entirely exploded. The notion also that a woman could not have an education has been entirely exploded; the girls will beat the boys in college in certain studies, will beat them every time. While all that is true, the men have their advantages to a certain extent, in which they will beat the women, but the initiative is more to be found in the woman. EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. Q. Is it your opinion, Doctor, that the minimum wage law, providing 782 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the girl who goes out to work with a living, would tend to protect her from the grinding of some employers? A. I would like to see it tried, but I would like to see it tried on a very modest scale first, pretty well down. If you put it too far up you may work a tremendous hardship on girls who can’t get work at all. You know, in New York state there was a law passed which gave a certain salary to women teachers: it was not intended that way, but the result was, and the tendency of that law was to displace the women by the men. If you put a woman’s salary up to that of a man, the woman doesn’t get the chance; if you put a man’s salary down to that of a woman, the man won’t take the place and you will have the woman, and with the best of intentions, sometimes, you might work things just the way you didn’t want to, but I think it is worth trying. Q. Would you say that a woman’s minimum wage law would even- tually have the effect of increasing wages to men? A. I don’t dare to venture an opinion on that; it is too complicated, I am sure. Of course you have got so much of product; if you don’t increase the product, then your problem becomes one of distribution. I don’t think it would be a very great hardship for you to take something from those who are getting more and pay it to those who are getting less, providing you are very conservative about it. It is a necessity to the community that some men should have great incomes, because it is only in that way that you can control a profit that makes for opportunities. If I am right in diagnosing the trend of affairs, we are coming to a point where the public thinks that great wealth is not always for the benefit of one alone. The time was when it was undisputed that a man had the right to his own winnings, who did not trespass upon the rights of others, but the trend of opinion now seems to be that after he has certain wealth, he must use his surplus wealth to build up the welfare of his fellow-rnan who has made great efforts to aid him in building up and accumulating it. Take a man with a million dollars of income; what he gets for his personal use is not very much more than when he only had fifty thousand dollars income; he can’t use much more. He may hunt around for a yacht or something. As a rule he has put it into property. As a rule, he is a man of outstanding ability, who knows how to organize industry so as to give to the poor man a chance. Now you can afford to let that man control a great for- tune, if he is using it. The weakness comes in when he takes it and abuses it in some way and don’t possess that outstanding ability. Q. The public menace comes when he dies and the wealth passes into other hands, perhaps inefficient; then what shall we have, an inheritance tax? A. I think we are drifting towards the inheritance tax theory. You will find some family name has always been, for instance, linked with great railroad enterprises. A generation passes away and a new_ man arises; the name disappears. You take Harriman. He has been criticised sharply for some of his methods, yet he certainly was a master of efficiency in railroads. He did a tremendous service to the country in making groups of railroads wonderfully efficient. He died with one hun- dred millions of dollars in his possession. Probably in giving him that hundred millions of dollars, the community made a better bargain than it does in most cases when it pays twelve dollars a week to another man. The community can afford to pay big salaries to efficient men. but one of the great problems of educational industry or vocational industry is to sort out those men who are really in the end the greatest public servants, to serve the public, and I think that the public can afford to pay them well. Q. Suppose a man were a merchant here in Chicago and he built un a big store and by the time he died he had accumulated a fortune of many million dollars, and instead of being permitted by law to tie that fortune’ up in a trust fund, to hand it down to his descendants who might not have the same ability to care for it that he had, suppose that under the law a certain amount, a liberal amount, has been left to his family to keep them well, and provide for them during life, and the rest had been divided among the men and women and the children, who were instrumental in aiding to build up that business, his employes, would that have been a proper solution of the present question that we are discussing; Public Meetings and Testimony 783 A. I very much doubt it. Most concerns that are co-operative enter- prises, show that they are not efficient for a very long time. You have got some illustrations that are well worthy, taking into account here in Chicago. Now, take in the beef industry; you have had several great , names in the last generation. Now, the common saying used to be that a rich man’s son was of no account, but that, I think, is a mistake. So far as I can see, the boys, the sons of the great beef men, are not only as able as their fathers were, but are getting results that are greater than their fathers did. There are many cases where that is tue. I am not at 1 all sure that the drift of poor stock in great families is any greater than we ought to expect. There must be, of course, for great achievement, great prices, and I would go pretty slow towards limiting it. At the same time I think, beyond any question, that the community is not only in- terested, but should assert its interest in the public use of great funds, whether in the hands of private individuals or in the hands of corpor- ations, and I understand that that theory is being generally accepted. That, I think, is to a great extent the cause of the tremendous fortunes which are being made. Q. If there were a very strong inheritance tax, stronger than any we have on the books now, and the money, or a large part of the money, went into a fund to pay pensions to mothers, to retired workmen at say the age of fifty, and so forth, would that, in your judgment, be one of the possible solutions of the problem that we are studying now? A. It is a possible solution, but the reason why 1 would hesitate about it is that the dragging out of capital might mean the breaking up of great enterprises. Now, what difference does it make to a place, for instance, ' where one of these great concerns are situated, as to who holds the capital j stock of that concern, provided that the concern gets on and does its work and gives aid to the community. The capital stock ought to be held where it will be most efficiently used. Do you get my idea? Sup- i pose we take Marshall Field. There was a great fortune left to the I individual, and while he won’t get much of it, the community is vitally I interested as to whether that concern, by the impairment of its capital, I should be broken up; its gives employment to thousands. Now what does \ it matter to the masses as to who holds the capital stock? Providing it i is held together in such a way that there will be an incentive to employ people, men to make it work and furnish opportunities for all of these employes? Do you get my point? We are not much concerned over who holds the capital stock. You know that old story. I think it was Emerson ; who tells us the story that he went with a friend overy a very beautiful 1 estate, across the fields and through the woods, and he asked his friend [ who owned it; his friend replied, “I own it, but John Smith holds the title j deeds and takes care of it.” That is possibly true; you take a rich man I with a great estate, great property to take care of; he may be so busy I doing clerical work and looking after things, that he does not get a great 1 deal out of it after all. Mr. William T. Abbott’s Testimony Resumed. WILLIAM T. ABBOTT, recalled as a witness before the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as follows: j MR. ABBOTT: Won’t you give me just a minute of your time be- cause I am afraid that I left the wrong impression with you. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Very gladly. MR. ABBOTT: I agree with you. I agree with you on your diagnosis of existing conditions, but I said I did not believe that the remedy was to be found in legislation. I want to make myself clear on that, and I thought that you would have no objections to my making a further state- ment. The difficulty about any legislation as a remedy for those social or economic conditions as we find them, if you assume the right and exer- cise the power to carry into effect the minimum wage sufficient to cover what the then existing legislature may deem to be the actual human necessities, you are ignoring a great economic principle of the relation : of those necessities to the human wants. Let me give you an illustration: Let us take a family with an income of six hundred dollars without any ,j minimum wage law. That family finds that to live as it wishes to in 784 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee these days, it is bound to spend eight hundred dollars. Now to get that eight hundred dollars, it either goes in debt or some of the children of the family go out to work, to get that eight hundred dollars to spend. Now if the legislature could, or, on that theory, should enact a minimum wage 'law for the family of that number of persons, irrespective of efficiency and actual earning power of the head of the family making that eight ‘hundred- dollars, it is a principle of economics, and it is a thoroughly demonstrated thing in every-day life, that the wants of that family imme- diately go up to eleven or twelve hundred dollars. We find that every day in our experience, and we know that it is the experience of people, that Avhen their income increases from ten to fifteen or twenty per cent, theft wants increase thirty to forty per cent. They continually want more things and better things. Now undoubtedly, human progress is largely dependent upon the operation of that economic theory and we are living_ in an age today when it is perhaps carried to the greatest extreme that it ever has been, by reason, perhaps, very^ largely, of ingenious advertising by the concerns, through the active compaigns of advertising managers of newspapers. But that is the situation as it exists, and that is a reason, and to my mind, an effective one, why a minimum wage law wduld not remedy the evils which we are investigating and about which there’ is‘ no' room for argument. In other words, you will be elevating the whole thing to a horizontal plane of conditions ten or twenty per cent above what they are today, but conditions will remain the same. There is only one person that I can think of that I believe that a minimum wage law would be of any benefit to, and that is the one that must have help. Q. Do j^ou not believe that it is also sound logic and perfectly good economics that for a minimum of industrial efficiency there should always be paid the minimum of a living? A. If I granted that it would only be on the basis of a living for that individual. I think I stated my position ve'ry clearly on the wage question. As to the wages for women, I think that they ‘should have equal wages with men for doing the same work., I am very much obliged to you for this opportunity of making myself clearer; I thought, on reflection, that I had perhaps left it not verjr clear in your minds. Mr. Leonard A. Busby’s Testimony. 'LEONARD A. BUSBY, called as a witness before the Committee, was examined in chief by Chairman O’Hara and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAbT O’HARA: W'ill you give the reporter j-our name? A. Leonard A. Busby. Q. What is j'our occupation? A. I operate the Chicago City Rail- way. Q. How many employes have vou, Air. Busbv? A. Approximately 4,500. Q. What is the average wage paid? A. The average wage for all men in the transportation service is $71.50, speaking approximately. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any man employed by that company? A. Do you mean adult? Q. You can separate the two if you desire; first, the lowest wage paid to any minor. A. '\Vell, practically all of our employes are adults, or at least young fellows who are employed to do a man’s work. Those that go into the train service; we employ practicalh- no boys. There are four or- five .boys around the offices that are merely office boys; the rest of the men are practically adults. The lowest wage that we pay is for unskilled labor. Those men are classified as car cleaners. They begin at $1.91 a day; that is 19 cents an hour for ten hours. The_ second, I think, get $2.20 per day. Now those men, the better class of men, are generally promoted to that of car placers, having a ma.ximum of $2.50 a day, and from that to car repair men_ employed in making renairs, car inspectors, dopers and so forth, running to $2.80 per day. Public Meetings and Testimony 785 Our trainmen begin — the conductors and motormen I mean by trainmen-^ at $2.30 a day, or 23 cents an hour, ^or the first three months; 25 cents per hour for the second three months; 26 cents per hour for the next six months, and then, beginning on the second year, they get 27 cents an hour for the first six months, 28 cents an hour for the second six ; months of that year, and 29 cents an hour for the third year, 30 cents an hour for the fourth year, 31 cents an hour for the fifth year, and 32 cents an hour thereafter. Our average day’s work for those men over i the entire system is ten hours and twenty minutes. That, of course, includes our allowance ofif; I mean that the amount of time for which they are paid for a day’s work, is ten hours and twenty minutes per day. Q. Are most of the men employed by your corporation married men? A. We made an estimate of .that some time ago when we had the question before the Board of Arbitration. On that board, Mr. ' Justice Carter of our Supreme Court was the umpire. There was not an actual test made, but it seemed to run about fifty per cent of our men that were married; the younger men were unmarried. Q. ,At the time you made that investigation, , or inquiry, did you also conduct an investigation or inquiry into the cost to the head of the household, as to what it would cost him to support a family? A. i That question was taken up and some data was submitted by the men before the board on that question. Q. And what did that data show in a general way? A. I am speaking now from recollection, but I think that the testimony, as we didn’t go into that question, was ex parte, and it was that for a family of five, a man and wife and three children, it ranged from eleven hundred to twelve hundred dollars per year. Q. Do you think that that estimate is high? A. It was for our men; the average family, as I recollect it, for the entire class of em- ployes, will have about three and a half members per family, but to take a family of five, no one could say that eleven hundred dollars was an extravagant estimate for the living e.xpenses at this time. J Q. You say the company did not offer any evidence of a similar I nature? A. We didn’t. I Q. And for what reason, Mr. Busby? A. That that in our judg- ment would not have afforded very much if any light which would have been of any value to the board with reference to the questions in con- troversy. Now, if you take a family of five members, and their figures on that question were submitted as itemized, and the itemized cost of living, the itemized cost of clothing, and so forth, and if you went at it from the standpoint of giving the amount of money estimated for a given family, you would readily reach the conclusion that they had not :i expended anything ■ vfery extravagantly, or had not indulged in extrava- i gant living in order to reach those results. Nevertheless, the , way we 1 approached that matter was this: Our men are getting and receiving an average wage, and a large proportion of those men have saved money; i some of them, and a large number of our men, I am very glad to say ^ from the check we made of it, have accumulated quite a little property during the years. We approached the matter from this standpoint as to what? As to the desirability, of these conditions for these men. For example, when we take a trainman he is absolutely unskilled so far as our business is concerned. In fact, the business of operating a street car is at best but a semi-skilled occupation. We take those men and we put them in school for a period of two weeks, and if at the end of that time they qualify, they are put in the service then as extra men. Now, take this particular occupation and , compare it with any other occupation I which any man who is not a skilled artisan would care to enter into, ? the question was as to what the man entering into this employment ; should have, should be paid as compared to other employments which I are open to them. That is, to take for instance, young fellows who j are unmarried, whom you might, say are practically foot-loose, they will jj take the first position that they can get, and I found this, that we had I in our train service at that time probably 3,300, of which 2,650 were I regular men and 650 were extra men. Now, we found that in addition 786 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee lo the number of new men that we would employ from year to year, which would range from six hundred to eight hundred men, that we would have annually more than twenty-five hundred applications for employment, which we were not able to fill or give places to, and in addition to this twenty-five hundred extra applications, we had fully two hundred applications per month that we did not receive owing to the fact that we did not consider the men suitable for our train service. These men begin and the average wage of the extra man on our system is in excess of fifty-five dollars a month, and it runs from there as high as $1,300 per year, or a little over $100 a month. Our best men, at the top, having the best runs which they select themselves, according to their seniority and their highest wage. That was under the old scale, when the maximum was thirty cents and the minimum twenty-two; under the new scale the maximum is thirty-two cents an hour, and it will be a different question. We took up this question of the relative cost of living, the relative increased cost of living as compared wdth the increase in wages during the last twenty years and going back (at that time the wages of the men were seventeen cents an hour as compared with thirty cents an hour allowed them by the board), and we found that the increase per annum of w'ages of the men on the South Side system here, had been in excess of the cost of living, as shown by the United States Government reports- upon all the various commodities, including the common necessities and some of the luxuries of life. Q. Your average wage is something like $72 per month? A. For all men, including the unskilled men at the barn that have the low wage of $1.90. It would not be the average wage paid the trainmen, because they draw higher compensation. You see, there is quite a difference in the classes; you take the trainmen and the barnmen, the unskilled men at the barn. If you w-anted to get everything accurate, you would take the average of each, but the average fellow, the man unskilled as well as those who are in the train service work — those who work at repairing the cars — are more skilled than those who do the car cleaning; the average of those is $71.50 per month. Q. You see, Mr. Busby, in justice to yourself and also in justice to the employed, I am building up a composite man; here is your composite man; he is getting $71 a month, upon which amount of money it is a' pretty hard matter for him to support a wife and family in the city of Chicago; now, what is the effect upon society as a whole, Mr. Busby, of paying the average man a less wage than he can marry and support a family on? A. Well, one of two things: if a man is already married, he has to exercise very strict economy; if he is not married, he probably will defer marrying for some time. I think there is a tendency at this time for that. Q. If he already is married, in the exercise of that economy is it necessary for him to go to the point of depriving his children of a proper education and perhaps of sufficient wholesome food? A. With our em- ployes, I don’t think so. You take the average of $71.50 a month — that is about $850 per year. Now, I don’t theorize about these things; I am not theorizing with reference to them; I can only speak of the facts about which I know; our men do not live in an uncomfortable way; they are not underfed. We had a large number of them there when that question was brought up, and they afforded quite a little bit of amusement from time to time. Some of the men that were on the stand would state that they were spending considerably more money than they made, and according to the schedule cost of living they evidently could not live on that, and were insufficiently fed, while they were ranging in weight anywhere from 175 pounds to upwards of 300, which put a somewhat humorous tinge for a moment on that question. No, the question of living is, of course, one, as I take it, for the individual family. There is not any question but what a family will live better on eight hundred dollars a year than another family will on eleven hundred dollars a year. It gets down to be a problem for the individual; that is, assuming that the wage is suffi- cient to live on, to rent a cottage or an apartment, or a small flat, and to live as an American workman is expected to live, and the children to be dressed as they should be dressed, and go to school, and attach them- Public Meetings and Testimony 787 selves to our school system. 1 think it requires economy, but thousands of our men do it, and have been doing it. Q. Do you believe in a minimum wage for women fixed by law? A. I have not been a student of that question, because we employ, all told, only thirty women, and I think that the minimum wage there — and there are only three or four of those — is $40 per month, and it runs from that to $75 a month. Whereupon, there being no more witnesses to be mittee adjourned subject to the call of the chair. heard, the Com- I 4 0 ‘ SESSION XXIX I 1 Continuing its labors under renewed authority conferred upon ' i it by the Upper House of the Forty -ninth General Assembly, the Committee inaugurates at Alton a series of public hearings to be > I held in Illinois cities previously visited by its investigators. Wit- ^ I nesses at Alton generally agreed that existing laws, when enforced, : j are sufficient to abolish commercialized vice in municipalities. Tes- f timony of Mr. C. F. Trick, Clerk to the Committee, j Mr. Joseph J. Mullen, Chief of Police. Mrs. Anna J. Wilkinson, Vigilant Improvement Association. I ‘ Dr. Mather Pfeiffenberger, physician. Mr. W. C. Gates, dry goods merchant. Mr. E. E. Campbell, publisher Alton Daily Times, Mr. John McAdams, publisher Alton Telegraph. I Mr. Paul B. Cousley, editor Alton Telegraph, j Mrs. Sophia DeMuth, police matron. Senator Edmond Beall, Mayor of Alton. ( Mrs. Rose Gillespie, City Milk and Food Inspector. |j Mr. John Coleman, business agent Glass Blowers’ Union. j Alton, Illinois, September 11, 1915, 10:00 A. M. i The Illinois Senate Vice Committee met in the court house at I Alton, there being present Chairman O’Hara, Senator Beall and I, Senator Woodard, and the following proceedings were had : CHAIRMAN O’HARA: The Committee will come to order. This I is a regular meeting of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee, created by the Forty-eighth General Assembly and continued in power and authority by I the Forty-ninth General Assembly. This Committee was appointed for the purpose of studying moral conditions in the State of Illinois and re- II porting to the Legislature such recommendations as, in the judgment of I the Committee, look toward the reduction and elimination of the menaces f to and perils of our girlhood and womanhood. The Committee during the I last two years has been carrying on a quiet investigation throughout different parts of the State, some fifteen or twenty cities having been covered in all. This is the first of a series of public meetings which it is purposed to hold in the various communities visited by our investigators, 'j' We solicit the frank opinions of citizens generally and the benefit of their ;:i judgment in the framing of recommendations within the scope of the ‘i Committee’s inquiry. The Committee desires it understood that because II of the peculiar position of Senator Beall, a member of the Committee and .i at the present time mayor of the city of Alton, it was not deemed ad- iij visable to consult him in the details of a secret inquiry into conditions J in the city of which he is the responsible head. The inquiry in Alton ,* was, in short, conducted as in other cities, without the knowledge of local 1 authorities. The Committee at this session hopes to determine if the ‘ strict application of the existing laws of the State of Illinois, when prop- '! erly enforced in any community by the regularly elected officers of that ! community, are sufficient to correct the moral problems and the vice ii situation in general. • ! SENATOR WOODARD: The question we wish decided is whether j the law has been enforced or whether it can be enforced. One thing we need is an institution in which to place the inmates driven from houses of ill repute, a place of shelter for them and a place for them to lay their j heads. _ This is the question now in the minds of the members of this I Committee and we desire if possible in the future to make laws to provide for these institutions and a place for these inmates to go to to be treated 789 790 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee and to give them work to do and to interest them, instead of permitting them to lead idle lives. In that way, perhaps, we may better conditions. Mr. C. F. Trick’s Testimony. C. F. TRICK, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Your name? A. C. F. Trick. Q. You .are employed by the Illinois Senate Vice Committee, Mr. Trick? A. Yes, sir. Q. Working under your direction have been investigators? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have any of those investigators visited the city of Alton? A. Yes, sir. Q. Will you state, very briefly, what the report of those investigators has been as to the moral conditions in Alton? A. Report was made in detail; briefly, it was to the effect that conditions in Alton had been as bad as those in any city in the State. A “clean-up” had been accomplished, however, in the present year, and in June our investigators were unable to locate anywhere the so-called sporting houses and rooms of ill repute. Q. Did the investigators have anything to report as to the enforce- ment of law in Alton at the time of their last visit? A. Yes; that in conversation with many citizens interviewed by them they found all agreed that law enforcement was actually a fact in Alton. Q. You are acquainted with Senator Beall, now mayor of the city of Alton? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did you receive any instructions from Senator Beall, now Mayor Beall, as to the Investigation in Alton? A. No, sir. ■ Q. From whom did you receive your instructions? A. From the chairman of the Committee. Q. Did any of the investigators consult with AIa3’Or Beall? A. They were instructed not to do so. Q. And, as far as you are informed, they did not? A. No, sir. Mr. Joseph J. Mullen’s Testimony. JOSEPH J. MULLEN, called as a witness before the Cornmittee, being first duly sworn by Senator Beall, was examined and testified as follows; EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name please? A. Joseph J. Mullen. Q. You are employed by the city of Alton? A. Yes, sir. Q. In what capacity? A. As chief of police. Q. How long have j'ou held that office? A. Since the first of May, 1915. Q. Before that, your occupation was what? A. W’ith the Illinois Glass Company as chief superintendent of blow factories. Q. How long have you lived in Alton?, A. Born and raised here, fifty-two years. Q. You w'ere appointed by whom? A. Mayor Beall. Q. Briefly, what were the instructions given you as to the enforce- ment of law in Alton? A. Well, my instructions were, upon assuming the duties of my office, to strictly enforce the State law in regard to saloons; that is, the closing of saloons on Sundays. Previous to that time the saloons remained open on Sundays and the back doors were open. As long as I can remember, they have not closed on Sundaj's until the Public Meetings and Testimony 791 first of May. Now the saloons close at 12 o’clock Saturday night and remain closed until 5 o’clock Monday morning. Q. Has that instruction been obeyed? A. I think so. I have not had any complaints. Q. How did the saloon owners accept the enforcement of the law? A. Well, at first there were some objections. They did not make obje.c- itions to me, but they did not like the idea of closing on Sunday. They are now a unit, however, and feel the saloons should be closed. Q. Would you have the_ Committee understand. Chief, that the law as regards the saloons is being strictly and entirely enforced in Alton? A. I think so, to the best of my knowledge. I make trips around the city on Sundays and the curtains are all drawn so you can see in. Q. In this enforcement of the law, do you wish the Committee to understand that the police have the co-operation of the saloonkeepers? A. Yes, I am sure they have. Q. How about the general sentiment of the citizens? A. Yes, the •general sentiment of the best citizens is to co-operate. Q. Now, Chief, when you were appointed, what was your instruction from the mayor concerning the enforcement of the so-called vice laws? A. Well, my instruction was this: that if I knew of any so-called houses of ill fame in this city, or if any attempted to start in this city, the police were to stop their business at once, I was to bring the inmates in, arrest •them and prosecute them. Q. At that time. Chief, did the records of the police department show the existence of any house of ill repute in Alton? A. On the first of May the houses that we termed houses of ill fame had closed. Mayor Beall had issued an order to them previous to his coming into office that !if they were not closed on the first day of May, that he would issue orders to the chief of police to raid them and close them up. I found on the first [of May that they had all closed up. ! Q. On the first day of May, do you wish the Committee to under- stand that, as far as you know, there were no public houses open? A. Yes, that is the condition I found on the first day of May. Q. I presume the records of the police department go back a year or two or longer, so that from those records you would be in a position to inform the Committee as to the number of houses that had existed prior to that time in the city of Alton? A. Yes, I guess I could. The ■ecords would only show in one particular. Q. What is that? A. The recor-ds would show when inmates were irrested and fined. I Q. From your understanding and knowledge, how many public houses lid exist in the city of Alton prior to May 1, 1915? A. I am not positive, iput I think it was four or five. ! 0. What would you estimate the number of inmates of these houses? I could not speak truthfully on that because I do not know, but )robably they would average four or five to each house. Q. Then you would estimate the number of inmates as somewhere )etween twenty or thirty? A. Probably, yes. Q. What has become of these women? A. Well, some of them lave left the city, and I have been informed that there are others that re still here, working out at the cartridge works; some are boarding here nd some are living here. I Q. What have you to say regarding the present conduct of these girls? I have not had any occasion to caution the girls about their actions nd I have not had any complaints from officers. The complaints that ve have mostly now are rather about girls that come here from other laces. They are working out at the cartridge works, and sometimes hey do not wok. They lay off. I have not, since I assumed office, found ny girls here I have had cause to arrest. Q. Then, as far as you know, the women that were formerly in your I 792 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee public houses are behaving themselves; they are not at least violating the laws in such a manner as to bring them to your notice? A. No, sir. Q. Have you ordered any women from the city of Alton? A. Yes. sir. Q. How many? A. I think about ten. Q. Why did you order them from the city, Chief? A. Well, there were complaints sent to the police department about houses causing dis- turbances, especially at night time, and I had officers inspect the com- plaints and. found these houses were a menace to the neighborhood. In fact, I was in two or three raids myself and w'e brought them in and found that they were girls of bad repute who had men coming there and they w-ere making it a business, an assignation house or house of ill fame. Q. In those cases you ordered the girls to leave the city? A. Yes. sir. Q. Did they comply in every case? A. Some have, and some have not. They moved from the neighborhood they were in. Q. When you ordered them from the city and they complied with your instructions, where did they go? A. Well, some of them go back to their homes, where they come from. Q. What do you mean by that? A. Some of them came to look for work. Of course, they all say that; and I always inquire where they come from, and they tell me, and when w'e have occasion to order them to leave the city, we order them back to wffiere they came from. At least, we try to. Q. Do you know that in every case the girls have homes? A. Well, no; not in every case I don’t. I have to depend upon just what they tell us Q. Where do most of these girls come from? A. Well, most ol them come from small towns around here — Winchester, Litchfield, Hills; boro and Louisiana, Afissouri. Two came from Louisiana, Alissouri Their father is here and a pensioner, and it is hard to order them to leave town immediately. We always encourage them in an effort to have them lead better lives. Q. When you find that they are not going to accept your advice! A. Then we have to adopt stricter measures to make them behave. . Q. You say that most of the girls that you have come in contact witi have come from smaller towns? A. Yes. Some were born and raisec here, but I did not know it. Q. These girls that come from smaller towns, do they come from well-to-do families? A. From my observation, they’ do not. From my observation, they came from fainilies that did not give the girls any opportunity for an education. As soon as they were large enough, they were put to work. Alost of them are- illiterate and most of them drink I think drink is one of the causes of their downfall. Q. You would have the Committee understand. Chief, that most o the girls of this class that you have had experience with here in Altoi come from homes that are poor, where they have not been properly educated? A. Yes, sir. Q. Did I understand you to say that most of them go to work at ai early age? A. Yes, sir. ' ' ‘ Q. Do you know anything about the pay received by them for thei work? A. No, I could not speak positively^ about their pay^ The onl opportunity I have to speak positively in regard to pay is two girls know of that receive $1.20 a day" at the cartridge works, both 13 years old. Q. Is that not in violation of the State law? A. Yes, sir. On th advice of Miss Demuth, I wired the factory inspector to come and vis; the plant Wednesday', and he found that we gave him the truth. Q. How many girls are employed there. Chief? A. Really I coul not say. I guess in the neighborhood of six or eight hundred girls, speak only from hearsay. Q. What are they' employed doing? A. Packing cartridges, labe ing, etc. . . ■ Public Meetings and Testimony 793 I ' Q. Cartridges for local consumption? A. lNo, for all . over, I think. . iWar orders, they say; but ! do not know. ■ i Q. Have you found ‘present laws in regard to the vice problem adequate, or have you suggestions to make for further and better law?? Well, I believe- the present laws, when they are enforced strictly, are idequate. . t: , , - Q. Have you any suggestions to make as to advisable additional I egislation? A. Not at present. ■' ■ EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: Chief, is there any' relation between the liquor question and the vice question? A. Well, I could not say that there is any relation. All I found is that most of the girls or women' that had been brought into our department were addicted to liquor. . Q. How do they get liquor? A. Well, they can get it at arty of the saloons by sending for it or getting it by the case. t * Q. Do they freqqent .the saloons? A. No, I do not believe there is a saloon in Alton that permits women , to frequent it. Q. But previously? A. Well,: there was a time here that Alton had wine rooms, but not lately; in fact, not for the past six or eight or ten years. There was a time, though, that it was a common thing to have back rooms. Q. Are these places over saloons or near them? A. No, they are back rooms, back of the saloons. Q. Did they bring patrons to the saloons? A. No, they just merely went in to drink, in what is commonly called wine rooms. Q. W'ould it not be easier to stamp out vice where there are no saloons? A. Well, I am not in a position to say. Q. What is youi opinion, as an officer? A. I found that our gardens and some of our so-called dance halls are more of a detriment than saloons properly regulated. They are more danger to the girls where they sell beer and have no officers there to look after them, i Q. Have you dance halls here? A. We did have them here. We have gardens here; we have one in the city and one just outside the city. Q. They pay no city license? A. The one outside does not; but the one here does; it is inside the city limits. Since the first of May the one in the city has not been permitted to sell liquor in the garden. Previously they had waiters who carried the drinks from the saloon to the gardens, but since the first of May the mayor notified them that that practice must cease. Q. They sell only soft drinks? A. Yes, there is no sale of drinks jito anyone in the garden, but in Washington Garden, outside the city llimits, They do not pay any license; they pay a' fine about every quarter. Q. In your judgment, would it not be easier to enforce the law if they had an institution to take these girls to and give them .some kind of, jemployment? A. Yes, I think so. Yes, I think that is better than [ordering them to leave, or .telling them to get out, for I do not think that is practical. You are not helping the girls by ordering them out; you are only sending them to another place. j Q. Have you jailed any under the new law? A. No, we have not. j Q. You just tell them to clear out and leave? A. Yes. Q. So necessarily their lot must be hard; they should have some Iplace to go and some place for employment? A. I believe so. I believe Jthere should be some way of making things better for the women to get them to lead better lives. You cannot help them by telling them to jget out. ji EXAMINATION BY CHAIRMAN O’HARA. 1 CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You have no segregated district now? A. JNo. sir. 794 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. It has been contended by some, Chief, that the closing of the segregated district scatters the inmates to the residential districts. Have you found that to be the case in Alton? A. No, sir. Q. Have you found that the closing of the district has increased the practice of vice in other parts of the city to any extent at all? A. No, sir Q. Have you found that the closing of the segregated district ha; increased the business of the segregated districts in any of the neighboring cities? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. You know what is meant by a “call girl” house? A. Yes, sir. Q. Have you any “call girl” houses in Alton? A. Not that I know of Q. The Committee has found in some cities that women having apartments have a list of girls and women with their telephone numbers and they call the girls in. Have you anything of that sort here? A. Not that I know of. Q. Has there ever been such a practice in Alton to your knowledge: A. No, not to my knowledge. SENATOR BEALL: Chief, you remember you had a complaint of a certain house on George and Second Streets, about the girls that worked in the cartridge factory. You investigated them and found what they were doing? A. Well, they told me that when they were ordered to leave the segregated district and had to leave, they sought employ^ment at the cartridge factory, and they moved some of their baggage to the Alton House. I called on the proprietor of the house and had a talk with him, and he told me that as long as they remained there they would have to behave themselves, but if they attempted to bring any male com- panions there they would have to get out. He wanted to know if that was satisfactory to me, and I told him yes, it was, and that we would not arrest them or bother them if they behaved. He said, as far as he had been able to observe, they were behaving themselves there, and he told me that again just about a week ago, and we have an officer that lives only about two hundred feet from there and he is in a position to observe whether there is any disturbance. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: Do you wish the Committee to understand that in Alton you have redeemed those two girls at least from a life of shame by closing the vice district? A. Yes, I think so. Q. We are dealing in facts. Can the Committee accurately report to the Legislature that the city of Alton has redeemed some of the girls formerly in the segregated district? A. Well, I know of those two; there are probably others. SENATOR BEALL: I just wish to ask Mr. Mullen: Were not jmur instructions from me to see that all city ordinances were enforced? A. Yes, sir. SENATOR WOODARD: Chief, did you make a financial sacrifice in accepting this position? A. I was getting $125 a month and I resigned down there about six weeks previous to accepting this position. Of course, 1 made a sacrifice in a financial way, for I only get $95 a month here. Mrs. Anna J. Wilkinson’s Testimony. MRS. ANNA J. WILKINSON, called as a witness before the Com- mittee, being first duly sworn by Senator M'oodard, was examined and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: You are a citizen of Alton? A. Yes, sir. Q. And a voter? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you always vote? A. Indeed I do. Q. With what organization are you connected, kirs. Wilkinson? A, The Vigilant Improvement Association. Q Will you tell the Committee something of the moral condition of Alton at the present time? A. Yes, I can as far as I know. Of course. Public Meetings and Testimony 795 the Chief knows a great deal more of it than I do. To go back farther, I knew something of it when we had a segregated district. Q. What were the conditions then? A. The V. I. A. started the vice clean-up. While I myself did a little of the work, the Rev. Mr. Reiss did the major portion. On two occasions we went to the segregated district to see if we could do anything for the girls before the houses were closed; we offered them a temporary place of abode if they would stay here and try to do better. We offered to send them back to their homes if they wanted to go back there. And we interviewed, I suppose 'all together, eight or nine girls. I Q. How many girls were in the district at that time? A. I could not tell you how many. I did not gain admission to all the houses, but at the three I went to I think there were about twelve or thirteen. Q. Of the eight or nine you interviewed, did any accept your proffer of help? A. No, they did not. Q. The Chief has stated these houses were closed the first of May, this year. A. That is my understanding. Q. Are there any of these rooming houses open at this time? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Has the closing of the district resulted in spreading vice? A. According to my knowledge, it has not. Q. Would you state that positively? A. To the best of my knowl- edge, it has not. Q. What has happened to these girls who were formerly in that district? A. To be honest, I did not know until I heard the Chief this morning. Q. Have you, or any members of your Committee, interviewed any of the girls since the closing of the houses? A. Not tliis spring. Q. Are the women of Alton willing to help the girls? A. Not to any great extent. Q. Are they willing to open their homes to them? A. I believe, in a way, a few would for a very short time. Q. What suggestion have you for the Committee as regards laws 'and measures that will help in the reduction of vice? A. Well, I do not know whether a home provided for these girls would come under your idea of a law or measure or not, but that seems to be the practical way to take care of them. It is not a good thing to take them into homes where there are children. It is not wise and it seems to me there should ■be some place where they could be taken care of. I Q. Where do these girls come from, according to your understanding? A. One said she was from St. Louis, and two of these girls were from jjDenver, and we offered to provide their fare home, but when the time fcame they were not ready to go. The greater number of the girls I inter- viewed were from St. Louis. At that time the segregated district at St. Louis had been closed a short time, and whether that was their real home or not I do not know. Q. You found then that the closing of the St. Louis district scattered the girls to other cities; now, in turn, has the closing of the Alton district scattered the girls to other cities? A. I have no information to bear on that question. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: Do you find there is any relation between vice and the liquor question. A. It would seem to me that there is. Q. Do you think it would be easier to suppress vice where there are no saloons? A. I should certainly think so. Dr. Mather PfeiffenbergePs Testimony. ; DR. MATHER PFEIFFENBERGER, being first duly sworn by Sen- ator Woodard, was examined and testified as follows: I 796 Report op the Illinois Senate Vice Committee CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. ^father Pfeiffen- berger. Q. You are a physician? A. Yes. Q. Doctor, how long have you lived in Alton. A. All my life. Q. You have known conditions here; was there ever a viee district aere in Alton? A^ All 1 know is they sac^ there was, and what I see in the newspapers. There were eight years I spent in St. Louis. Q. Are. laws being enforced in Alton? A. To the best of my knowledge, yes. Q. Has the closing of the vice district in Alton, as far as you have been able to observe, had any beneficial result upon the boys and girls growing up? Has it cleared the moral atmosphere? A. You are not getting at the problem deep enough is my judgment. Suppose you go a little farther. We have a vocational education system in the high schools, where each sex has to be segregated. They ought to be taught something about sex. Teach them a little less of other useless things and then devote more time to the most important thing in their education. There is not a day passes or week passes that there is not a boy or a girl comes to the doctor’s office for the information they should have gotten at home. Q. Why do they go to the doctor? A. I do not know why'. They think he is the one that should tell them, I suppose. I do not solicit that class of work. I do not do it. I cannot do clean obstetrical work and do that work, too. Q. Is sex hygiene being taught in the schools of Alton? A. No, sir. About three or four years ago I got most of the physicians to give talks, and one Saturday I gave a talk to the teachers and superintendent; that was all the farther it got. The schools here gave medical instruction, to be exact, one year only and then they dropped it. EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD. SENATOR WOODARD: What, in your judgment, would be the best manner of getting public sentiment running in order to have the sex question taught? A. Well, I think from the organization of the Vigilant Improvement Association, the organization we have in town. Q. Has it been taken up with them? A. . Not that I know of; no. sir. Q. Do you think they would be most willing workers? A. They ought to be the most wdlling workers. There is a field there for some- body. Yes, sir, a big field, and they could get all the support they wanted from the educational department of the American Medical Asso- ciation. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: We are very- much obliged to you, doctor, for your testimony. Have you any further recommendations for the benefit of the Committee? A. The only recommendation is getting at the root of the thing and beginning the thing properly. Sex hygiene should certainly be taught in the schools. I know of cases of venereal diseases in the high schools. Q. Many cases? A. No, just a few cases reported to me. SENATOR WOODARD: Both sexes? A. No, just one. Q. Have you any figures as to the prevalence of the disease in Alton? A. Not in Alton; only' general figures for the entire country. I could not say in this community because I do not take that class of work. Mr. W. C. Gates’ Testimony. W. C. GATES, called as a witness by the Committee, being duly sworn by Senator Beall, testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. W. C. Gates. Public Meetings and Testimony 797 Q. What is your business, Mr. Gates? A. Dry goods merchant. Q. And the name of your company? A. Gates Dry Goods Company. Q. Is that a corporation? A. Yes, sir. Q. You are president? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you held that position? A. Eight years. Q. You employ girls? A. Yes, sir. Q. How many? A. I have seventeen today. Q. What is the lowest wage paid to any of the seventeen? A. I have one we pay $5. i; Q. And the highest wage? A. Eighteen dollars, j Q. And the average? A. About $9.65. j Q. Have you ever conducted an investigation of your own to ascer- ! tain the lowest amount upon which a girl or woman could live in the ‘city of Alton? A. No, because I have never had anybody in my employ ■ who was entirely dependent upon th.e salary. Q. What do you estimate the lowest amount a girl, or woman, could live on in the city of Alton, if she were self-dependent? A. Well, I do not see how she could get by with less than six or seven dollars a week, r Q. Would it be difficult to do it on that amount? A. Yes, I sup- 1 pose so. Q. You think a girl could live comfortably on six or seven dollars I a week? A. I suppose seven would be the minimum. ' Q. How many have you getting less than seven dollars a week? A. Just one. Q. How old is this girl? A. Seventeen years. Q. How long has she been with you? A. Three months. She is in the apprentice class, and will be raised the first of October. ; Q. Raised to seven dollars? A. Yes, sir. ' Q. And by that time she will have been in your employ seven . months? A. Yes, sir. Q. Mr. Gates, there has been suggested the advisability of a law requiring business men to pay all girls, with the exception of those in the apprentice class, at least a living wage, a living wage being the amount of money on which she can reasonably live in the community in which she is employed; I understand from your testimony jmu are voluntarily following that plan? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do you think, as a business man, the enactment of that which is custom with you into a law for the guidance of all, would be advisable? A. I would not favor it much. While I believe in it personally, there I are many instances where any such amount or any set price would be, in my judgment, a detriment to the girls who might be employed. For instance, you make seven dollars a week or eight dollars a week a mini- mum wage. There are many merchants who could employ five girls and give them $6 a week. Those girls could get along very nicely on that $6 j a week. Inasmuch as they had homes and spent more for dress than on I general living. If the same were paid $8 a week, the same man could not employ the same number of girls. Q. Do you come in competition with large mail-order house in the ' large cities? A. Yes, sir. Q. Do they take any of your business from you? A. I think so. Q. Some of those houses may pay less than a living wage. Would a state law requiring all employers to pay a living wage, to pay the same ; wage you are paying, help you in that connection? A. It would be a benefit to me personally. I would be strictly in favor of such a law. I ■ question the advisability of it for all, though, but for me it would be a ; benefit. Q. What are the general moral conditions in Alton? A. Very I much better' than they were. Q. Are the laws being enforced in Alton today? A. So tar as 1 know, yes. _ I 798 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. Has the strict enforcement of law in Alton cleared the moral atmosphere? A. It has made us feel easier. Q. Have you heard of any ^irls in Alton going wrong since the laws were enforced? A. Personally, no. Q. Do you think the matter of wages has anything to do with girls going wrong? A. In a measure. Q. Do you think that the man who pays less than a living wage to the girl is at all responsible for her moral downfall? A. In a meas- ure, yes. Q. As an eniployer, could you sleep with a clear conscience if you paid less than a living wage? A. I would not want to pay less than that at all, whether I could sleep or not. Mr. E. E. Campbell’s Testimony. E. E. CAMPBELL, being duly sworn by Senator Woodard, was examined, and testified as follows: EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. E. E. Campbell. Q. You are a publisher, Mr. Campbell? A. Yes, sir. Q. How long have you lived in Alton? A. Six years. Q. You are the publisher of what newspaper? A. The Alton Daily Times. Q. You have been familiar with conditions here during the last six- years? A. Yes, sir. Q. What is ■ the general moral condition of Alton at the present time? A. Well, I think it is better than at any time during the last six years. Q. In what way? A. Well, the saloons are closed on Sunday and, so far as I am advised, there is no segregated vice district. Q. Has all this had a wholesome influence on the town? A. Un- doubtedly. Q. Has it helped business? A. I think so. Q. Has it helped the advertising business? A. Yes. Q. Are there any public houses of vice in Alton at the present time? A. Not according to my information. Q. Are there any so-called call-girl houses? A. Not that I know of. Q. During the six years that you have been her'fe have there ever been any public houses? A. Yes; there were a group over on Piasa Street, three or four, I should say. Q. How many women would you say were inmates? A. I have never heard. Q. What has become of the women who once were employed there? A. I do not know. Q. What is the street talk? A. The street talk is that they have left town. Q. Have been run out of town? A. I do not know. They have left Alton, and that is sufficient. Q. Does our moral responsibility end when they' have been driven from our particular community? A. I do not think so; but I think most of these women came from other places. I do not remember of hearing that any of them -were Alton girls. I think they' came here to engage in business, and then when the district was closed they left town. Q. Mr. Campbell, I wish you would give the committee the benefit of your experience and knowledge of measures that inight help, not only • Alton, but other communities in the state of Illinois. A. \\'ell, your question is rather broad. Governor, and then I have never aspired to be in the legislature and know little about it, except what I see in the newspapers. Public Meetings and Testimony 799 Q. Have you any suggestions as to measures that might reduce he number of girls in the industry of prostitution? A. No, that is too big 1 problem for me. Q. Do you believe it is morally right to send these girls from )ne district to another? A. No. Q. Would you recommend the opening of homes for these women [vhen they desire to reform? A. Well, 1 do not know. Governor. There are some questions that a newspaper man, being busy, does not hink much about. I have read some of the Rockefeller ideas, but have |iot had much time to think about them. I think the Mann Act, pre- senting them going from one state to another, is an excellent law. Q. Do you know anything about the wages paid working girls in Uton? A. Well, in a general way I know something about it. Q. Would you say the average working girl in Alton receives in teturn for her services a living wage? A. No, I think most of the [iris who work live at home and could not live if they had to pay )oard. Q. It has been suggested by some of the persons before this Com- hittee that a law be enacted compelling the employers to pay a living ,vage; would you favor that enactment? A. I never gave it much bought. Governor. If it is right, I should approve of it. I have op- losed the girls working for less than a living wage.. I am a strong leliever in labor unions. It seems to me there has been more accom- llished in that way than in any other way. It seems to me that if the iromen would organize in that way, as effectively as they do polit- pally, it would be a success. ; Q. Have you any labor unions among the women of Alton? A. I jhink so. , Q. Are they opposed by the employers? A. I do not think so. Q. The employers encourage the organization? A. I would not ay they encourage it, but I think they expect it. One laundry is or- anized, and they try to get business on that basis, i Q. You have lived here six years and know what it costs to live, laving that in mind, what would you say a girl ought to be paid in eturn for her services? A. Well, if she had to pay her board, she ught to have $15 a week at least, entirely dependent. I Q. And the man with one child and a wife should have how much, >1 your judgment? A. He should have $150 a month. A single man hould get along on $15 a week. It used to be the theory that two per- Dns could live as cheaply as one, but I know better. * Q. You have tried it? A. I have tried it. Q. Do you know what the average wage is at the present time in I .lton? A. For girls? Q. Yes, for girls. A. No, I do not. I suppose in some cases it as low as $5 or $6 and in some places as high as $10 to $11. I know Dme girls at the Western Cartridge Company who make $12 a week, hey are experts in their line. Q. As far as you know all laws are being enforced at the present me? A. Yes, they are being enforced so much better at the present me than before that we all say they are being enforced. Ir. John McAdams’ Testimony. JOHN McADAMS, being duly sworn by Senator Woodard, was camined, and testified as follows: ; EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. John McAdams. Q. Your occupation, Mr. McAdams? A. Newspaper publisher. Q. Of what newspaper? A. Alton Evening Telegraph. Q. How long have you been the publisher? A. Well, with my iirtner, we have been the publishers of the paper for the last twelve !ars. The paper has been published for the last seventy-eight years. 800 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Q. You are familiar with conditions in the city of Alton? A. think so, yes, sir. Q. What is the present moral condition in the city of Alton, a you have observed it? A. I think. Governor, that it is good. Com paring it with other cities. 1 think it is splendid. I believe there ar loads of work still to be accomplished which cannot be done by a polic force? Q. Are the laws being enforced at the -present time? A. Yes, sii as far as I know. Q. As far as you know, all the laws are being enforced? A. think SO’; yes, sir. Q. There is still work to be done? A. In this waj', I think w are not yet done with many of these women who were openl3' runnin houses of prostitution before the laws were enforced. For instance, \v have knowledge that there are w'omen \vho still practice prostitutior We know of one specific instance of a woman here who goes out o trips with men. Q. Where does she go? A. Well, to St. Louis and other cities not long ago she went to Peoria. Q. When she goes to St. Louis, she crosses' the State line, an her case falls under the Mann Act? A. Yes, but St. Louis is ver close here. She goes dowm alone, and a man meets here there.- Sh leaves here alone. Q. This is not practiced in Alton? A. The woman meets the ma in Alton and makes an engagement to meet him in some other cip That is the idea. Q. It has been suggested by some witnesses before this Commi tee that the state apply, in the cases of women being taken from on couiity to another, a law similar to the klann Act, preventing the takin of women from one state to another. How* would 3'ou regard such law? A. I am in favor of that. Governor. I am stronglv- in favor of i Q. If such a bill were presented to the legislature, 3'our newspapt would support it? A. I think we would support it. Q; Have you any suggestions of similar legislation that 3'ou desii the Committee to report to the legislature? A. Xo. except that heard you ask a question about what should be done with these wome The women were all run out of our town. The3’ were given two da\ to go. The question is, where did they go? The3' went to some plac else. I think if some place were owned by the state, or there wei some institution to take them to, the3' would be glad to go to it. know one of the most notorious characters we had in Alton, when tl laws were enforced, went but of the business entireU'. She was marrit to a man in Alton and went out of the business completeh". Q. What is she doing now? A. Living here now, as far as an; body knows, a straight life; but under the other conditions she -vv: given all the leeway she wanted. Q. You wish the committee to understand that her marriage ai redemption were brought about b3" the closing of her house? '-think so. These houses were owned b3" men who looked to gettii tenants in them, getting tenants who paid them two or three times tl rent the houses were worth, and the people were induced to remain the business. I think that was the condition. Q. This is an interesting case. The chief told us of two girls vl were redeemed. This makes a third case, but of possibh- twenty thirty girls. Do 'you know of an3' other cases? A. X’o, sir, I do ni There were about thirt3'-four or thirt3'-five houses of prostitution operj ing in Alton. Q. Women or houses? A. Houses, where the3" had women. T federal inspector found thirt3'-four houses, and- there were possibh" seve ty-five: women in all those houses; who the3' were no one especia' knows.. Q. Where ■were these houses? A. The3" were scattered all o\ Public Meetings and Testimony 801 I . ' . ihe town. Some of them were in the eastern part of the city. The big- |est ones were in the western part of the city. Q. Do you understand all these places have been closed? A. Yes, ir, I feel quite certain of that. f Q. Has that resulted in the spreading and scattering of immorality h the town? A. I think not; if so, no case has been reported. [ Q. The effect has been entirely beneficial? A. I think so. Un- doubtedly so. jj EXAMINATION BY SENATOR WOODARD SENATOR WOODARD; In the renting of these houses, would hey rent direct, or rent and then sub-let? A. No, they would rent jiirect. They were owned by a few men. One building in our city Iras drafted entirely for that business; and I am merely giving you jjhis as an idea to show if a Mayor wants to enforce the law what can Se done. The building was erected entirely for the purpose of pros- itution. Now, that building was rented directly by the man, who owned t, to the women, who ran the house. I Q. He is a man of standing in the community? A. Yes, he is a nan of means. They are all men who have made their money either r om the liquor business or the gambling business. Q. Is it not true that those three businesses go together more or Jess? A. Undoubtedly so, in my mind. I may be a little prejudiced in jhat way, but I think so. There are some men in the liquor business lyho are upright citizens. Some of them are not, but some of them are. |n the case of our city the business of prostitution was owned by the man. p Q. The closing of the vice district and the closing of the saloons pn Sundays in Alton has had what effect on business? Has it in- Ireased the business of your newspaper? A. Our business has grown luring that time. We would have reason to believe that it has jielped us. Mr. Paul B. Cousley’s Testimony. I PAUL B. COUSLEY, being called as a witness, was duly sworn by Senator Woodard, and was examined, and testified as follows: I EXAMINATION BY THE CHAIRMAN. CHAIRMAN O’HARA: What is your name? A. Paul B. Cousley. Q. What is your business, Mr. Cousley? A. Editor of the Alton Telegraph. Q. How long have you been thus employed? A. Two or three rears. Q. During that period you have been familiar with conditions in \lton generally? A. Yes, sir. Q. During that period have there been any public houses, or houses jf ill-repute, in Alton? A. Yes, sir. Q. Are there any at the present time? A. No. Q. The houses have been closed and the police are attempting to * . : .,'■' ..•1,; '■'^ ' ... ' '?a;V .ri : T ■' ';■ ' , • ;,. .■■'.■K*'» .- i' S'?, *'V(!v:r ■•■ ' l.itV'i tv • '..'^i ''"V ;•" »■' '^'.■'v-'i , '..fv .is' f Is t^: •7'i ‘iA s::s,, '4: . * ! ?>'»,') rj-it-i r - 1 ■Si-S 'S’ -Ta^'j •T- ■-.*.; :....i21. 7-1 ■ -K’* "• ‘ r-' ‘••>- T',-f O ■^V *' ''^ ‘^'v; liif i*? ’“ ' . '. 0 ■ 'T'S - ' .r' " / , '?ji' i COLLEGES ;|i PARTICIPATE I IN INQUIRY A discussion of the industrial phase of the moral problem, with many authoritative references, by Henry T. Rogers, Jr. NOTE. — No feature of the campaign for a new moral awaken- ing throughout the nation, undertaken by your Committee at the express instruction of the Honorable Senate in its resolutions of creation, was more noteworthy than the interest shown and the co-operation given by faculties and students in our schools and col- leges. For the period of three years, the subjects covered in the inquiry have been frequently debated by teams in high schools, imi- versities, Y. M. C. A.’s and other forums surrendered to discussion of matters of public concern. Your Committee was in almost daily request for information and data, and two special pamphlets were prepared and printed to meet the demand. The paper on “The Re- lation of Low Wages to Vice,” herewith reproduced, was written by Mr. Rogers while a student at Yale College, and was especially com- mended by the faculty. It is a splendid specimen of the research work with which the colleges have co-operated with your Committee. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1. Minneapolis Vice Commission Report (1911). 2. Report of the Moral Survey Committee on the Social Evil in Syracuse 1913. 3. Report of the Chicago Vice Commission 1911. 4. T. H. Russell, “The Girl’s Fight for a Living,” containing the testimony before the Illinois Vice Commission of 1913. 5. “The Social Evil.” Report of the Committee of Fifteen, New York City, 1902. Revised 1912, edited by E. R. A. Seligman. 6. Anne Marion MacLean, “Wage Earning Women.” 7. Elizabeth Beardsley Butler, “Women and the Trades.” The Pittsburgh Survey, 1907-8. 8. Same author, “Saleswomen in Department Stores.” Inves- tigation of thirty-four stores in Baltimore, 1909. 9. O. Edward Janney, “The White Slave Traffic in America.” 10. Reginald Wright Kauffman, “The Girl That Goes Wrong.” 11. Abraham Flexner, “Prostitution in Europe” (1914). 12. Report of the Hartford Vice Commission, 1913. 13. Mrs. Archibald McCurdy and W. N. Willis, “The White Slave Traffic.” 14. Jane Addams, “A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil.” 15. Scott Nearing, “Financing the Wage Earner’s Family” (1914). 16. Same author, “Wages in the U. S.” 17. Gen. Theodore Bingham, “The Girl that Disappears.” 18. The Appendix to the Briefs filed on behalf of respondents in the Oregon case of Stettler vs. Industrial Welfare Commission of the State of Oregon in Supreme Court, Oregon, October term, 1913. Appendix prepared by Louis D. Brandeis assisted Ey Josephine Gold- mark, publication secretary National Consumers’ League. This valu- able work, among others, contains passages from the following authorities: a. Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States by the Bureau of Labor. Senate iSocument No. 645. b. Report of the Massachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards. c. “The Standard of Living Among the Industrial People of America,” by F. H. Streightoff. d. “The Standard of Living Among Working Men’s Families.” by R. C. Chapin. e. Report of the Social Survey Committee of the Consumers’ League of Oregon, Caroline J. Gleason (1913). Colleges Participate in Inquiry 911 By HENRY T. ROGERS, JR. I am informed by Mrs. Florence Kelley that the subject I have undertaken to discuss is “one of the most baffling pursuits open to the human race.” An instance of the truth of this statement was afforded at the congress of social reformers that met in Washington in 1913 shortly after the Illinois investigation of the same year. A long list of recommendations for remedying the causes of prostitution was given out, including the tentative suggestion of a minimum wage for women in industry. Those supporting such a recommendation of course assume that low wages and prostitution have some con- nection, but the report of the proceedings adds “on this last the experts disagreed most violently.” The data on this subject is very difficult to secure. It is scattered through a large number of reports and treatises on prostitution (a number of which are given in the bibliography) and no effort seems to have been made to collect the evidence bearing on the subject. As one work puts it, “There is one ghastly investigation still waiting on the economist. It is the aid to wages which is got from ‘the oldest trade in the world.’ While I do not pretend to be an “economist,” I shall endeavor to investigate this question as thoroughly as space and time will permit in the pages that follow. At the outset it is necessary to define the word prostitution. To be quite exact, prostitution is the act of a woman’s submission to illicit^ intercourse for a money consideration or its equivalent. It will be seen from this definition that the immoral woman who has not distinct mercenary motives when she has extra- conjugal relations with a man is not a prostitute. Some economic benefit must flow to the woman because of her act if she is to be considered a prostitute. On the other hand it must be noted that many women are included under this definition who are not generally included in the popular mind when the word “prostitute” is mentioned. The lay- man usually thinks of the prostitute as the inmate of the house of prostitution or as the “street-walker.” But this conception is not comprehensive enough. Dr. Flexner^ has enumerated no less than nine distinct classes coming under the definition of a prostitute as given above. However, for the purposes of this essay, it will be sufficient to note but two general classes, the professional which in- cludes “house” inmates, “street-walkers” and all who practice pros- titution exclusively as a means of livelihood and the clandestine, com- posed of those who practice prostitution more or less in secret."^ Those in the clandestine class usually exercise some discrimination in their patrons but this is not always the case. The latter class may include some professionals since there are women who make a livelihood entirely from prostitution, who exercise considerable dis- ^ “Women’s Work and Wages. A Phase of Life in an Industrial City,” by Edward Cadbury, M. Cecile Matheson and George Shann, T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1906. ^ It is necessary to introduce this word for otherwise the definition would include women who “marry for money.” ® “Prostitution in Europe,” Century Co., New York, 1914, pp. 11-12. * The vernacular is “on the side.” yi2 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee crimination in their patrons and are not exactly “public women,” but, in general, the classes are fairly' distinct and the making of a distinction is of the utmost importance, as will appear later. It is not hard to define the limits of the “professional” class but the same cannot be said of the last mentioned group. For the sake j of simplicity in my discussion I have chosen to include many pro- ^ titutes under the “clandestine” class who are not strictly “clandestine’ in practicing their trade. For instance, many women who work at a legitimate occupation in the daytime, solicit in the dance halls in the evening in order to supplement their earnings.^ To be exact, this ' class is semi-professional, but it is clandestine to the extent that the women often exercise great care to prevent their employers from discovering their evening occupation, since some employers discharge such girls as soon as they find them out. In the main the clandes- tine class is made of women who are supplementing their legitimate earnings by “hustling on the side.” They are a class quite distinct from the professional and this fact must be carefully borne in mind.^ There are two ways of investigating this subject. The first is the deductive which is, in brief, showing that economic and social conditions are such that the irresistible inference from the facts as to these conditions is that low wages are both a direct and indirect cause of prostitution of considerable magnitude.^ The second method is the inductive which consists in an exami- nation of the personal histories of a given number of prostitutes in order to find the cause of each woman’s downfall. If but a small percentage of the cases give the cause as “low wages” the conclusion is that low wages are a “negligible factor” in prostitution ; if a large percentage give “low wages” as the cause, the conclusion is reversed. This is the usual method employed in order to arrive at a decision as to whether low wages and prostitution are connected. Since I have chosen to utilize the first method of inquiry exclu- sively and to practically ignore the second, I will state my reasons for so doing and the limitations of the inductive mode of inquir>' at some length. 1. The number of personal histories available for study is not large enough. After careful searching I have been able to collect but five or six hundred from the various reports and it is conserva- tively estimated that there are in the United States 300,000 profes- sional prostitutes.® This estimate does not include the clandestine prostitutes who must be at least as numerous.^ At any rate the more the field of inquiry is limited, the less likely are conclusions based on this limited field and made to apply to the whole group to be “Report of the Chicago Vice Commission, 1911. “See Chicago Report, 1911, for corroboration of my classification. ^ My reasoning is not a priori. I adopted this method of inquirj- only after a great deal of reading by which I found that the view that low wages and prostitution have no connection was untenable in fact and a case incapable of proof by this method. As will appear in the text it is capable of “proof’ by the misleading inductive method of inquiry. “ B. S. Steadwell, Pres. American Purity Federation. Quoted in Report Si'racuse Moral Survey Committee, 1913, p. 66. This estimate was based on correspondence and interviews with mayors, chiefs of police, “reformers” and ministers in cities of 25,000 and over. “lane Addams says in her “New Conscience and an Ancient Evil,” p. 216: “It is im- possible to estimate the amount of clandestine prostitution which the modem city contains but there is no doubt but the growth of the social evil lies in that direction.” Dr. Fle.xner is also of the opinion that the class must be very large. Op. cit. Chaps. I and II. Colleges Participate in Inquiry 913 accurate. The number of personal histories available even allowing ; for similarity in conditions is hopelessly inadequate to justify general conclusions based on them, and made to apply to prostitutes as a group. ^ ; 2. No attempt is made to distinguish the prostitutes who have I never been employed as wage-earners from those who have been so I employed. Suppose a commission investigates the personal histories ! of fifty prostitutes, twenty-fiye of whom have never been wage- I earners, finds that a very few of the fifty went wrong because of low ! wages. 2 Can it, then, be concluded that low wages are “negligible factor?”^ 3. A large number of what I have called the clandestine class — namely, those who are really clandestine and absolutely secret in their practices are obviously excluded from consideration. Conclu- I sions derived from data on known prostitutes are made to apply to ' unknown prostitutes. . 4. It is impossible to put down the cause of a prostitute’s down- ' fall in a few words. The reports may have nicely tabulated histories of fifty to a hundred cases studied and under the heading “Causes of Downfall” put down laconically “seduced,” “no education,” and so on, but every thoughtful investigator of the subject agrees that the causes of an individual girl’s downfall are complex and varied. Low wages may be only one cause and yet they may be the decisive cause. Pros- titutes cannot be divided into two classes, those who go wrong be- cause of low wages, and those who do not. It is necessary to trace i the malign and subtle influence of low wages in its many sides of a girl’s life and to determine what effect low wages have had in pro- : ducing causes which lead to the girl’s ruin. The girl herself is often I not aware of the various factors which pushed her along the down- I ward path.'* Thus we find Dr. Flexner saying “Animated by a natural desire to excuse their conduct as most human beings are, ^ the direct pressure of need is rarely assigned by prostitutes in excul- l; pation of their conduct.”^ j 5. Where information as to causes of downfall is obtained from • the prostitute herself — as in most cases it is — the prostitute is not !| only likely to be “hazy” as to the real cause of her downfall, as noted above, but she is likely to be untruthful. In spite of Dr. Flexner’s opinion as to the girl’s unwillingness to state need as the cause, so many prostitutes testifying before the Illinois Commission stated low , wages as the cause of their downfall that a minister^ “protested to the Commission against its listening to the words of fallen women.” ^ Henry Buckle in his “History of Civilization in England*' has demonstrated the neces- sity of comprehensive information as a basis for drawing general conclusions applying to society. 2 This was precisely what was done in Syracuse, 1913. ® The U. S. 1911 Bureau Labor Report says, “Out of 100 cases investigated in Boston only four were found where low wages were a direct cause of the downfall." (Boldface mine.) ^ The answers given by fallen girls as to why they went wrong show this. Many prosti- tutes told Jane Addams, op. cit. (o. 73), “I was too tired to care.” “I was dog-tired and just went with him,” and so on. The reports would not put down the cause of these^ girls' downfall as “low wages” ; yet low wages were the cause in these cases, as will hereinafter , appear. ® Op. cit. p. 83. ® Rev. Barlow C. Carpenter of Peoria, 111. 914 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee However, there seems to be some ground for the assertion that “low wages are the easiest thing to blame it on.”^ Even such a sympathetic interpreter of the “fallen woman” as Jane Addams admits that she is likely to be untruthful when stating the causes of her downfall.® It is best to recognize that we have here another limitation on the inductive method of inquiry. We are driven to the conclusion that the deductive is the only method of inquiry capable of being utilized. By this method I pro- pose to establish the following propositions in the pages that follow ; 1. That there are a great many women wage-earners in the industrial world who are either self-supporting or who have others dependent on them. In short that a large number must depend entirely on the wages they receive for their labor. 2. That the wages paid to a vast majority of these self-supporting workers is verj^ appreciably below the wage necessarj" for the main- tenance of a minimum standard of living. 3. That low wages produce a great variety of causes which undermine the health, morals and powers of resistance to temptation of the wage-worker. 4. That great pressure is continually being brought upon women wage-earners by agents of the prostitution business^ and by others either to enter a life of professional prostitution or to supplement their meager earnings by clandestine prostitution. 5. That this pressure is almost invariably brought to bear on those girls who (because of the above-mentioned factors) are least able to resist it. 6. That the irresistible conclusion from these five factors is that many girls are bound to succumb and become prostitutes. 1. NUMBER OF SELF-SUPPORTING WOMEN. We must first arrive at an estimate as to the number of wage- earning women in the country who are subject to the industrial con- ditions described hereinafter. Those engaged in professional service, as teachers, actresses, etc., in domestic service and in agricultural pur- suits must be excluded — principally because they are not paid the low wages which obtain in the other occupations. The census of 1900 gives the following proportions of the total number of female bread-wdnners in various pursuits.^ Occupation. Per Cent. 1. Agricultural pursuits, 15.9 2. Professional service, 8.9 3. Domestic and personal service, 40.4 4. Trade and transportation. ’ This was the language of one Chicago employer before the Illinois Commission, 1913, and the substance of the opinion of all of the employers. ® That prostitutes have in many cases lost any sense of the value of truthfulness is not surprising in view of the degrading life they lead. ° That prostitution is a “business” will be explained hereinafter. ^ These figures taken from tables in the appendix to Anna Marion MacLean’s “W age- Earning Women.” Colleges Participate in Inquiry 915 Saleswomen Clerks Bookkeepers Telegraph and telephone operators, etc., 10.0 5. Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits. Bookbinders Boot and shoe makers Box makers (paper) Confectioners Textile mill operatives Textile workers, etc., 24.8 100.0 The census gives 4,833,630 women engaged in the above occupa- tions. Excluding the first three classes, we have about 1,750,000 women who are affected by the various factors to be described. Doubt- less the actual number so affected today is much larger for three reasons : 1. Women have been entering the industrial world at an ever increasing rate in the last fourteen years. If, for the sake of con- servatism we assume that the number of women in industry has in- creased only as fast as the population (i. e., at the rate of 2.1 per cent per year) our estimate is increased to 2,275,000. 2. The census includes “waitresses” in its enumeration of those engaged in “Domestic and Personal Service.” If the census means to include under “waitresses” those serving in restaurants and hotels then our estimate must be still further increased for these women are assuredly within the scope of this investigation. 3. It is extremely doubtful if the percentage of domestic ser- vants is as high now as it was in 1900. For one reason or another women greatly prefer industrial and mercantile pursuits to domestic service and will rarely become domestics when some other occupation is available. If this be true it is. evidence that our estimate must be again increased. Altogether we are fairly safe in assuming that two million and a half women are affected by the industrial and social conditions herein described. How many of these women are “adrift,” i. e., not living at home and dependent on their own earnings for support? We have no comprehensive census available on this point but reports from different parts of the country indicate that about twenty per cent are “adrift.” It was found that 16 per cent of Chicago’s 100,000 working women are “adrift.” Other investigations place the proportion at about the same figure. ^ Why, then, do I estimate that the proportion is really about twenty per cent? For the reasons that employers admit that ^ Miss Butler found 17% of the women working in 34 Baltimore department stores were “adrift.” Why is the proportion likely to be less in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, or any other city? 916 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee the wages they pay are supplementary^ and that they express a pref- erence for girls “living at home the competition for jobs is so keen^ that a girl “adrift” will often say she is “living at home” in order to get the job. Much of the information as to the number of girls “adrift” comes from statistics furnished by employers. The obvious inference is that sixteen per cent is too low a figure for the proportion of girls “adrift.” Obviously these girls who are “adrift” have no way of supplement- ing their wages— i. e., legitimately. Are we to assume that the re- maining four-fifths are getting economic assistance by virtue of their residence “at home?” Let us see. First of all let us dispose of the > convenient academic doctrine that women work for “pin-money.” ’ Now, girls “adrift” don’t work for “pin-money” — they need more than that to live on. But it is a common assumption that those “living at home” do. The government report of 1911 found that “of women who work and live at home 87.7 per cent of the females of all cities ( give all their earnings to the family (p. 393). This finding is backed . up by other investigations in Connecticut, in Massachusetts, in New York and elsewhere. We may take it as authoritative that women are working from economic compulsion.^ This fact becomes the j more evident when we consider the extent of poverty in the countr}'.^ Prof. Nearing® says “the available data indicate that a man, wife and three children cannot maintain a fair standard of living in the industrial towns of Eastern U. S. on an amount less than $700.00 a year. In • the large cities where rents are higher this amount must be increased by at least $100.00. Let us look at the wages received by male wage- earners.^ Per cent adult males. Incomes under $200.00 None Incomes under 325.00 One-tenth Incomes under 500.00 One-half Incomes under 600.00 Three-quarters Incomes under 800.00 Nine-tenths ® The evidence on this point is overwhelming. Miss Butler in the Pittsburgh Survey ' (“Women and the Trades”) speaks of the “widespread . . . reliance of merchants and \ manufacturers on the ability of women employes to find a source of support in their families I and friends.” Chicago employers testifying in 1913 before the Illinois Commission almost I all said that their employes were only working for “pin money,” that they lived at home. i For instance, Mr. Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., said that practically all the 1,465 women in his store getting less than $8.00 a week were living with parents, but ( so far as he knew, however, no investigation was made of the statements of applicants for < positions. ‘The Minneapolis Vice Commission of 1911 says in its report (p. 127): . . . “Em- ployers do give preference to this class of girl labor (the partially-support girls) apparently i for no other reason than the desire to get service on the cheapest possible terms.” ® It was found in Chicago that many employers keep waiting lists. Miss Butler in her Pittsburgh investigation asked a confectioner, “Why don’t you advertise in the papers when you want a girl?” The answer was, “All I have to do is put out a sign and I get all the help I want.” And confectioners are among the most poorly paid women workers in th» country (see U. S. 1911 Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage-Earners, pp. 135-6). ® Annie Marion MacLean voices the general conclusion of the authorities when she says in her “Wage-Earning Women” (pp. 176-7), “The necessity for self-support becomes the i dominant factor in driving the young girl out to seek employment.” ' Cf. Robert Hunter’s “Poverty,” p. 25. Mr. Hunter says, “One in every ten persons ' who die in New York is buried in Potter’s field — in spite of the fact that even the poorest people have friends, politicians and others to save them from this disgrace and a poor person will resort to ."'Imost any means in order to prevent a member of his or her family having a pauper burial.” * Scott Nearing, “Financing the Wage Earner’s Family,” p. 97. ® Scott Nearing, “Wages in the United States,” p. 214. Colleges Participate in Inquiry 917 An allowance is made here for unemployment of 20 per cent of the wage. It is not now evident that it is the necessity of increasing the family budget or of self-support rather than the desire for “pin-money” that drives women into the industrial world? We now come to the very interesting question “How many female bread winners are unable to secure financial assistance at home and are therefore on the same footing with girls ‘adrift?’” Often as Miss Butler^ says, “That a girl is one of a family group is quite as likely to indicate that she is chief bread winner, as that her family is her chief bulwark against the world.” It has been estimated that 30.000 men are killed by industrial accidents each year and probably 600.000 are seriously injured.^ These accidents happen to men in the prime of life. Sixty-three in each 100 fatal accidents occurred to persons under 45.^ As has been well said, “industry offers the work- ing man an opportunity to earn a living subject to the caprice of over- work, sickness, new machinery, individual shutdowns and general sus- pension of industrial activity”^* * — to say nothing of accidents. At least 75.000 die every year from tuberculosis and the “white plague” does not spare those who may happen to be chief bread-winner of a family. Miss Butler^ says, “The economic position of the widow is often more difficult than that of the unmarried woman away from home. The latter can sometimes hold out for a few years * * * but when the widow has children to care for, and when no one of the family group is earning enough to support the others * * * not infrequently the family tie is of slight help.” The Chicago Commission® found that many of the women frequenting the disorderly saloons of the city had been left without support, and being incapable of earning a living in the industrial world they finally resorted to the saloon as an avenue to money-making. Miss Butler® found many girls working in Balti- more department stores “to whom the family tie means an additional burden^ and many more who with family ties and friends are yet dependent upon themselves for support.” There is no way of telling how many women there are who are living at home and are notwith- standing this fact entirely dependent on their own earnings.^ In view of the above mentioned factors the number must be large. I think we are safe in assuming that anywhere from one-quarter ' Butler, op. cit., p. 346. ” The ratio of fatal to non-fatal accidents in New York State, England and Germany is about 5 to 95. That is. 5% of all accidents were fatal. — Scott Nearing, “Financing the Wage Earner’s Family,” p. 24. ® Nearing, “Financing the Wage Earner’s Family,” p. 25. ^ Ibid., p. 30. ® Butler, op. cit., p. 305 (Baltimore). ® Op. cit., p. 127. * Butler, op. cit., p. 305 (Baltimore). “ U. S. Report (1911) found in St. Louis that “Only 75% of the home store girls and 53% of the home factory visited, had both parents living. The largest number of the re- maining 25% and 47% are living with mothers of whom they are the chief support. ^ Mary Van Kleeck says in “Women and the Bookbinding Trade” (Russell Sage Foun- dation, New York, 1913), “Surprising indeed is the_ complacency with which many persons regard the low wages of working women. They believe that the problem concerns only the welfare of the individual girl and that if she can live at home, merely supplementing the fantily income, her scanty earnings need cause no concern. Such easy-going thinking ignores the fact that . . . the low wages of women are a prime cause of poverty, pre- venting wholesome and decent living in thousands of families which depend wholly or in part upon women’s earnings,” MacLean, op. cit., p. 19. 918 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee to one-third of the women workers are self-supporting or a total of around 800,000 in round numbers. 2. WAGES PAID TO SELF-SUPPORTING WOMEN AND THE STANDARD OF LIVING. The Federal census of Manufacturers, 1905, reports that of 588,599 women wage-earners sixteen years of age and over 7.5 per cent got less than $3.00 a week, 33.5 per cent got less than $5.00 a week, 66.3 per cent less than $7.00 a week and 91.7 per cent less than $10.00 a week. Prof. Nearing in his painstaking work “Wages in the United States” estimates that 3/5 of the women in industry get less than $8.00 a week (p. 211-12). Miss MacLean^ found that the women in the shoe-making industry in Lynn (in which place are located one-third of the 36,490 women in this industry) got an average wage a “good deal” under $8.00. The Chicago Vice Commission found that $6.00 a week was the average wage in mercantile establishments of that city, a finding corro- borated by the Illinois Commission two years later. In the silk industry of New Jersey women receive an average of $5.00 a week for spinning, $7.50 for winding, $6.00 for warping, $6.00 for picking, $10.00 for weaving, $3.50 for lacing, $3.50 for cutting In the pottery industry of the same state the above wages are paralleled."^ Chart of wages of 4,048 women in 34 Baltimore stores — Butler op. cit. (Balti- more) pg. 114. Wage I Number of Women O i-O o o o lO 1 200 [ 250 008 O lO CO o o 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 o o GO 850 006 950 0001 10.50 Zl. o 2.00 - - 2.00- 3.00 - 1 3.00- 4.00 - - 4.00- 5.00 1 5.00- 6.00 - 6.00- 7.00 - 7.00- 8.00 - - 8.00-25.00 - 1 i 2 The Massachusetts Commission on Minimum Wage Boards says (p. 134) : “In gen- eral one fact stands clear: throughout the cities of the state about one-quarter of women workers in stores are dependent on their own resources.” It does not appear that the cases of those in mercantile pursuits are exceptional. Miss MacLean says (op. cit., p. 78) that the girls working in the New Jersey silk mills are “young women who must take care of themselves and frequently help to bear family bur- dens as well.” ® MacLean, op. cit., p. 19. * MacLean, op. cit., p. 78 ff. Colleges Participate in Inquiry 919 The same wages obtain in western states like Iowa and Michigan. ^ I have a great deal of data for many localities and for different in- dustries which further back up the above.® The chart given on page 920 gives a good idea of the way women’s wages run all over the country. As Miss MacLean says, “Every establishment can point ex- ultingly to examples of women earning anywhere from $5.00 to $25.00 or more a week” — but the exultation of the investigator is not aroused when he notes from his chart that the vast majority get nearer $3.00 than $30.00.^ Now the wages stated on page 918 are all nominal. We haye no assurance that these figures even for nominal wages are correct where the amount are furnished by the employers who of course have an ob- ject in placing the figure as high as possible. Why, for instance, should the following situation obtain? The Oregon investigation of 1913 found (p. 26} “a rule existing, written or unwritten, in all the larger stores is that girls must not tell others what wage they are getting. Divulging this information has resulted in instant dismissal. One firm goes so far as to require a signed promise from the girl that she will not tell any other employe her wage.” Evidently if any information as to wages leaks out the employers want to oversee the process for reasons best known to themselves. Miss MacLean* * found employers, especially merchants, very “sensitive” on the question of wages. She found the wages quoted by managers (in the clothing factories) somewhat higher than those vouched for by employes.® “He gives the sum the girl could possibly earn provided the supply of work is con- stant. The actual earnings are far below this. Delays are likely to occur and detract from earnings which are by piece.” But let us give employers the benefit of the doubt. Are the figures quoted those for actual wages received? Unfortunately they are not. No allowance has been made for unemployment. Miss MacLean^ says, “All averages of wages are deceptive and need to be interpreted in terms of actual time employed during fifty-two weeks in the year. It is the exceptional wage-earning woman who has uninterrupted employment.” The Chicago Commission^ found that but few of the girls in the suit, cloak and millinery departments of the stores, even those who make as high as $15.00 a week, are assured of a permanent position. In Baltimore* “some stores far from holding to the principle that a department earns a certain percentage of what it sells, carry on a sort of guerilla warfare aaginst the payroll, displacing old em- ployes by new and low paid employes and so far as they can, holding - all departments to a common minimum.” Miss MacLean qualifies Ibid., p. 85 ff. 0 MacLean, op. cit., p. 85 ff. ’ Good instances of single localities are Pittsburgh, where of 32,185 women workers, 60.83% earned $3.00 to $7.00 a week, 20.85% earned $7.00 to $8.00 a week. (Butler, Pitts- burgh, op. cit., p. 338.) In New York City the second^ report of the New York Factory Investigating Commit- tee, 1913, states that “the proportion of those earning less than $7.00 was 44%. In Port- land, Oregon, 3/5 of the women employed in industry get less than the minimum subsis- tence level, $10.00. (Oregon Inves., 1913, op. cit., p. 6.) ® Op. cit., pp. 63-67. * Ibid., p. 34. ^ Ibid., pp. 176-7. ^ Op. cit., p. 207. ® MacLean, op. cit., p. 111. 920 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee % her figures already quoted as to wages in the potter}^ industry by the statement “This takes no account of slack seasons.” Similarly Prof. Nearing says regarding his figures, “the deduction for unemployment not made here should be much greater than in the case of men owing to the casual unskilled character of the work done by most women.” The difference between unemployment as affecting men and women is well shown by this chart of the length of time workers of both sexes were employed in 34 Baltimore stores Graph showing seasonal variations in numbers of men and women employees in .34 Baltimore stores. Butler (op. cit.) pg. 88. Number Employed January February March April May June ' — 1 August September October November December 5,000 1 5.5.38 4,000 1 4500 1 1 45 00 Women 3,000 33 10 33 10 ^5 2,000 20 63 20 63 1 1 Men 1,000 20 11 Miss MacLean estimates the average nominal wage of women workers at $8.00 a week. She adds “possibly for 52 weeks in the year it is nearer $6.00.” In mercantile houses saleswomen are laid, off from two to six weeks. This condition was found in Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Chi- cago and is undoubtedl)^ general. Besides unemployment the women in some industries, particularly those in stores, are subject to fining sytems which still further reduce their small wages. Of this the Chicago Vice Commission says (p. 206) “Another method used by certain department stores under guise of ‘maintaining discipline’ is the fining system. For ever}' mistake an employe makes, for ever}^ moment they are late in their places there is a regulated system of fines. These natural and often unavoidable losses are watched and recorded and the amounts deducted from the weekly salary.” Without considering the factors of unemployment and fining it is seen that the average wage paid to the vast majority of women wage-earners is certainly below $7.00. We have not considered loss of wages through sickness. Unlike the salaried employe the wage- earner’s pay is docked for absences due to sickness and as we shall see when we consider the health of women workers this factor must be one of no small importance. But taking only unemplo}'ment and fining systems into consideration, we may be sure that the real average wage is a good deal nearer $6.()0 than $7.00. The amount which a wage-eanier must have in order to maintain '* Butler, Baltimore, p. 88. Colleges Participate in Inquiry 921 a minimum standard of subsistence is put at a different figure for different parts of the country. In Washington (state) the state conference on a minimum rate of pay for women placed the amount at $8.90. In the neighboring state of Oregon “$10.00 a week * * * * is the minimum weekly wage that ought to be offered to any self-supporting woman wage-earner in this city” (Portland).^ In Syracuse^ $8.00 is given as a living v/age. In Milwaukee the figure is $8.90 a week.^ In Chicago $8.00 is a minimum subsistence.® In Illinois generally the same figure is given for a minimum sub- sistence.® In Massachusetts $9.00 to $11.00 is a “living minimum wage for women. (Mass. Minimum Wage Commission.) In Pittsburgh Miss Butler^ secured the opinion of working girls, forewomen in factories, settlement workers, and club leaders (who knew at first hand what rent, food, and other necessaries of life cost in different sections of the city) on what constituted a living wage. “Some declared $7.00, some $8.00, some $10.00 but not one was willing to consider $6.00 a living wage.” So it goes. Wages are nearly the same everywhere. It costs about as much to live in one place as in another (with a very few exceptions).^ Wages are $6.00. It costs $8.00 to live. Who pays the difference? The family? But we found that one-q.uarter to one-third of the women workers are self-supporting. The Chicago employers testifying before the Illinois Commission in 1913 exercised considerable ingenuity in fabricating weekly budgets .consistent with the wages they paid. It is interesting to note that they did not succeed in getting the amount necessary for a self-sup- porting girl below $8.00. Maybe their failure to do so was due to extravagances since one employer allowed 10 cents for church and another 25 cents per week for the savings bank.^ The Chicago Commission says of this $8.00 estimate “if * * * the girl paid $2.50 for her room, $1.00 for laundry and 60 cents for carfare she would have less than 50 cents left at the end of the week. That is provided she ate 10-cent breakfasts, 15-cent luncheons, and 25- cent dinners.” Of course this estimate makes no allowance for clothes. To be well dressed is part of a working girl’s stock in trade. Miss Butler says,'* “In choosing employes for positions which necessi- tate the use of working clothes, employers tend to give preference to ® Oregon, 1913, op. cit. * Rep. Syracuse, 1913. '' Report Social Service Committee, Milwaukee Federated Charities. * Chicago Vice Com. Report, Summary. ” 111., 1913. Russell, “The Girl’s Fight for a Living,” p. 22. ^ Op. cit. (Pittsburgh), p. 346. ^ For instance, it is generally conceded that it costs more to live in New York City than in most other cities. ® Russell, in “The Girl’s Fight for a Living,” cites testimony before the Commission. ^ Pittsburgh, op. cit., p. 347. 922 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee girls whose street clothes are trim and well made. * * * * In every sort of position the clothing of the applicant is of increasing importance. I have seen poorly dressed girls 'turned down’ and well dressed girls taken for subordinate work in a thread mill, a position where, if anywhere, one’s appearance would seem to be a secondary matter.” The cost of dress is much greater for the store girl than the factory girl.^ “They have to make a good appearance or they cannot get or hold their positions.” One of the many very elaborate rules of de- partment stores generally conspicuous calls attention of the em- ployes to dress requirements. A case is on record where a girl actually purchased twenty-four shirt waists in one year in order to be ‘cleanly and neat in appearance, avoiding extravagance and display’ as required by the rules.® Of course the girl knew that $5.00 waists would last longer than 98-cent ones * * * but in her case she could never amass a sum like $5.00, so she purchased 98-cent ones, washed them once or twice and when they fell to pieces threw them away.”^ All of the above data on the cost of clothing to the working girl is merely by way of “showing up” the absurdity of the $8.00 budget given. Other $8.00 budgets, with the items juggled around a little, can be demolished with similar ease. But what the average wage working woman kets is only $6.00 and not $8.00. Quite true. Vith regard to a $6.00 budget the Chicago Commission asks® “How do they exist on this sum?” And then adds “It is impossible to figure out on a mathematical basis.” Whether the girl herself has any other basis for working out the problem than a mathematical one does not appear. But why continue further? It is evident (and the authorities everywhere support this obvious conclusion) that a self-supporting girl cannot live on the wages she receives. What do these 800,000 self-supporting women do to meet this dilemma? The answer to this question will appear from the subsequent chapters. 3. RELATION OF LOW WAGES TO HEALTH AND MORALS. Authorities agree that the standard of living is set by the wages paid.^ “Since the earnings are not adequate for self-support, it is apparent that the standard of living in a large number of cases must be depressed below the level on which health and efficiency can be maintained”^ “Poverty, whether it be the result of a low family income or of insufficient wages for a girl living for herself touches the question of the morality in many ways. * * * Its physical effects open the way to moral dangers. It means overcrowding and bad sanitaiA^ con- ® MacLean, op. cit., p. 66. Chicago Vice. Com. and many other authorities agree to this. ^ These rules are almost impossible to secure for study. ’ Chicago Vice Commission, p. 205. * Ibid. Summary. 1 Chapin, “The Standard of Living Among Workin.gmen’s Families,” pp. 248-9. Also see Brief of Respondents in Stattler v. Oregon Industrial Welfare Commitee. Oregon Supr. Ct., 1913. 2 Second Report N. Y. Factory Inves. Com., 1913, Appen. IX. Mercantile Establish- ments. Colleges Participate in Inquiry 923 ditions and under nutrition or mal-nutrition and insufficient or un- suitable clothing.”^ Let us consider the different factors due to low wages. 1. Overwork. Women work long hours'^ in nearly all occupa- tions. The average is about ten hours a day, especially where the piece work system prevails. In stores, even where a nine-hour law is on the statute books, women work ten hours. ^ In factory work, even where the best conditions prevail, the long hours and nervous strain undermine the health of the women. The same nervous tension of work has been noticed in stores by investigators where “politeness is an iron-clad rule.” Miss Jane Addams says that girls who work downtown are at a disadvantage compared to factory girls. The latter work among plain people who refer to ugly things in plain language. The factory girl sees the sordidness of immorality in the poorer quarters of the city. “Yet in spite of all this corrective knowledge the increasing nervous energy to which industrial processes daily accommodate them- selves and the speeding up constantly required of the operators may at any moment so register their results upon the nervous system of a factory girl as to overcome her powers of resistance. Many a work- ing girl at the end of a day is so hysterical and overwrought that her mental balance is plainly disturbed. Hundreds of working girls go directly to bed as soon as they have eaten their suppers. They are too tired to read and often too tired to sleep. * * * ‘I was too tired to care,’ T was too tired to know what I was doing,’ T was dead tired and sick of it all,’ T was dog-tired and just went with him,’ are phrases taken from the lips of reckless® girls who are endeavoring to explain the situation in which they find themselves.”^ Many other authorities could be cited. It is evident that a girl is weakened morally by long physical labor. 2. Under Nutrition. As regards food the U. S. (1911) Report (op. cit.) says, “The problem of getting a sufficient supply of whole- some food at a price within her means is probably the most serious one that the woman on a small wage has to face. With nourishing plentiful meals, other problems become less serious and are met with comparative ease, but in an ill-nourished condition courage and in- itiative wane, perplexities multiply and the woman loses heart for the struggle” (Vol. V, p. 40). Of course it can be argued that the “10- cent breakfasts, 15-cent lunches and 25-cent dinners” already referred to are “nourishing and plentiful meals”® but this argument would probably be furnished by one who does not live on such a schedule of meals. “A woman who has spent ten years keeping a lodging house for ^ U. S. 1911, cited Rusesll, pp. 46-7. ■* Hours and wages are complementary. For instance, if the same sum be paid for ten hours’ work in one industry as for twelve hours in another the latter is the lower rate. Hence the effect of long hours on the wage-earner is as pertinent a subject of inquiry in this connection as the effect of the actual money wages. ^ Cf. MacLean, op. cit., pp. 72-3. Butler, Pittsburgh, p. 302. ® The reasons for this “recklessness” will be more fully explained in the fifth section. Jane Addams, op. cit., p. 72. It is interesting to note that Miss Addams’ information comes from reports of 20 field officers of the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association which collected personal histories of nearly a thousand working girls. * Also cf. Oregon Report (op. cit.), 1913, p. 61. 924 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee factory and department store girls, not as a philanthropy but as a means of livelihood, said to the agent, ‘The girls’ stories to the con- trary notwithstanding, very few of those getting their own meals have adequate breakfasts * * * * in most cases it is due to the necessity of making ends meet, when the wardrobe must be replenished or when additional contributions to dependent relatives must be made. * * * ‘You see I am dieting,’ said a frail slip of a department store girl as she held out her tray upon which the cafeteria cashier in the presence of the Bureau’s agent put a two-cent check covering the cost of the girl’s lunch; a small dish of tapioca.” The Bureau says she is a type of many who “diet” to get new clothes.^ Many avoid doctor’s care because of the expense.^ 3. Home Life. Girls “adrift” are often boarding in private families where “close quarters often destroy all privacy” and “if there are men lodgers in the house the entrance to their room is sometimes through the girl’s room or vice versa. * * * Such conditions * * cannot help but blunt a girl’s sense of proper relations with the other sex.”^ Where the girl “adrift” boards in a lodging house she has no other place to entertain her “gentlemen friends” but her bed-room. “Unfortunately the ‘gentlemen friends’ are not always deserving of the name.”'^ 4. Amusements. But one other factor affected by low wages remains to be considered in this connection ; the effect on the girl's recreation. A social worker with eight years experience in one of the leading factory centers says,^ “Between the crowding and bad air, both at home and at their work and the kind of food they eat, and the long hours and monotony of their employment, they are con- stantly in an abnormal state. They are feverish and uncomfortable. They crave with an intensity we can hardly realize something to make them forget their discomfort, to direct their minds from the weariness of their lives.” Most working girls are too tired to read in the evening.^ Furthermore the girl “adrift” is a prey to lonesome- ness^ and statistics show^ that she spends more for recreation than does the woman living at home who can rely on her friends for a good time. So what does she do? She goes to cheap amusement places which alone she can afford and there finds temptation on every hand when she is least able to resist it. Low wages drive a girl to seek amusement in dangerous dance halls^ after the same factor has rendered her weakened and dispirited and has diminished her ability to resist temptation. One more aspect of this topic should be noted. It is the insidious- ness with which a girl’s character is undermined by the factors described. “A dangerous cynicism regarding the value of virtue, a 1 U. S. 1911, pp. 17-18. 2 Oregon Report, op. cit., 1913, p. 65. 3 U. S.. 1911, p. 62, Vol. V. * Ibid., o. 62. 5 Cited U. S. (1911) Report. ® Oregon Report, op. cit., 1913. ^ Miss Addams speaks (op. cit., p. 89) of the “black oppression, the instinctive fear ot solitude, which sends a lonely girl restlessly to walk the streets even when she is too tired to stand and when her desire for companionship in itself constitutes a grave danger. * Oregon Report, Table 33. ® For a description of these places see Chicago Vice Com. Report. •'V Colleges Participate in Inquiry 925 j cynicism never so unlovely as in the young, sometimes seizes a girl I who because of long hours and overwork has been unable to preserve either her health or spirits and has lost all measure of joy in life. * * The conclusion from this chapter must be that low wages con- tribute largely to forming the causes which weaken a working girl physically and morally. 4. THE PRESSURE ON WORKING GIRLS TO BECOME IMMORAL. This section falls naturally into two divisions, the first concerning ; the pressure brought to bear on wage-earning women by the agents of ■I the business of prostitution and second, that brought by various “gen- i; tlemen” not connected directly with prostitution as a business. The ’■ first class attempts to force the girl into a life of professional prostitu- tion. The second class attempts to force her into clandestine prosti- ;| tution. I 1. That prostitution exists as a highly organized commercialized ^1 business is admitted by all the authorities. ^ The profits from prostitu- tion are simply beyond belief. The Chicago Commission is the only investigating body that has made any serious attempt to get the figures :] and the result is here shown (page 113). Rentals of property and profits of keepers and inmates. . . .$ 8,476,689 Sale of liquor, disorderly saloons only 4,307,000 Sale of liquor in “houses,” flats, and profits inmates on . commission 2,915,760 $15,699,499 The Commission admits that the profits are enhanced in Chicago due to the “stranger within the gates,” but even if we make allowance for this fact, have we any reason to think that the profits in other cities — even those which do not have a large transient population like New York, San Francisco, Boston, etc., are very much less large in proportion to their size? Anyone who examines the estimates of emi- nent medical authorities as to the prevalence of venereal disease among men (85% at some time infected either with syphillis or gonorrhea) and reflects that these diseases are almost invariably contracted by the man in illegitimate intercourse, i. e. while he is a patron of the pros- titute^ can hardly deny that prostitution is a mighty business, a profit- making enterprise like any other branch of industry.'^ Now, ordinary businesses, if they wish to succeed, must advertise, they must have salesmen on the road to drum up trade, they must stimulate the de- ^ Jane Addams, op. cit., p. 163. p Flexner, op. cit., pp. 62-3. Bingham, “The Girl that Disappears.” Janney, “The White Slave Traffic in America.” Report of the Committee of Fifteen, New York, 1902. The Chicago Report, i911, says the first truth that the Commission desires to impress upon the citizens of Chicago is the fact that prostitution in this city is a commercialized business of large proportions, p. 32. Also cf. Addams, op. cit.. Preface p. X. ’ It is true that “venerea! disease” is the certain harvest of any degree of promiscuity in the sex relation (Flexner, op. cit., p. 14). ‘Concerning the number of patrons, it is interesting to note that the Chicago Commis- sion found that 1,012 inmates of “houses gave 5,540,700 services per annum.” (p. 71.) 926 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee mand for their product and furnish the supply of their wares to meet this demand. The business of prostitution does not enjoy the reputa- tion of being an exception to the general rule of industrial enterprises. If there is one thing that investigation of the New York Grand Jur}’ into the “White Slave” traffic showed, it was that prostitution in New York City was a highly organized business, with veritable clearing houses for prostitutes,^ procurers of prostitutes, “exchanges” where shares in prostitution enterprises can be bought and sold, thousands of “pimps” and so on. The Grand Jury failed to find evidence of a “trust” that carried on from a central head a large proportion of the New York and the country’s business, and for that reason the “Tam- many” judge who heard the report dismissed the whole matter with a curt reprimand to the commission of the jurors for casting so many insinuations against the fair name of New York City. But the Grand Jury did find that those who had great power in the business knew each other and that the procurers, pimps,^ owners of “houses” and so on had clubs and places of rendezvous where they assembled to talk over the state of the market, the-prospects for better business and other details of the industry.^ I saw a very interesting little pamphlet the other day. It was a directory of all the “palaces” in New Orleans published for the benefit of strangers to the city and it gave an alpha- betical list of all the prostitutes in the segregated district, with lavish descriptions of the charms of the inmates of the several establishments, pictures of the houses, of the rooms in the houses and so forth. A better piece of advertising literature* * I have never seen put out by any business concern. I have taken pains to show the profitableness and extent of the prostitution business in order to make clear the importance of the fact the demand for prostitutes exceeds the supply. Miss Addams says* “Over and over again in the criminal proceedings against the men engaged in this traffic, when questioned as to their moti\^es, they have given the simple reply ‘that more girls are needed’ and that they ‘were promised big money for them.^ We are dealing here with a simple economic principle. When de- mand is high and supply low, the price of wares goes up, hence we have enterprising persons exercising all the ingenuity they possess in their endeavor to fill the demand. Are the working girls we are considering in this treatise considered eligible as “supply” by these energetic drummers for the vice trade? The evidence is overwhelming that they are. The Chicago Commis- sion speaks of the “direct persistent, often concerted efforts of the procurers” who work “in rest rooms in department stores and even at the counters in certain departments, * * * at employment ® Report Chicago Vice Commission, p. 104. ® These men are able to give protection to prostitutes because of political “pulls" and in return for this the prostitute usually gives her “lover” nearly all her earnings. In Europe the police estimate that from fifty to ninety per cent of the^ prostitutes support pimps. Doubtless the number of pimps is also very large in the United States. ’ It was found that women are actually bought and sold in some of these places. * As to advertising, the Chicago Commission found (see p. /8) that a Dearborn Street resort distributed a booklet similar to the one- described above. The Commission also de- scribes other ways of advertising the business. ® Op. cit., p. 59. ^ ^Afso of General Bingham’s statements (op. cit., p. 38), “The ‘procurer,’ or the ‘cadet,’ as he is usually known, keeps up the supply of women which, except for his mdustnous labors, would fall far below its present volume.” Colleges Participate in Inquiry 927 agencies, including those connected with mercantile and industrial establishments, and in many other ways.” The procurers include “both men and women” bartenders, waiters in saloons and restaurants, i[ managers and employes in theatres * * * * employers, floorwalk- j ers and inspectors m stores and shops, keepers of employment offices.”^ j The fact that pressure is brought on working girls is the only thing I am interested in showing but the reader may not understand just I how it is brought, so I shall point this out in a few words. It must be remembered that most of the girls on whom pressure j is brought are young and in many cases little more than children, for prosptitution demands youth for its perpetuation.^ Furthermore, the I man procurer is often a very gentlemanly looking sort of a person, i General Bingham'^ has described his activities thus ; “He picks out the attractive girl, scrapes up an acquaintance with I. her, and, if he finds that she is without protection, so much the easier for him. He offers her opportunities for social enjoyment. * * * He commiserates her poor circumstances and he points out to her I handsomely dressed women riding in their motor cars. He tells her that they were all wage-earners who discovered an easier way of life. Gradually the poison sinks into her mind and soon there is another moth singeing its wings.” The ways in which the “moth” is induced to “singe its wings” are manifold. A low dance hall where intoxicants are plentiful, a^ gradual advance by the man from one stage of immoral suggestion to the next — finally seduction or even abduction by force. The sordid tale is repeated in so many cases that it becomes commonplace. The girl ; who has been first tempted by offer of a good time is now a “bad i woman.” She feels that she has taken an irrevocable step® and does ' not feel the same abhorrence for prostitution as she formerly did. ' Now consider that her capitalized value as one of the army of the I employed is $6,000, as a professional prostitute it is $26,000.^ Is she I going to make up the difference between $6.00 and $8.00 a week by i practicing prostitution (i.e., if she is self-supporting) or not? 2. We must now consider the evidence as to pressure brought by the class of men whom, for want of a better name, we may designate as “gentlemen frineds,” to induce working women to become clan- destine prostitutes. The existence of these men seems to be assumed by those who ought to be in a position to know. “The story of the superintendent of employes who says to the girl protesting against the small wage, ‘but haven’t you a man friend to help support you?’ is current in every city. Its very prevalence is the best proof of its truth.”^ But just to show the reader that there are other proofs of its truth I will cite a case in point.^ A “good girl” was getting $6.00 ^ Op. cit., pp. 230-1. Other authorities back this up unequivocally. ® Rather sickening evidence could be given on this point were it necessary to do so. * Op. cit., p. 70. ® On this Jane Addams says (op. cit., p. 151), “A girl after a long day’s work is easily induced to believe that a drink will dispel her lassitude.” ® Bingham, op. cit. “In any event the girl who falls rarely attempts to reform. To her simple mind the one evil act has completely changed her life and character. She has acted the part of an immoral woman and she believes that she has thereby joined the ranks of the permanently immoral.” ’ Chicago Vice Commission, p. 204. The average income of inmates of “houses” (and this is not an average of the better class “houses” alone) was $25.00 a week. “ U. S. Report', 1911, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 30. “ This is taken from the report of Chicago Vice Commission, p. 209, and it is not an unusual incident. 928 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee a week in a department store. She asked for more money. She said she couldn’t live on that. The man said, “Can’t you get somebody to keep you?” Miss Butler says,^ “Some employers are generally reputed among salesgirls to assume that their women employes secure financial back- ing from outside relationships. * * *” It is to be supposed that single men would be the only ones who would attempt to seduce working girls, but witness this from the Chicago Commission’s Report: (pp. 208-9.) Married men are among the worst offenders against salesgirls and use all sorts of methods to induce them to accept invitations to dine or go to the theatre. These men come to the counters and enter into conversation with the girls. They are very bold and aggressive in their actions and if the girls resent these attentions some of these men actually report them to the floorwalkers, claiming they neglected their business. In some cases these complaints have led to the discharge of the girls in the store.” But the situation is explained most eloquently and clearly by one of the girls in a letter written to the Illinois Commission of 1913.^ Parts of this letter follow : “You’re looking for the things made such women as I. Low wages ! Dance halls ! Hunger ! Cold ! They all helped a bit but they did not turn the trick themselves. * * * Lots of us * * * hit the road for hell because a lot of blackguards kept hounding us with their rotten ‘attentions.’ God help the men and not us ! We’re all right when we start — all we need is to be left alone. There are hundreds and hundreds of kids and sports who hang around State Street^ and wait like wolves for the tired girls to leave the stores. * * * Make the men good and the girls will be good. Now they haven’t got a chance and they never will as long as the law smiles at one and spits at the other.” Can there be any doubt about the existence of the pressure I have been describing in this section after such testimony?'^ 5. PRESSURE BROUGHT TO BEAR ON WEAKEST GIRLS. This section is a continuation of tlie topics touched upon in the foregoing chapter and is devoted to establishing the proposition that the pressure already described is brought to bear on the girls least able to resist it. It seems reasonable to postulate that procurers will do their work wherever the conditions are most favorable for its success and where the least amount of energy need be spent. Which means, to put it bluntly, that they will attempt to betray the tired girl, the lonely girl, the hungry girl, the underpaid girl, the guileless girl and the girl who is longing for amusement and recreation. * Pittsburgh, op. cit., p. 306. 2 Published in Russell’s “The Girl’s Fight for a Living.” s In State Street, Chicago, are many of the city’s largest department stores. ■* Miss Addams (op. cit., p. 66) gives a vivid picture of the young working girl's dilemma. Mr Alexander Clelland, former Secretary of the State Commission on Immigration of New Jersey, personally investigated 29 agencies and 19 of them were willing to obtain women for immoral purposes. (Testimony before U. S. Committee on Industrial Rela- tions, May, 1913. From N. Y. Call, May 17.) Colleges Participate in Inquiry 929 Now, procurers are not fools. They are psychologists of no mean I order. Witness the following “Because she is young and feminine her mind secretly dwells upon a future lover; upon a home * * * and yet the only man who approaches her there, acting upon the • knowledge of this inner life, does it with the direct intention of playing upon it in order to despoil her.” The girl who is least able to resist these advances is the very young girl. The tables in the various reports giving the age at which girls have been “seduced” (usually by these “gentlemen friends” but often by procurers) are instructive . on this point. The girl of fifteen is a frequent vicitim of these human , vampires.® It will be remembered from the discussion on wages that while the average wage is $6.00 many girls get much less. What girls do the procurers and “gentlemen friends” approach? The most illy paid, of course. General Bingham^ says “The department store especially in those divisions where wages are low is a regular stamping ground of 1 the cadet.” But the best example of the principle I am trying to establish is I the employment agency. We have seen that working girls are often thrown out of work. We have seen how impossible it is for a self- supporting girl to save in anticipation of a period of unemployment. - When she is thown out of work the self-supporting woman is in dire straits indeed. Do the procurers know this? They do, and they bend every energy to place temptation and pitfalls in the path of the sorely- pressed girl. They infest the employment agencies. We even find that the agencies themselves often send the woman applicants for jobs to houses of postitution as servants. “Once in these places surrounded by indications of ease and excitement these girls are not always able to t withstand the temptation and soon become regular inmates.”® IS “These out-of-work girls are found sometimes as many as forty or fifty at a time in the rest-rooms of the department stores. Of course such a possible field as these rest-rooms is not overlooked by the pro- curer.”^ “The persuasions of the procurer are made alluring when they offer I high wages to a girl who is out of a job * ' * * because * * * |l the girls who are out of work * ^ * are easily victimized.”^ We conclude that the girls who are having the hardest struggle against poverty are not spared the pressure of the agents of immorality. On the contrary these girls are the ones on whom the efforts of the human birds of prey are concentrated. ! 6. CONCLUSION. Nothing now remains but to draw the only too obvious conclusions j from the foregoing sections. We have seen that 800,000 self-support- I ing women are paid less than they need to live on, that they are weak- ® Jane Addams, op. cit., p. 66. “Chicago, 1911, op. cit., p. 170 ff. Syracuse Report, op. cit.. Table of Personal His- I tories. ’ Op. cit., p. 46. “Chicago, 1911, p. 218. The agent of the Commission visited 28 employment agencies, I 13 of which agreed to send servants to a supposed immoral place. E “Jane Addams, op. cit., p. 86. ' O. E. Janney, op. cit., p. 93. ' 930 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee ened physically and morally from the privations they are forced to endure, that they are subject to continual pressure to supplement their inadequate earnings by prostiution, be it clandestine or professional. Many of these women no doubt manage to hold their own in this ter- rifice battle against want and temptation. But there are others, the weaker ones — physically and morally — the more unfortunate ones, who, “unable to survive longer the heroic battle against poverty and self sacrifice”^ succumb and gd down. By “succumb and go down” I do not mean that all of those who practice prostiution become professionals. The statement has been made that “the universal tendency is for these girls to pass in a few years down the course of these grades^” (from clandestine to profes- sional prostitution) but Dr. Flexner'^ has shown pretty conclusively that “while some are overwhelmed thousands emerge” from the morass of unlimited promiscuity. In short there are thousands who are clan- destine prostitutes when economic conditions force them to become so. Dr. Flexner shows that all the prostitutes cannot “die off” in the way they are popularly supposed to do. They “disappear” and this means in most cases, as Dr. Flexner shows from statistics of the number of prostitutes annually dropped from the police rolls, that they go back to work. In times of unemployment and industrial depression the number of prostitutes on the police rolls increases. When employment is plentiful the work for the police decreases.^ We have not good police rolls in this country nor are we as frank in recognizing conditions as they are. In Europe “in certain employ- ments it (prostitution) is looked upon as a regular source of incidental income to women workers.” The public does not recognize prostitu- tion in this manner in America even though employers do, as evidenced by the “gentleman friend” stories and other data. But once in a while a glimmer of the true situation comes to some investigating body. For instance the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission says : “It is remarkable that more saleswomen do not tuni to vice. It is impossible to say how many do. No estimate whatever can be made of the extent to which the workers are subsidized because of illicit relations with one or two men. Only a few of the women had the appearance of prostitutes. Women who are making a brave fight against tremendous odds were many times more often in evidence.” (Page 90.) But utterances like the above are rarely emphasized in discussions of this topic. The Bureau of Labor states “the consensus of opinion was that as a direct and immediate cause of going wrong they (low wages) were almost a negligible factor * * * a statement made much of by those interested in interpreting this soothing dictum to mean that no rise in wages is called for. What the report means by a “direct” 2 Chicago, 1911. Summary. ’ Report Hartford Vice Commission, 1913, p. 65. * Op. cit., p. 19. ® Flexner, op. cit., p. 85. To quote literally, “Prostitution fluctuates with seasonal and casual labor.” Cf. Addams, op. cit., p. 78. * U. S., Vol. V, p. 30: “A number of them (department store officials) said to the agents with perfect frankness that the wage offered did not permit the girl to live honestly elsewhere” (outside the home). Colleges Participate in Inquiry 931 cause is that very few young unmarried girls walk into a house of shame and say “Here I am; I want to be a prostitute.”^ The public does not bother to look further into the matter so the significance of the Commission’s subsequent statements is overlooked. ■ Observe the following : 'i “It must be observed that this relates only to the initial wrong step, i not to becoming an habitual wrong doer after the first error has been I made. It was generally agreed that * * * when she has once ; gone wrong * * * low wages * * * are strongly effective in j deciding her to adopt a life of promiscuous immorality.”® Now what i does this mean looked at in the light of the facts we have observed? j Simply this, that low wages are really a direct cause of prostitu- tion; for, what is it that subjects a certain class of girls to pressure to supplement their inadequate earnings by immorality? Low wages. What is it that weakens the girl’s ability to resist? Underfeeding, un- derclothing, few pleasures and so on; a condition of physical, mental and moral weakness resulting from a low standard of living — which depends on what ? Low wages, again. What is it that makes a girl anxious to marry and leave her life of drudgery and terrible struggle against poverty and thus makes her through this anxiety an easy prey for designing men who as the Chicago Commission^ says “are so low that they have lost even a sense of sportsmanship and who seek as ^ their game an under-fed, a tired, and a lonely girl?” Answer, low wages. What is it that induces a young girl who has been seduced^ to keep on practising prostitution as a means to the attainment of the necessities and comforts she was formerly denied. Once again the answer is low wages. Those who do not have to personally apply the remedy they suggest aver that a working-girl would rather starve than sell her virtue. Jane Addams® says “Out of my own experience I am ready to assert that very often all that is necessary to effectively help the girl who is on the edge of wrong doing is to lend her money for her board until she finds work. Upon such simple economic needs does the tried virtue of a good girl sometimes depend.” In the same connection Miss Addams adds a statement which sum- marizes the points I have attempted to establish. “Of course a girl in such a strait does not go out deliberately to find illicit methods of earning money,® she simply yields in a moment of utter weariness and discouragement to the temptations she has been I able to withstand up to that moment. The long hours, the lack of ! comforts,'* the low pay, the absence of recreation, the sense of “good I times” all about her which she cannot share, the conviction® that she I ’ The Syracuse Report cites this as the opinion of Clifford G. Roe, former Assistant ( State’s Attorney in Chicago, who prosecuted many “white slave’’ cases. I ® Cf. U. S. Report cited 1911, Vol. V, p. 36. [' ® Op. cit. Summary. I _ ^ General Bingham says (op. cit., p. 64),_ “Case after case has come to the knowledge of investigators where perfectly respectable girls married in love and good faith men whose deliberate intention it was to live on the proceeds of their shame.” ^ Op. cit., p. 78. * If she did this it (low wages) would be a “direct” cause according to the Labor Bureau Report. ^ Miss Addams might add “necessities.” 'Only too well founded. See Chapter 3. ( A 932 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee is rapidly losing health and charm rouse the molten forces within her. A swelling tide of self-pity suddenly storms the banks which have hitherto held her and finally overcomes her instincts for decency and righteousness.” Conditions do not differ greatly in different localities. Mr. R. W. Kauffman, who has made a study of prostitution for many years in many American and European cities, avers that “conditions are in some degree w'orse in such cities as New York and Philadelphia, but the difference is always one of degree and never of kind.”^ A rather remarkable coincidence attesting the truth of this state- ment is that the identical words (given below) which were spoken by a “fallen” girl in London^ several years ago were repeated to Miss Addams in Chicago. The girl had succeeded in escaping from a house of prosititution. She was asked, by a girl who befriended her, “Is it as bad as they say in there?” “I don’t know what they say,” she replied, “but it is worse than any one can say. There is a lot of it no one can say because there ain’t no words that have been made for it. Just you pray God you won’t ever have to find out how bad it is.” How much longer will society allow low wages to force some girls to find out “how bad it is?”® ® R. W. Kauffman, “The Girl that Goes Wrong,” Introduction, p. 7. ’ W. N. Willis, op. cit., p. 93. * “One girl said that she had first yielded to temptation when she had become utterly discouraged because she had tried in vain for seven months to save enough money for a pair of shoes. She habitually spent $2.00 a week for her room, $3.00 for her board and 60 cents a week for carfare, and she had found the 40 cents remaining from her weekly wage of $6.00 inadequate to do more than resole her old shoes twice. When the shoes became too worn to endure a third soling and she possessed but 90 cents towards a new pair she gave up the struggle ; to use her own contemptuous phrase, she ‘sold out for a pair of shoes.’ ” Jane Addams, op. cit., p. 76. The Chicago Commission, op. cit., p. 210, found an employe of a “great many years in the department stores” who said that "she knew many salesgirls who lived with men who were not their husbands.” The citation of three actual cases may help to add a touch of realism to the academic discussion in the text. “Investigator met one girl (in dance hall); gave the name of Marcelle and said she worked in the basement of a department store. She said her salary was $6.00 a week. Out of this she pays $3.00 for meals, $2.00 room rent, 60 cents carfare. Hustles three nights a week for extra money to pay for washing clothes and other things. She is about twenty.” Chicago, 1911 (p. 186). Paulette, twenty-two, worked in a department store for $6.00. She told investigator “ ... it was impossible to make a living where I was. And even while I was in the store I made money on the side. I was in the habit of taking men to hotels, one, two, or three times a week when I wasn’t too tired. After I had been working two months I left Rose “ . . . got $6.00. She had a mother and two sisters dependent on her and her mother was always urging her for money. She began to make money ‘on the side.’ The store found her out and discharged her. She went into a ‘house’ in Ohio and sends her mother her earnings.” (Butler, Pittsburgh, p. 306.) Are the many Marcelles, Paul- ettes and Roses worth saving? WOMAN’S LEGISLATIVE I ! CONGRESS Several hundred representative women of Illinois, convened in conference to co-operate with your com- mittee in framing suggestions for legislative action de- manded by the mothers and wives of the state; how organized, its purposes, names of delegates, its delibera- tions and recommendations. Woman's Legislative Congress 935 Your committee summoned to its assistance in December, 1914, several hundred women, representative of organizations and groups conspicuous in social welfare work, in the preparation of recom- mendations to the Forty-ninth General Assembly, then on the eve of convening. To the public-spirited women who thus responded and devoted three days of study and earnest deliberation, your com- mittee hereby extends sincere thanks and appreciation. Your com- mittee is pleased to report that the women assembled at this con- ference formed a permanent organization, styled the “Woman’s Legislative Congress,” the announced purpose of which is to con- vene regularly in the December preceding the regular session of the General Assembly to formulate such recommendations to the legis- lators as appear to the delegates to be the embodiment of the demands of the womanhood of Illinois. A more ideal, and at the same time practical, co-operation of the women, acting in an ad- visory capacity through this Woman’s Congress, and the men, act- ing officially as members of the law-making department of the state government, could not well be imagined. The delegates to the conference resulting in the formation of this congress were selected, in the following manner: (1) Your committee dispatched letters to various women’s or- ganizations, requesting the naming by the organizations of dele- gates. Many delegates were chosen in this manner. (2) A body of managers, representative of all groups, agreeing to relieve your committee of the details of the conference, lists of names were submitted by the members of this board, and to these names invitations to attend the conference were mailed. It was believed that in this manner the delegates, while not in- clusive of all, or even a small percentage, of the women intelligently interested in the problems under consideration, would nevertheless be representative and that their findings would be accurately re- flective of the enlightened thought of the women of the state. In lieu of a report of your committee at the convening of the Forty-ninth General Assembly, the recommendations of this con- gress were submitted to all the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, by whom many of the principles en- dorsed were embodied into laws. Recommendations of Woman’s Legislative Congress. The following is a digest of recommendations made by the Woman’s Legislative Congress. Subiects referred to herein were discussed by experts in each re- spective field. Only principles and not specific bills were approved. CONSTITUTIONAL LEGISLATION. 1. The next General Assembly shall provide for a Constitutional Convention for Illinois. 936 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee 2. There shall be an amendment to the amending clause of the constitution so as to make the amending of the constitution more quickly and easily responsive to the popular will. EDUCATIONAL LEGISLATION. 1. All vocational education supported by taxation, Federal, state, or local, shall be incorporated into and made an integral part of our present public school system. Specialized vocational work in the public schools shall be offered only to pupils fourteen years of age, or to those who have completed the eighth grade of the elementary schools. No course of study offered in the public schools shall be so nar- rowly vocational as to exclude work of a liberal type to prepare the pupil for the broader duties of citizenship. A fair proportion of the cost of public education, both general and vocational, shall be met by state taxation. The funds so collected to be distributed so as to equalize opportunities throughout the state. 2. There shall be a pension law for teachers state-wide in its application, but its provisions shall not apply to Chicago nor to Peoria unless the teachers there desire it. The state shall provide an amount equal to the teachers’ contribution. All teachers shall contribute the same sum for the same j-ears of service and shall be entitled to the same annuity. There shall be a desirable pension after a certain number of years, not exceeding fifteen and full pension after twenty-five years of teaching. Contributing teachers shal elect a working majority of the members of the board to administer the pension fund. 3. It shall be lawful for school boards in cities, townships or districts, to grant free of charge, the use of school buildings for civic deliberations. These same boards shall conduct supervised recreational activities in school houses and pay for the services of special officers needed for such use out of the school funds of the cities, townships or districts; such meetings and recreational activities shall not interfere with the regular school use of buildings. 4. The compulsory school age shall be raised from fourteen to sixteen years. SOCIAL LEGISLATION. 1. Better provision for the support of wife and children by the husband and father. Non-support of wife without lawful cause shall constitute a misdemeanor, punishable by fine or imprisonment or both, for which the offender may be brought back for trial even from another state. Failure to support shall be a continuing offense for the husband. The father shall be held for the abandonment of his children and for their support to the age of eighteen years; the penalty for not com- plying with the law shall be increased. The present law requires the father to support his children to the age of twelve years, and the husband to support the wife for only fifty-two weeks after abandonment, unless he, after that time, again lives with his wife. PROVISION FOR A SPEEDY TRIAL SHOULD BE SECURED. 2. Better provision for the support of illegitimate children up to the age of eighteen. The father shall be required to provide according to his means. The money shall be paid through the court to the mother at regular intervals, or to some guardian, organization or institution caring for the child. The father shall be put under suitable bonds. No change in the rules of evidence for conviction is necessary-, but provision must be made for the extradition of the father if he Woman’s Legislative Congress 937 attempts to escape into another state after being convicted. Now the illegitimate father pays but $550.00 in the period of ten years. 3. An Abatement and Injunction Law, such as is enforced in several other states, shall be put into our statutes, to provide for more effectual suppression of houses of prostitution by declaring them public nuisances. It shall provide for injunction proceedings against the transgressor and against the property for one year, to bring about abatement. Fine and imprisonment may be imposed upon owner and tenant to protect society from these houses. The general reputation of the place or occupants shall be admissible evidence in proving the nuisance, and any citizen may bring suit. 4. Fining system now in effect in dealing with prostitutes shall be changed to commitment to a shelter or home where vocational training and treatment can be given to the inmates for their welfare and the safety of the public. The sentence shall be for one year. The penalty for both keepers and patrons of these houses to fit the offense. 5. The state shall establish custodial care over its feeble-minded, to extend to adults as well as to minors. An effort shall be made to take over the complete guardianship of these weaklings for the welfare of the state and the afflicted. 6. The age of consent shall be raised from sixteen to eighteen years for girls and similar protective measures for boys shall be established. 7. There shall be complete compulsory birth registration to in- clude statement of defects at birth. 8. More assistance shall be given to the care and education of the blind. 9. There shall be a law under which any person may be prosecuted for taking children into saloons, disorderly houses, and other places leading to their downfall, and who, by the use of money or promises, get them to commit some act that will make them liable to the crim- inal or delinquency laws of the state. INDUSTRIAL LEGISLATION. 1. There shall be a minimum wage for all women and minors, to be established by a wage board under a minimum wage commission. 2. There shall be one day rest in seven in all occupations. 3. The hours for work for women in certain industries shall be limited to eight hours a day, and six days in one week. 4. No child under sixteen years shall be employed except on presentation of a special vacation certificate, void on the day school opens. All boys under fourteen and girls under eighteen shall be barred from all street trades; boys under sixteen not to be permitted to work in such after 8 P. M. or before 6 A. M. Minors shall be prohibited from employment in messenger service after 9 P. M. and before 6 A. M. All public , officials who do not keep their oaths of office for en- forcement of the law shall be removed from office. Mrs. Harriet Taylor Treadwell ably presided over the delibera- tions of the congress and was re-elected its chairman for the second congress, to be held in 1916. She may be addressed at 6220 Harper avenue, Chicago. The delegates to the conference, were as follows: Miss Louisa Abbott Miss Jane Addams Miss Kate Adams A. Mrs. Alice Dow Allinson Miss Mary Anderson Mrs. John Angus Mrs. Rose Anton Miss Edith Abbott 938 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Mrs. Harry F. Atwood Mrs. Chas. F. Adams Mrs. J. J. Austin Mrs. Frederick T. Avery Mrs. J. W. Allison Mrs. Afield Mrs. Benj. Auerbach Mrs. Franc P. Allore Mrs. Anna B. Anderson Mrs. F. W. Allen Mrs. Anna Anderson Dr. Alice M. C. Allen B. Mrs. Wm. Bell Mrs. S. A. Berg Mrs. Mary F. Balcomb Mrs. F. H. Belden, Hinsdale, 111. Mrs. L. Brackett Bishop Mrs. W. A. Boland Mrs. Joseph T. Brown Mrs. Arthur B. Brumbach Mrs. Fred Bartlett Mrs. Edw. Bemis Mrs. Geo. A. Bacon, Decatur, 111. Mrs. F. W. Blocki Dr. Alice Brown Mrs. Emma Ruth Bangs, River Eorest, 111. Mrs. Lucinda Buck Mrs. Louis Betts Mrs. Laura Brayton Mrs. Chas. H. Betts Mrs. Wm. J. Bogan Mrs. A. H. Beaver, Congress Park, 111 . Mrs. A. P. Borland Mrs. N. D. Burgess Mrs. Florence S. Brown Mrs. G. W. Bigelow Mrs. Edward F. Bryant Mrs. Otto A. Brenner Mrs. Edward Banker, Evanston, 111. Mrs. D. D. Bardo Mrs. Laura E. Blakeslee Mrs. Nellie Bain Mrs. Bert R. Benjamin Mrs. John H. Beers Mrs. Philip Barnard Mrs. Chas. H. Baker, Highland Park, 111. Mrs. Geo. Byron Mrs. Marion Bate Mrs. May L. Bentley Mrs. Geo. M. Brill Mrs. Wilbur Blackford Mrs. Julia Brennon Miss Virginia Barrett, Galena, 111. Mrs. C. C. Bulger, Greenfield, 111. Mrs. Sherman Booth, Glencoe, 111. Mrs. Wm. Boyes Miss Caroline Baldwin Mrs. Marion Bell Mrs. Margaretta Brown Mrs. Carrie A. Bahrenberg, Belle- ville, 111. Mrs. Mary Codding Bourland, Pon- tiac, 111. Mrs. Gertrude Howe Britton Dr. Leonora Beck Mrs. Chas. H. Brackebush Mrs. Sophonisba Breckenridge Mrs. Jean Wallace Butler Mrs. Sarah M. Butcher Mrs. O. T. Bright Mrs. George Bass Judge Mary Bartelme Mrs. John L. Bass Miss Mary Bour Mrs. Esther E. Brainard Mrs. Chas. W. Blodgett Mrs. R. J. Brouillet Mrs. Geo. Banschbach Miss Emma V. Bailey Mrs. Roscoe Barrett Mrs. John C. Bley Mrs. Thomas Banfield Miss Helen Bennett Mrs. W. H. Buhlig Mrs. R. L. Benson Mrs. Ered Bluemer Mrs. W. E. Benson Mrs. Clara Bowerman Mrs. S. C. Brandt, Oak Park Mrs. Z. P. Brossman Mrs. E. O. Brown Mrs. H. M. Brown, Peoria, 111. Mrs. Mary Lucey, Urbana, 111. Mrs. Hugo Brady Mrs. Emmanuel Buxbaum Mrs. L. Banjamin Miss Zonia Baker Mrs. Emma Burt Miss Estelline Bennett Miss Eanny A. Butcher M. Violet Brothers Dr. Sarah C. Buckley C. Mrs. Maud Cain Taylor Mrs. Henry Cheney Mrs. Edward Cunat Mrs. Harlan Ward Coolej' Miss Nellie Carlin Mrs. Chas. E. Caldwell Mrs. Walter Cheney Mrs. B. A. Camfield Airs. Gertrude Cramer Mrs. Wm. Connelly Mrs. Geo. S. Crilly Airs. Frank B. Cook Mrs. H. C. Coffeen Airs. A. C. Caldwell Airs. Wm. Craig Airs. Aver\’ Coonley, Riverside. 111. Mrs. G. AI. ClajFerg, Avon, 111. Airs. E. A. Currv, Alt. Sterling, 111, Aliss Elizabeth Christian Airs. V^m. F. Crummer Airs. John Stewart Coonley Airs. John AI. Coulter Airs. Charlotte Colton Woman's Legislative Congress 939 Mrs. Wm. Clute, Park Ridge, III. Miss Eleanor Coddington Miss Elvina Cabell Miss Mary Campbell Mrs. Grace Carr Mrs. Rose L. Colby Mrs. Fred Culver Mrs. Luther Conant, Oak Park, 111. Mrs. Israel Cowen Mrs. J. C. Connihan, Brookfield, 111. Mrs. G. A. Copeland, Wilmette, 111. Mrs. Maud Craig Miss Carlson Mrs. Richard H. Colby Mrs. James F. Cannon Mrs. Edwin R. ^Carter Mrs. Henry W. Clarke Mrs. F. E. Clenainin Mrs. Emma Coney Mrs. James Costello Mrs. Otis Cushing Mrs. Geo. E. Cook Mrs. John Taylor Cowles Mrs. N. W. Carkhuff, Oak Park Mrs. Sheares-Carnovele Miss J. Rose Colby, Normal Park, 111 . Mrs. Chas. Clark Mp. Frank Churchill Miss Flora J. Cook Mrs. Joseph J. Cook Mrs. Joseph W. Crenin Mrs. John Cudahy Miss Collins Mrs. W. J. Corboy Mrs. Edward Cummings Miss Conway Mrs. Margaret C. Carr, Ottawa, 111. Mrs. John Coulter Mrs. Villa Coles Case, Joliet, 111. Miss Ethel Colson Mrs. Walter M. Clute, Park Ridge, 111 . Mrs. J. V. Caverly D. Miss Margaret B. Dobyne Miss Charlotte F. Dunne Mrs. Frederick A. Dow Mrs. Geo. Dawson Dr. Effa V. Davis Mrs. Ann Davis Mrs. Alice Davies Mrs. Alonzo P. Daniels Mrs. Earnest Dawson Mrs. lean DeShon Mrs. W. K. Doty Mrs. Chas. D. Dorbeer Mrs. Frank W. Disbrow Mrs. Bertha A. Denker Dr. Frances Dickinson Miss Marion Drake Mrs. Ioanna E. Downes Mrs. .'Sophia E. Delevan Mrs. O. K. Dike Mrs. Frank C. Drake Dr, Anna Dwyer Mrs. Jean Ellis Driver Mrs. Elvira Downey, Clinton, 111. Mrs. W. P'. Dummer Dr. Harriet Daniel, Murphysboro, 111 . Drusella R. Dailey, Peoria, 111. Dr. Cornelia B. DeBey Mrs. Ballard Dunn, Palos Park, 111. Mrs. Wm. JI. Davis Mrs. George Davidson, Oak Park, 111 . Mrs. Henry C. E. David Mrs. Chas. T. Dailey Mrs. W. E. Dorgan Mrs. P. C. Darrow, Western Springs, 111 . Mrs. Rufus C. Dawes, Evanston. 111. Miss Mary C. Dias, Arlington Heights, 111 . Mrs. J. L. Donahue Ada V. Dayman, Congress Park, 111. Mrs. Anna E. Dodge, DeKalb, 111. Mary E. S. Drummond, East St. Louis, 111. Mrs. M. C. Dohm, Greenfield, 111. Mrs. Harry Dinkleman Mrs. A. W. Draper Mrs. Geo. R. Dean, Highland Park, 111 . Mrs. J. George Deitrich Mrs. Wm. A. Doyle Mrs. Joseph Downey Mrs. Harry Dubia Mrs. Charles L. Daniels Mrs. M. Dwyer Mrs. L. K. Doty Mrs. O. W. Dean Mrs. Wm. Doyle Mrs. Mary Deatheridge Mrs. John Dowdl E. Mrs. Ida Darling Engleke Mrs. Flora Estey Mrs. Levi A. Etiel Mrs. E. E. Ertsman Mrs. W. A. Evans Mrs. Ralph Ellis Mrs. F. D. Everett, Highland Park, 111 . Mrs. Dora Earle Mrs. Lewis Eaton Miss Ruth Ewing, Highland Park, 111. Mrs. Emilie L. Edwards Mrs. Wm. H. Eldred Mrs. Emma L. Ebbert, Oak Park, 111. Mrs. Beulah B. Everage Mrs. J. P. Esmay Mrs. W. J. Evans Mrs. Thos. J. English Mrs. Wm. L. Edwards Mrs. Milton Eisendrath Mrs. Myra S. Emrich . F. . " Mrs. Ida Fursman ''I 940 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Mrs. Joseph Forbrich Miss Kathryn Fraley Mrs. Laura Fixen Mrs. Laura E. Fischer Mrs. Elanor Flood Mrs. Effie Freeman Mrs. Esther Falkenstein Mrs. Joseph Fish Mrs. Floyd Frazier Mrs. R. B. Farson, St. Charles, 111. Mrs. H. W. Farson, Salem, 111. Miss Shirley Farr Mrs. Wm. Farrington Mrs. L. F. Faynes, Arlington Heights Mrs. Sarah B. Fish Mrs. L. H. Frensdorf Mrs. E. F. Ford, Greenfield, 111. Miss Adele Friend Miss Nettie Freeman Mrs. Albert Flanagan Mrs. Chas. Flanigan Mrs. Edna Forsyth Miss Emma Fisher Mrs. Ferde Fisher Mrs. Victor S. Frankenstein Mrs. Chas. F. Fishback Mrs. L. H. Fowler, Wilmette, 111. Mrs. M. J. Faherty Mrs. W. W. Fisher Mrs. James H. Falkenstein G. Mrs. Julia Godfriaux Mrs. Minnie Starr Grainger, Belvi- dere, IlL Mrs. John R. Gray Miss Catherine Goggin Miss Mary Galvin Mrs. J. DeWitt Garrison Mrs. Paul Gerhardt Miss Helen Gilbert Miss Alice Greenacre Mrs. John E. Gould Mrs. Bertha Goldstein Mrs. L. E. Gordon Mrs. R. H. Garrique, Evanston. 111. Miss Marv Edna Glendon, Oak Park, in. Mrs. Paul Goode Mrs. E. K. Gale Mrs. Wm. H. Gallagher Mrs. M. E. Graner Miss Theresa Gilbert, Oak Park, 111. Miss Etta M. Golden Mrs. Rosa Gordon Miss Sarah Gleason H. Mrs. C. John Hanson Mrs. C. H. Hahn Mrs. A. F. Holden Mrs. John W. Houston Carolyn E. Hoey Miss Edna Heller Mrs. William Hoig, Brookfield, 111. Mrs. John R. Hoxie Mrs. 1. C. Harmon Mrs. J. Hilmes Mrs. L. E. Haynes Mrs. Hugo Haitman Mrs. George W. Hall Mrs. Thomas F. Hickey Mrs. Hattie H. Harding Miss Alice M. Houston Miss Lucy A. Hall Mrs. Nina Dr Hess Mrs. Samuel Hofman Miss Margaret A. Haley Mrs. A. D. Hannah Mrs. Edward D. Hines Mrs. M. Hook Mrs. J. W. Hogan Miss Rebecca L. Hefter Mrs. Margaret M. Hatfield Miss Gertrude Heitman Georgia T. Hopkins, Shelbyville, 111. Mrs. Charles E. Hull, Salem, 111. I. Mrs. Harold L. Ickes, Evanston, 111. Mrs. H. J. Ilett, LaGrange, 111. Mrs. Francis E. Ingram J. Mrs. Ella I. Juul Mrs. Henry S. Jaffray Mrs. Stella S. Jannotta Mrs. Thomas Jamison Effie Johnson Mrs. Mary J. Sones Mrs. Ray S. Jenkins Mrs. W. J. Jarvis Mrs. Minona S. Jones K. Mrs. Marie Keough Mrs. Thomas Knight Mrs. Robert Kohlhammer Mrs. L. E. Koontz Airs. Elmer E. Kendall Aliss Florence King Mrs. Kirk Airs. John C. Kennedy Airs. Charles Kayser, Wheaton. lU. Mrs. Edwin Kuh Airs. Robert H. Kuss Aliss A'era King, Belvidere, Illinois Aliss -Alice T. P. Keary Airs. Nathan Kawin Airs. W. Herschel Knap Airs. George D. Keller Airs. Irving Kellv Airs. Emily Koltz Airs. Frank W. Kinshel Airs. E. A. King Airs. Henry Kuh Mrs. J. Kopf Airs. James E. Keefe Miss Annie Kennedy Airs. John C. Kehoe Airs. Thomas Kurnan Airs. W. E. Kennedy Woman’s Legislative Congress 941 L. Mrs. Judith W. Loewenthal Mrs. Julius Loeb Mrs. Wm. Bross Lloyd, Winnetka, 111. Mrs. Jessie L. Lyons Mrs. G. Franklin Leavitt Miss Ida M. Lane Mrs. Harry Laing Mrs. John Leavett Mrs. Marian Walters Lovett Mrs. Marie Leavett Mrs. Lucy I. Laing Mrs. Sylvia Lawson Mrs. J. C. Leishman, DeKalb, 111. Mrs. L. J. Lamson Miss Elizabeth Euphrasyne Langley Mrs. Alfred Linton, Winnetka, 111. Mrs. Frank E. Lindsey Mrs. Elizabeth Lucas Mrs. W. D. Longacre Mrs. George Lenz Mrs. Herman Landauer Mrs. John Law Mrs. Harry H. Lyon Mrs. W. G. Lloyd, Greenfield, 111. Mrs. Jessie Lowenhaupt Mrs. Frank R. Lillie Mrs. Nathan B. Lewis Mrs. Edward T. Lee Dr. Emily M. Luff, Oak Park, 111. Mrs. Wm. Lyman Mrs. Lulu Law Mrs. Albert Loeb Mrs. John L. Lewison Mrs. M. McGoorty Long Mrs. M. P. Lawler Miss Clara E. Laughlin Mrs. Lee J. Lesser Mrs. Joe B. Lombard Mrs. B. F. Langworthy, River Forest, 111 . Miss Julia Lathrop M. Dr. Marie McCrillis, Evanston, 111. Mrs. Wm. M. Monroe Mrs. D. E. McIntyre, Champaign, 111. Mrs. H. R. Maxwell Mrs. John T. Mason Mrs. Clifford Miller, Park Ridge, 111. Mrs. Lelia H. Martin, Wheaton, 111. Mrs. Christian M. Madsen Miss Mary McEnerney Miss Elizabeth Maloney Mrs. Eda V. Morrison Mrs. C. F. Millsuaugh Mrs. Joseph Moses Mrs. Addison W. Moore Mrs. Catherine W. McCullough Mrs. Andrew McLiesh, Glencoe. 111. Mrs. Wm. D. McClintock Mrs. Paul F. P. Muller Mrs.' Anna Mathews Mrs. C. E. McGrew Mrs. H. A. McKee, LaGrange, 111. Mrs. T. V. Morse Mrs. David McDonald Mrs. Frank E. Morey Mrs. D. V. Medalia Mrs. R. E. Morey Mrs. E. N. Mann Miss Meirs Mrs. Margaret Mercer Mrs. John S. McClelland Mrs. M. D. McKinley Mrs. T. G. Macon Mrs. W. A. Morey, Marseilles. 111. Mrs. John F. McGuire Dr. Margaret Babcock-Meloy, Peoria, 111 . Mrs. Florence E. Merrill, Peoria, 111. Mrs. Medill McCormick Mrs. Fred Michael Mrs. Chas. Monahan Mrs. J. R. Mulroy Mrs. Alice O’Grady Moulton Mrs. Margaret Myers Mrs. D. R. McAuley Mrs. Edgar Martin Mrs. Wm. Maegerlein Mrs. Edwin A. Munger Mrs. E. B. Murray, DeKalb, 111. Mrs. Clara F. Miller Miss Rose McHugh Mrs. E. S. Moore ■ Mme. F. Medini Mrs. A. P. C. Matson Mrs. Edward Merney Mrs. Bernard McDewitt Mrs. Chas. Moody Mrs. Joseph Mitchell Mrs. Michael Michelson Mrs. Wm. McKinley Mrs. Charles E. Merriam Mrs. James Morrison Miss Catherine Mullen Miss Mary McDowell Mrs. Robert McCall Mrs. Lida E. McDermut Mrs. Millard McEwen Mrs. Kenneth McLennan Mrs. Leonora Z. Meder Mrs. John F. McCormick Mrs. J. B. Walker Mrs. John P. Marsh Miss M. Rio Mather Mrs. William H. Mansfield Dr. Marie Blair Mavor N. Mrs. C. E. Nagley Miss Agnes Nestor Miss Grace Nichols Mrs. Louis A. Neebe Mrs. W. W. Morris Mrs. Robert Nightengale Mrs. Samuel Newman Miss Florence Nesbet Mrs. F. G. Nelson Mrs. H. C. Newton 942 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee O. Mrs. Wm. Ownes Miss Kate O’Connor Miss Anna Okeson Miss Rebecca Okeson Mrs. Victor Olander Mrs. Howard Olds Mrs. Mary Barratt O’Hara Mrs. Albert Oppenheimer Miss Lena Ofalis Mrs. G. A. Osinga Mrs. Florence M. H. O’Hara Mrs. J. J. O’Donnell Mrs. John O’Connor Mrs. P. J. O’Keefe Mrs. T. J. O’Gara Mrs. David O’Shea Mrs. Celia A. O’Shaughnessy P. Miss Susan Peabody Mrs. L. I. Pierson, Wilmette, 111. Mrs. George C. Price Mrs. Carrie Powell Mrs. James W. Parker Mrs. Laura Dainty Pelham Mrs. Martin Padden Mrs. W. J. Phalan, Evanston Mrs. Hynie N. Pearson Mrs. Harry Piatt Mrs. W. F. Pack, River Forest, 111. Mrs. Nicholas Prakken Mrs. H. T. Pitcher Mrs. Wm. J. Patterson Mrs. George Packard Mrs. John Powell Mrs. Chas. A. Plamondon Mrs. R. J. Peper Mrs. E. L. Parker Dean Mary Ross Potter Mrs. Lincoln Payne, Danville, 111. Mrs. Ellia Peattie Miss Editha Phelps Miss Emma Pishell Mrs. Chas. Pearce Mrs. G. F. Pulford Mrs. Aaran Purvin Mrs. W. D. Preston Mrs. Merritt W. Pinckney Mrs. Moses Purvin Miss Virginia Pope Dr. Mary Porter Mrs. Jerome Palmer Mrs. Howard M. Peirce, Evanston, 111. Mrs. B. E. Pa,ge, Highland Park, 111. Mrs. G. W. Plummer Miss Carrie Pam Mrs. George Palmer, Springfield, 111. Mrs. David Parr Mrs. Howard Priestly, Princeton, 111. Mrs. Phillip S. Post, Winnetka, 111. Mrs. James F. Porter, Hubbard Woods, 111. Mrs. Benjamin E. Page, Highland Park, 111. Mrs. C. H. Powell Mrs. Harry B. Page Mrs. Joanna S. Porter Mrs. Josephine Powers Q. Mrs. Emma Quinlan Miss Mary E. Quirk Mrs. Geo. B. Quinn R. Mrs. Milo B. Randall Miss Grace Reed Mrs. John W. Robbins Mrs. Raymond Robbins Mrs. C. N. Rowley Dr. Rose Ryan Dr. Helga Rund Mrs. Ignace Reis Mrs. Julius Rosenwald Mrs. John Emerson Roberts, Park Ridge, III. Mrs. Ransom H. Randall Miss Florence Rutherford Mrs. W. D. Robbins Mrs. A. D. Richey Miss Ella B. Rogers Mrs. A. W'. Roth Mrs. F. K. Rexford Mrs. Frank J. Reis Mrs. Harriet Raby, Congress Park, 111. Diana Ramser, Rock Island, 111. Mary E. Ruddick, Aurora, 111. Mrs. Howard Ray Mrs. Chas. Rubens Mrs. M. L. Rau Mrs. Jas. Regensberg Miss Ella Rowe Mrs. Marc A. Rolfe Mrs. Wm. Radley Miss Thirga Riggs Mrs. Edwin Ramberg iMrs. Andrew J. Ryan Mrs. John Rynders, M’averly, 111. Mrs. Elizabeth Roush Miss Grace Reid Mrs. Fred Rossbach, Oak Park, 111. Mrs. James Regensburg S. Mrs. E. E. Smith Airs. C. G. Snow Airs. Wm. Severin Airs. Geo. Sikes Airs. Geo. Shepherd Dr. Julia Strawn Airs. C. L. Stillman Airs. E. L. Stewart Airs. Albert H. Schweizer Dr. Alarie S. Schmidt Aliss Edith Swift Airs. Alartin Schutze Aliss Hester Stowe Aliss Gertrude Stone Airs. Karl Stecher Airs. Se%Tnon Stedman Airs. Silas Strawn Airs. Dunlap Smith Woman’s Legislative Congress 943 Miss Amelia Stear Dr. Julia Holmes Smith Dr. Clara Seipple Miss Flo Sibbett Mrs. Howard O. Sprogle Mrs. Geo. Steinmetz, Pekin, 111. Miss Jessie Spafford, Rockford, Mrs. C. E. Smoot, Petersburg, 111. Mrs. L. P. Stanwood, Evanston, 111. Miss Emma Steghagen Mrs. Peter Sissman Mrs. Schacter Miss Florence Swain Mrs. G. A. Soden Miss Elizabeth Scanlan Mrs. Emma Scott Mrs. Bertram Sippy Mrs. Samuel J. Sherer Mrs. C. O. Sethness Mrs. Jas. A. Steven Mrs. D. J. Splane Mrs. Fred Starr Mrs. Edward Sprochnle Mrs. Ralph N. Shankland Mrs. Chas. F. Swan Mrs. A. O. Scholes Mrs. Chas. Smith Mrs. W. W. Sammis Mrs. T. E. Swiney Mrs. Jeannette T. Singleton Mrs. Walter Stebbins Mrs. Bertram D. Suker Mrs. Louise Schaffner Mrs. Shannon Mrs. Roger Sullivan Mrs. Thos. W. Smyth Mrs. Frank Sweenie Mrs. J. R. Schofield Mrs. Wm. Smale Mrs. John J. Sloan Mrs. P. C. Schenkelberger Mrs. J. Shorndyke Mrs. Thos. L. Scully Mrs. Max Schlesinger Mrs. Julius Stone Mrs. G. C. Strauss Mrs. Irene Smith, Waverly, 111. Mrs. Zillah Foster Stevens, .\lton, 111. Mrs. Martha Stocking Miss Mary Synon Mrs. E. Schulz, Edison Park, 111. Mrs. Joseph Sabath Mrs. Geo. Sublett Mrs. D. Sullivan Mrs. P. J. Sullivan, Oak Park, 111. T. Mrs. Maud Cain Taylor Mrs. Harriette Tavlor Treadwell Mrs. Grace Wilbur Trout Mrs. Daniel G. Trench Mrs. Lewis Torbett Airs. Alorton W. Thompson, Danville, 111 . Mrs. Chas. W. Thompson Airs. Margaret Taylor Aliss Kate Tehan Miss Minnie Thompson Airs. A. N. Trompen Mrs. E. E. R. Treatman, Wheaton, 111. Airs. Alfred Tilley, Clinton, 111. Mrs. F. C. Test 111. Airs. Fred Tice Mrs. H. F. Thurston, Winnetka, 111. Airs. Edward Tyrrell Airs. Wm. T. Thomas Mrs. Harry Theobald Mrs. Chas. Trainer Airs. Agnes Marie Trick Airs. Jennie Truax Aliss Alice Temple Airs. Alary Topping Airs. Lewis Tabor Miss Grace Temple Airs. E. B. Tuteur Airs. W. Talbott Mrs. John Trainor Airs. Wm. Templeton Dean Marian Talbot Mrs. Elnora Thomson Airs. M. Tower U. Aliss Updegraff Mrs. Caroline Updike Airs. Henry Utpatel Airs. Russell H. Updyke Airs. Wm. C. Undine Airs. Alarie Ulrich, Peoria, 111. Airs. Chas. Ullman Airs. A. H. Linger, LaGrange, 111. V. Aliss Harriett Vittum Airs. J. J. Van Leuven Airs. Harriet Van Der Vaert Aliss Alary Vaughan Mrs. Veiling Mrs. W. H. Vesey Airs. Carl Vrooman, Bloomington, 111. Mrs. Walter J. VanDerslice, Oak Park, 111 . Airs. Louis Virling W. Airs. Anne J. Wood, Galesburg, 111. Mrs. Albert Watson, Mt. Vernon, 111. Mrs. Adelaide Waldorf Airs. Conrad Willems Airs. S. B. Weinberger Mrs. Virginia Brooks Washburne Mrs. Chas. Wilmot, Oak Park, 111. Airs. Celia Parker Wooley Airs. Fannie Barrier Williams Airs. Mary H. Wilmarth Airs. Thos. Webb Aliss Edith Wyatt Airs. A. E. Walker Mrs. Alice Bradford Wiles, River- side, 111. Mrs. Geo. Watkins Airs. Joel Watson, Quincy, 111. 944 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee Mrs. Lloyd C. Whitman, Winnetka, Mrs. Ira C. Wood, Winnetka, 111. Mrs. Willoughby Walling, Hubbard Woods Mrs. Lyman A. Watson Mrs. Payson Weld Mrs. J. W. Wood Mrs. Kate E. Walnath Mrs. W. D. Wollesen Mrs. O. D. Waite Mrs. F. K. White Mrs. W. S. Wallace Mrs. T. M. Wright Mrs. Chas. W. Waterbury, Western Springs, 111. Mrs. Rachel Walton Mrs. J. L. Worvell Mrs. Myron Wittemore, Glen Ellyn Mrs. Widney Mrs. Edward Walker Miss Adah Whitcomb Mrs. Thos. F. Wallace Mrs. G. E. Wilkinson Mrs. L. J. Willner Mrs. J. Edward Wynne Mrs. Chas. Wilson Miss Esther Witkowsky 111. Mrs. G. R. Wright Mrs. Sigmund Wolf Miss Elizabeth Wallace Dr. A. Lindsay Wynekoop Mrs. George Welles Mrs. Edith Wells Mrs. John Worthy Mrs. Fred Wheaton, Wheaton, 111. Miss Grace Wilson, Wheaton, 111. Mrs. Minnie A. White Miss May C. Waters Mrs. Harrison G. Wells Miss Minna K. Weisenbach Mrs. Charles Washburne Mrs. Stephen A. Wood Mrs. Minnie A. White Y. Mrs. Ella Flagg Young Mrs. G. A. Young, V^estern Springs, 111. Mrs. W. F. Young Mrs. Lou Ella Young Z. Mrs. Chas. Zimmerman Dr. Jean Zimmerman IMPORTANCE OF INQUIRY TO THE NATION Many governors and legislatures respond to Com- mittee’s invitation to participate in co-operative cam- paign to rid country of social evil. NOTE. — Your committee herewith presents letters from the chief executives of over two-thirds of the American commonwealths, in response to your committee’s suggestion of uniform action. It was a source of satisfaction to your committee, and doubtless to the mem- bers of the Honorable Senate, whose instructions were followed, that committees were actually created in 32 states and that the year 1913 was characterized by the passage of more legislation for the suppres- sion of vice and the amelioration of the condition of working women than had been enacted by the state legislatures in any year in the his- tory of the Republic. Robert W. Bruere, in Harper’s Magazine for January, 1916, says: “The emotional appeal in behalf of motherhood that followed the recent revelations of commercialized traffic in women had much to do with the enactment of eight minimum wage laws in the single year 1913.” Another writer estimated that voluntary action on the part of employers, following the hearings of your committee, had raised the wages of 500,000 working women. Co-operation in Other States 947 ALABAMA. Executive Department, Montgomery, Alabama. March 27, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of the 7th inst. in reference to the Commission established in your state to investigate the “White Slave” traffic in Illinois. I concur with you that the most effective way to abolish for all time this horrible traffic would be to have a Commission like that in Illinois acting along similar lines in every state in the Union. The legislature in this State will not be in regular session until 1915, but I shall undertake to appoint a voluntary commission to gather up data on this important question so as to secure in combination with other States uniform legislation to solve, as you term, this great American problem. Very truly yours, EMMET O’NEAL, Governor of Alabama. ARIZONA. The Governor’s Office, State House, Phoenix, March 12, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, Springfield, Illinois. My dear Governor: I am in receipt of your letter of the 7th inst. outlining the plans which you have formulated for abolishing white slave traffic and urging me to co-operate with you in this work. As I stated last evening in the telegram addressed by request to the Chicago Tribune, I am heartily in favor of your plan. I cannot, of course, predict just what the attitude of the State Legis- lature will be toward the proposal for a State Commission to investigate this subject in co-operation with similar commissions of other States. I am strongly of the opinion, however, that this matter is one which even a new State like Arizona should deal with earnestly rather than to wait until the white slave traffic presents a truly formidable problem as it does in larger centers of population like Chicago. I trust that in due time you will set forth your plans to me more fully, so that I may assist you in the way that appears most effective. Very sincerely, GEO. M. P. HUNT, Governor of Arizona. 948 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee CALIFORNIA. State of California, Executive Office, Sacramento, March. 28, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. My dear Sir: Your recent letter relating to the investigation you have recently been carrying on concerning the white slave traffic and informing me of the purpose of your Commission to continue its work in the future, has been duly received. Permit me first to congratulate you upon the very excellent results thus far attained. Your Commission has awakened a nation-wide interest in the subject, and has given to all of those dealing with this and kindred subjects added zest in their undertaking. I am endeavoring to have passed by the present legislature a bill for the appointment of a Minimum Wage Commission, and it is my hope and design that this commission may investigate not only the question of minimum wage, but every related subject, and that it may act in conjunc- tion with your Commission, and others that may be appointed in various States. At any rate, rely upon our hearty co-operation in the work that you have undertaken and please feel at liberty at any time to command us. Sincerely, HIRAM W. JOHNSON, Governor of California. COLORADO. State of Colorado, Executive Office, Denver, March 12, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: I am just in receipt of your letter of the 7th inst. with reference to your investigation of the white slave traffic in Illinois. I know very little concerning your line of procedure in this matter and I feel that I should have more detailed information before taking any steps toward an investi- gation here. Assuring you of my desire to co-operate with your State in all matters concerning the general welfare, I am Sincerely yours, E. M. AMMONS, . Governor of Colorado. Co-operation in Other States 949 GEORGIA. State of Georgia, Executive Department, Atlanta, March 10, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Acting Governor of Illinois, Springfield, Illinois. My dear Governor: I have your letter of March 7, regarding proposed commissions in the various States to investigate the “White Slave” traffic. I will be pleased to give the same careful consideration in connection with the preparation of my message to the forthcoming session of the General Assembly. With high regard, Very truly yours, JOSEPH M. BROWN, Governor of Georgia. IDAHO. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. State of Idaho, Governor’s Office, Boise, March 14, 1913. My dear Governor: I am in receipt of your letter of the 7th inst. with reference to the action which is being taken by your State for the control of the “White Slave” traffic. I note also your suggestion that apparently the only favorable plan of effectively controlling this matter is by similar action being taken by all the States of the Union, and perhaps by uniform legislation on this subject. This is, of course, a matter in which we are all interested, and to which we must all give our best efforts in attempting to bring about a satisfactory solution. I am inclined to believe with you that the ultimate solution of this question will be along the lines you suggest. Yours very respectfully, JOHN M. HANES, Governor of Idaho. IOWA. State of Iowa, Executive Department, Des Moines, March 7, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Governor: I am just now in receipt of your letter with reference to the investi- gation of the white slave traffic in the State of Illinois. You say that you 950 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee find that much of the traffic is inter-state and that the rings existing and working in the city of Chicago are working hand in hand with similar rings in Iowa. You suggest that it appears to you that about the only way of breaking up these inter-state arrangements with reference to this abominable practice would be to have similar committees or commissions in, I may say, all of the States so that there could be co-operation of these commissions and among the States. I certainly agree with you that this would seem to be the most effec- tive, if perhaps not the only, way in which to deal with the matter. I shall be very glad indeed to co-operate with you in any way that I can. I do not know but assume that your Commission was appointed as the result of some statute or perhaps a resolution passed by the legislature. I will take this matter up with some of the leading members of our legislature, now in session, and think perhaps I can have the matter eventuate in the appointment of a commission here which I have no doubt would be very glad to co-operate with you and with like commissions in other States. Very truly yours, G. W. CLARKE, Governor of Iowa. KENTUCKY. Commonwealth of Kentucky, Executive Department, Frankfort, March 11, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir; Yours of the 7th inst. was received this morning. I note your statement, that during the first session of a Commission, consisting of four Senators, with the Lieutenant Governor acting as chair- man, to investigate the white slave traffic in Illinois, testimonj- indicated that much of this traffic is interstate, etc. You also state that you are of opinion that the most effective way to abolish this despicable traffic is to have a commission like that in Illinois acting along similar lines in every State in the Union. I shall be very glad to co-operate with you and all others in this matter, and be glad to do all in my power to suppress this traffic. The Legislature of Kentucky will not meet again until the first ^Monda^-^ in next January, and, therefore, I am not able to take any steps in this matter at the present time through the legislature, but I will save your letter and take such action as seems proper when the legislature meets. Respectfulh", JAMES B. McCreary, Governor of Kentucky. Co-operation in Other States 951 MAINE. State of Maine, • Executive Chamber, Augusta, March 12, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: Your letter of March 7th received in regard to the investigation of the “White Slave” traffic now going on in your State. In reply will say that I have no information that anything of the kind is going on in Maine. As you know, we have no large cities, and my attention has not been called to this matter as existing by any particular organizations devoted to the improvement of moral conditions within our state. Our moral problem is with the so-called Prohibitory Law. Personally, I am very much in sympathy with your work, and while our legislature will probably adjourn in two weeks, and there is little time for considering this subject as a matter of legislation, I should be pleased to do anything I can to help along the object you are working to accom- plish. If you can suggest anything that I can do, I will be very glad, as the Chief Executive of this State, to help you. Yours truly, WILLIAM T. HANES, Governor of Maine. MARYLAND. Executive Department, Annapolis, Maryland, March 13, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: 1 am in receipt of your letter dated March 7, 1913, and in reply will say that I am entirely in sympathy with the purposes of the Commission, consisting of four Illinois Senators, with the Lieutenant Governor, your- self, acting as Chairman, in its investigation of the white slave traffic. Some weeks ago I appointed a Commission, upon my own initiative, of fifteen representative citizens of Baltimore, to study the social evil in all of its aspects. The personnel of this commission, including as it does, some of the best known professional men, not only in our own State, but in the country, insures a character of investigation and report along original and constructive lines. It is their intention to bring to the study of this question the full measure of their talents, and to do the work in a manner not herebefore attempted. There has been no appropriation for this purpose, nor are there State funds available for the use of this Commission. They expect to be financially assisted by voluntary contri- butions, and have met with quite a little success in securing these, and hope shortly to go into the actual work contemplated with vigor. The chairman of this commission is Dr. George Walker, 1 E. Center Street, Baltimore, Maryland. You can communicate with him, or with me. 952 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee and either of us will be only too glad to lend you such assistance as may lie within our power; but as this work is being done through this commis- sion, with what assistance I may be able to render in my personal or official capacity, you would probably receive more satisfactory attention should you address your communications directly to Dr. Walker. In the meantime, I will refer your letter to him and have him com- municate directly with you. Very truly yours, P. E. GOLDSBOROUGH, Governor of Maryland. MASSACHUSETTS. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive Department, Boston, March 12, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: I have your letter of March 7th, in relation to your current investi- gation of the so-called white slave traffic in Illinois and suggesting the advisability of creating an investigating commission similar to yours in other States. In reply, I have to say that a resolve has already passed the Senate of Massachusetts and is now pending in the House of Representatives, “to provide for an investigation of the white slave traffic, so-called,” which, if enacted, will authorize the Governor and Council to appoint a commission of five persons with ample authority for the purpose. I have no doubt that this commission will co-operate as fully as possi- ble with your Commissioners in a joint effort to eradicate this form of vice. I wdll instruct the chairman of the commission to notify you of his appointment when and if the House of Representatives passes this resolve (Senate No. 399). Yours very truly, E. N. FOSS. Governor of Massachusetts. {The following letter from the civic secretary of the Boston City Club indicates the sentiment of co-operation in that state:] Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir : During your recent visit to Washington, I wired to a representative of one of the civic 'organizations to invite your Commission to make its headquarters at the Boston City Club when you visited Boston. Later I received a wire saying that you were to return to Springfield immediately, but were to come to Boston later. May I extend, in behalf of the Club, an invitation for 3 'ou to use the Co-operation in Other States 953 Boston City Club upon the occasion of your visit, and may we also arrange for an evening meeting at which you may meet the men of Boston particularly interested in the work of your Commission? In order to make the necessary plans for such a meeting, I would like to have word from you as early as may be convenient, as to the details of the plans for your visit. Yours very truly, ADDISON L. WINSHIP. Civic Secretary of Boston City Club. MICHIGAN. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. State of Michigan, Executive Chamber, Lansing, March 10, 1913. My Dear Sir: My secretary has already acknowledged your letter of March 5th, in relation to investigating “White Slave” traffic. As Governor of Michigan, I appreciate the importance of such an investigation. Within the next forty-eight hours the present legislature will formulate some resolution or bill whereby this work may go on in the State of Michigan. I will do the best I can to have my stenographer send you a report of such action as the Michigan Legislature deems it best to take. Thanking jou for your letter, I am Sincerely yours, WOODBRIDGE N. FERRIS, Governor of Michigan. [Again, on March 2 ^, /p/j. Governor Ferris wrote:] My dear Mr. O’Hara: I have your letter of March 20th in relation to the white slave traffic. We now have a bill pending in relation to this subject. Just as soon as complete action is taken, I will report to you. I am going to try to mail you, under separate cover, a copy of this bill. Thanking j'-ou for your progressive work in this line of investigation, I remain. Sincerely yours, WOODBRIDGE N. FERRIS. Governor of Michigan. MINNESOTA. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. State of Minnesota, Executive Department, St. Paul, March 12, 1913. My Dear Sir: Replying to yours of the 7th inst., I beg to enclose you copy of letter 954 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee of transmittal which I have today sent to the two Houses of the Legisla- ture, and which I hope will receive favorable attention. Yours very truly, ADOLPH O. EBERHART, Governor of Minnesota. ( Enclosure.) March 12, 1913. Hon. J. A. A. Burnquist, President of the Senate, St. Paul, Minnesota. Sir: I am in receipt of a communication from the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Illinois, acting as Chairman of a Commission to investigate the “White Slave Traffic” in the State of Illinois, a copy of which is herewith transmitted. The co-operation of the various States in the enforcement of the Mann Act is of utmost importance and I, therefore, transmit wnth my approval, the communication of the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois for your consideration. Respectfully transmitted, ADOLPH O. EBERHART, Governor of Minnesota. MISSISSIPPI. Executive Department, Jackson, Mississippi, March 11, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. My Dear Sir: I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 7th inst. in regard to the work being done b^^ the Commission, of which you are Chairman, in the investigation of the “White Slave” traffic in Illinois. There is much force in your suggestion that other States create a commission similar to the one you have in Illinois and that through their combined efforts, interchange of ideas and facts, that the vile traffic in women could be finally abolished. Our legislature does not meet until January of next 3 'ear. ^Meantime I will carefully consider j^our suggestions and bring this matter before our legislature. As far as can be ascertained this traffic does not exist in ^lississippi, at least to any appreciable extent, but the ramifications might possibly extend from the larger cities in other States. Yours very truR, EARL BREWER, Governor of Mississippi. Co-ottKATioN IN Other States 955 MISSOURI. Executive Offices, State of Missouri, City of Jefferson, March 11, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: For the Governor, I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 7th inst, and same will have his attention and careful consideration. Very truly yours, JOHN M. ATKINSON, Secretary to the Governor. MONTANA. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Executive Office, Helena, Montana, March 13, 1913. My Dear Governor: I have your letter of March 7th, relative to the proposed Commission to look into the “White Slave” matter, and in reply will say that I shall be pleased to co-operate in any way possible. Kindly keep me advised as to your method of procedure. Yours truly, S. V. STEWART, Governor of Montana. NEW MEXICO. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. State of New Mexico, Santa Ee, March 12, 1913. Dear Sir: I have your letter of the 7th relative to “White Slave” traffic generally. Personally, I am quite willing to co-operate and do anything I can to assist in this matter. I think, however, that it is very doubtful if New Mexico as a State can be counted on for very much. A bill was before the last session of our legislature, also one before this session. The legis- lature will adjourn Friday, so whatever action may be taken will have to be by myself personally. Yours truly, w. c. McDonald, Governor of New Mexico. 956 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee NEW YORK. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. State of New York, Executive Chamber, Albany, March 11, 1913. My Dear Governor: Your letter of the 7th inst. just received. I note carefully all you say, and you can depend on me to co-operate with you and all other good citizens in every way I possibly can to stamp out the White Slave traffic. With best wishes to you an^ Governor Dunne, and hoping to hear from you now and then, believe me, as ever. Very sincerely vour friend, WM. SULZER, Governor of New York. [The following invitation from the City Club of New York, 55 ll^est Forty-fourth street, is an indication of the spirit of co-operation in that metropolis :] The City Club of New York, 55 AVest Forty-fourth Street, March 13, 1913. Lieutenant Governor O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. My Dear Sir: The City Club of New York, a non-partisan municipal organization, with a membership of approximately 1,300 and a fine clubhouse in the heart of the Borough of Manhattan, invites you and the other members of your Commission to make such use of the house, for conferences and the like, as you may find desirable on your proposed visit to New York next week. The club is deeplj^ interested in the subject of vice, has a strong committee on the police, and its secretary is the secretary of the Citizens’ Committee in New York dealing with that subject. Many of the important city officials are members of the club. ^*erv respectfully yours, CHARLES H. STRONG. President. NORTH CAROLINA. State of North Carolina, Executive Department, Raleigh, March 13, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Governor: Certainl}" all the States should co-operate to put an end to the white slave traffic, which is one of the gravest crimes known to our civilization. Co-operation in Other States 957 Our general assembly is not in session at present, and I have no power to appoint the commission that you suggest. Yours truly, LOCKE CRAIG, Governor of North Carolina. OHIO. State of Ohio, Executive Department, Columbus, March 17, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. My Dear Governor: The pressure of official duties here accounts for this belated response to your letter of the 7th inst. However, my position with reference to the “White Slave” question was expressed in a telegram sent to the Chicago Tribune in response to an inquiry. We are going into the matter here, and hope to work something out. Very truly yours, JAMES M. COX, Governor of Ohio. OKLAHOMA. State of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, March 12, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: I have your favor of March 7th calling attention to the work being done by your Committee dealing with the “White Slave” traffic in Illinois. I am thoroughly in sympathy with any movement that will tend to stamp out this crime, and if there is anything that I can do that will aid in bringing about this desired result, I will be glad to contribute my efforts. Yours truly, LEE CRUCE, Governor of Oklahoma. 958 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee OREGON. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. State of Oregon, Executive Department, Salem, March 14, 1913. My Dear Mr. O’Hara; I am in receipt of yours of March 7th, in regard to the co-operation of this State with the State of Illinois and your Commission, relative to the regulation of the “White Slave’’ traffic. I am enclosing you a copy of the Minimum Wage Law enacted b}' the legislature just adjourned. I would also cite you to the Oregon White Slave Act, Chapter 68 of the General Laws of Oregon for 1911. This is an act modeled after the Mann White Slave Act. The prosecuting officers of this State are now co-operating and will continue to co-operate with the federal authorities in a strict enforcement of this statute, and I trust that in this way the State of Oregon will be able to do much in conjunction with the excellent work which your Commission has attempted in the State of Illinois. Wishing you the utmost success in your work, I am. Very truly yours, OSWALD WEST. Governor of Oregon. RHODE ISLAND. State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Executive Department, Providence, March 15, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: Your letter of the 7th inst., addressed to his Excellency the Governor, is received at this department and will be brought to his attention at the €rst opportunity. Very respectfully yours, EDW. P. TOBIN, Executive Secretarj-. SOUTH CAROLINA. State of South Carolina, Executive Department, Columbia, March 12, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: In reply to your letter of March 7, I desire to state that South Carolina has not been troubled with violations of the “White Slave” Act to any appreciable extent, so far as I know, but as the “White Slave” Co-operation in Other States 959 traffic seems to be a serious menace in many other sections of the country, it seems to me that uniform legislation by the States, working in conjunc- tion with the Federal authorities, as suggested in your letter, might prove effective. If there is any way I can be of assistance to you in the matter, I would be glad to hear from you. Very respectfully, COLE L. BLEASE, Governor of South Carolina. SOUTH DAKOTA. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Executive Department, State of South Dakota, Pierre, March 15, 1913. Dear Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter of recent date. I note with interest your statements in regard to the work of the Legisla- tive Commission headed by yourself, now investigating the “White Slave” traffic, especially as it centers in Chicago. Our legislature recently adjourned and will not be in session again until January, 1915. There is no provision for such investigating com- mission as you refer to. Having no large city in our State, the conditions in regard to this traffic and its attendant evils are not so acute here. Our people, however, are, and will be, very much interested in the investigation and disclosures made by your Commission and others. I regard this traffic in girls and women, and the shameful conditions that go with and follow from it, as amongst the greatest evils of the day, and a reproach and disgrace to our civilization, and I shall be glad to co-operate in any practical, effective movement looking to its suppression. Yours sincerely, F. M. BYRNE, Governor of South Dakota. TENNESSEE. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Executive Chamber, State of Tennessee, Nashville, March 13, 1913. Dear Sir: Rej)lying to your favor of the 7th inst., addressed to Governor Hooper, with reference to commission to investigate the white slave traffic in Illinois, and asking his co-operation in the appointment of a like commis- sion in Tennessee, I beg leave to advise that this matter will be called to his attention as soon as he returns to the office. Yours very truly, GEO. C. TAYLOR, Secretary. 960 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee [An indication of the spirit of co-operation in Tennessee is seen in the following telegram from H. B. Carr, Vanderbilt University, Nash- ville, Tenn.:] Nashville, Tennessee, March 25, 1913. Lieutenant Governor O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Shall appreciate information regarding Illinois Senate Commission on white slavery. Was it appointed by Governor or Lieutenant Governor, or elected by Senate? Why does it contain no members of Lower House? How large is it? In your opinion, would such a commission be advisable for Tennessee? Wire collect. H. B. CARR, Vanderbilt University. [Chairman O’Hara’s reply to the above telegram:] Springfield, Illinois, March 27, 1913. H. B. Carr, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. Illinois White Slave Committee w'as created by Senate resolution pro- viding for four members, besides Lieutenant Governor as Chairman. Man}' Illinois committees have been from one House or the other. It seems to us that committee of three or five can do more effective work than larger body. I certainly believe that a similar commission for Tennessee would be decidedly advisable. BARRATT O’HARA. TEXAS. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Governor’s Office, Austin, Texas, March 12, 1913. Dear Sir: Your letter of March 7th reached me this morning. I would be glad to see laws perfected for the protection of the young women whom you seem to be trying to shield and protect in your State. I approved a very drastic bill passed by the last session of the legislature on this subject. I beg to call your attention to Chapter , General L^ws, of the Thirty-second Legislature, which I am sure you will find in the office of your Secretary of State. After you have read this statute I will be glad to hear from you further as to what amendment you think- ought to be made to it. Yours trulv. O. B. COLQUITT, Governor of Texas. Co-operation in Other States 961 UTAH. . Executive Office, State of Utah, Salt Lake City, April 1, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. My Dear Governor: Your communication of March 7th was received by me too late to permit of presentation of its contents to the legislature of this State before its adjournment. I am in hearty sympath’' with your suggestion that commissions be appointed in the various States for the purpose of investigating and rooting out of the white slave evil and regret exceedingly that your sug- gestion was not received in time to secure legislative action thereon. -In the meantime, for your information, I beg to state that at the legislative session of 1911 a pandering law was passed. The Federal officials as well as the local officials have been active in their campaign against this vice and you maj" be assured that there is a strong sentiment aroused in this State against this evil. If you can offer any suggestions as to further action to be taken in this State, I will be pleased to receive them. Very truly yours, WILLIAM SPRY, Governor of Utah. VERMONT. Executive Department, State of Vermont, Proctorsville, Vt., March 31, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir: Your favor of the 13th relative to the “White Slave” traffic in Illinois is at hand. I can understand that a commission in each State operating and acting to a common end would be of material service along the lines you suggested. Ver3r truly yours, ALLEN M. FLETCHER. Governor of Vermont. VIRGINIA. Commonwealth of Virginia, Governor’s Office, Richmond, March 12, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Governor O’Hara: I have yours of March 7th, and whik according to_ the definition given to the “White Slave” traffic, there is little, if any, of it in this State, 962 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee yet there are practices which ought to be corrected, and I stand ready to co-operate with you in every possible way for the protection of the purity of our girls and boys. Our State Board of Charities and Corrections, 1 am sure, will be glad to make such inquiries as your Commission may think necessary. Rev. J. T. Mastin, of this city, is the Secretary, and you will find him a most efficient man. Verv truly yours, WM. HODGES MANN,^ Governor of Virginia. WASHINGTON. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. State of Washington, Office of Governor, Olympia, April 8, 1913. My Dear Sir; Your letter of the 7th ult. came to hand and I read what j'ou wrote concerning the formation of a commission in connection with the fight against the “White Slave” traffic carefully. I have been extrernely busy ever since the adjournment of the legislature and am just leaving for a trip throughout the State to visit the various State Institutions, making it possible for me to give attention to this matter. I am filing your letter and will take it up at a later date. Sincerely yours, ERNEST LISTER. Governor of Washington. WEST VIRGINIA. State of West Virginia, Governor’s Offices, Charleston, March 11, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. I am in receipt of your letter of the 7th inst., ^lative to appointing a commission to investigate the “White Slave traffic. In reply ^eg say that I am in sympathy with any move which has for its purpose the destruction of this evil, and believe that the States, by proper legislation, can aid very materially in making the Federal law more effective. I am of the opinion that your idea of the several States appointing a commission is a good one. and with that end in view shall give it turther thought and investigation. At all times I shall be ^ad to co-operate you m helping to bring about more uniform and effective laws to handle this vice. , ours verv sincereljq H. D. HATFIELD, Governor of West Virginia. Co-operation in Other States 963 WISCONSIN. Hoii. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Executive Chamber, Madison, Wisconsin, March 11, 1913. Dear Sir: In repfir to your esteemed favor of the 6th inst., I am directed by Governor McGovern to assure you that the State of Wisconsin is in full sympathy with j'our State in the investigation of vice causes and conditions. Your letter has been called to the attention of interested and influential parties who are already taking steps looking to the furthering of the great reform in which you are engaged. You are to be highly congratulated on the vigorous manner in which you are prosecuting this matter. Very truly yours, DUNCAN McGregor, Private Secretary. WYOMING. The State of Wyoming, Executive Department, Cheyenne, March 10, 1913. Hon. Barratt O’Hara, Springfield, Illinois. Dear Sir; Your letter of the 7th inst. interests me very much. However, our legislature has adjourned now for two years and nothing can be done in a legislative way. Probably nothing would have been done even if the matter had been suggested in time, as the legislature was not disposed to act upon new things. I believe you are getting to the root of the evil. There are bad men and bad women even where they are getting good wages, but starvation wages must be a great incentive for women who are otherwise good, to fall down. Your investigations in Chicago are very interesting, and the heads of great houses that you have examined could just as easily pay their saleswomen, errand-women and charwomen better wages without materially affecting the dividends; and whether or not it does affect the dividends, the reform you are undertaking in Illinois is worthy of their encouragement. You have my best wishes in your work. Very truly yours, JOSEPH M. CAREY, Governor of Wyoming. INDEX TO TESTIMONY AND WITNESSES. CAFES AND CABARET RESTAURANTS: (See also Dance Halls and Public Dancing.) Testimony. Novak, Robert C 448 Brittain, Mrs. Gertrude Howe 466 T , Mrs. J. D 471 G , L 472 Mueller, H. H 473 Carvin, Jack 469, 474 Coan, M. Blair 475 Harding, John J 475 Farley, M. J 476 “Natalie” 476 Ferrari, Martin 477 Frank, Abe 478 W , E 481 Tosaphare, Maude T 481 H , H 481 Richter, Chas. M 483 Gregg, C 483 Stimpson, O. B 484 Wilson, George H 485 Wilson, Dora 485 Jones, Roy 503 Fozzo, R 511 Described in testimony of witnesses: Casino Cafe, Chicago 215 Jones (Roy) Cafe, Chicago 466, 469, 471, 473, 475, 476, 477, 503 Maxim’s Cafe, Chicago 449 Rector’s Restaurant, Chicago 476, 478 States Restaurant, Chicago 484, 485 Note : Cafes and cabaret restaurants in other Illinois cities are covered in reports of the Committee’s investigators, but names are withheld be- cause opportunity was not had to verify said reports (see page 807)'. ■‘CALL SYSTEM,” THE : Testimony. Buzzell, Miss Belle 173, 174 M , M 580 Patton, Florence 583 Underwood, John H 589 Golden, Rev. John R 600 COST OF LIVING TO INDIVIDUAL WORKERS : (See Minimum Wage.) COST OF FAMILY SUPPORT: ' (See Minimum Wage.) CORPORATIONS, PROFITS OF .- 68S 965 966 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee DANCE HALLS AND PUBLIC DANCING: Testimony. Brittain, Mrs. Gertrude Howe 451, 431 Yondorf, August 437 Bowen, Mrs. Louise 453 Abe, Frank 479 losaphare, Maude J 482 Stimpson, O. B 484 Wilson, George H 485 Wilson, Dora 485 Bement, Frank 487 Bassett, Walter 490 McGuire, F. T 493 Johnson, Godfrey 496 Fozzo, R 511 Quale, Dr. C 512 Schoen, Wm. J 514 Shemberg, Wm 544, 516 Williams, Rev. Elmer 522 Field, Ed 544 Phelps, R. B 546 Long, Mrs. Margaret 551 Olson, Frank 554 Taylor, Prof. Graham 667 Halls and public dances described bj- witnesses: Chicago. Columbia Hall 493 Dearborn Club Hall 496, 552, 553 Dreamland Hall 432, 487 East End Hall 490 Felicity Club Hall 554 Freiburg’s Hall 504, 551 Germania Hall 436, 461 Hesperian Hall 4o9 Rector’s Restaurant 476, 478 Rod’s Hall 517, 5M Schemberg’s Hall 516, oo4 Schiller Hall 4o9 Schlitz Hall 457 Schoenhofen Hall 514 States Restaurant 484, 48.-' Vermont Hall I 431,513,546,552 Yondorf’s Hall 436' DOMESTIC SERVICE: Its unpopularity as a field for wage-earning. Birney, Mrs. A. A 368 A recruiting field for vice. Bowen, Mrs. Louise Finch, G. Stanley 304 EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES: Testimony. Beall, Hon. Edmond F. . . Tollman, George HOTELS: Testimonv. S , AI Tollman, George iMcHenry, E. L Index to Testimony and Witnesses 967 (Hotels — Continued) Hardin, Fred H 538 C , Mrs. W 540 C Mr 541 L , A ■ 542 J , E 542 W , John 543 H , Marie 543 Venable, Mr. and Mrs. C. W 603, 566 Clybourne, Grace 569, 577 M , T 573 S , H 575 M^ , M 579 Wineteer, Chas. G 592 Little, G. J 595 Golden, Rev. John R 599 Phillips, David. L 604 Hotels described in testimony of witnesses: Chicago. Bresland 429 Cadillac 210 Casino 215 Cecil 554 LaSalle House 443 LaPlant 429 Marlborough 504, 554 Morrison 429 Normandy - 533, 540, 541, 542, 543, 553 Royal 462 Superior 425, 554 Springfield. Cliff 577, 578 Palace 579, 587 Park 562, 577, 587, 592 Victor .562, 566, 570, 575, 587, 595, 599, 603 (Hotels in other Illinois cities are covered in reports of the Committee’s investigators, but names are withheld be- cause opportunity was not had to verify said reports. See p. 807.) LIQUOR — in resorts and its relation to the vice problem: Testimony. Farwell, Arthur Burrage 168 Ballam, Mary F 175 Forrest, Olla 565 Patton, Florence 582 LTnderwood, John H .' 590 Phillips, David L 605 Taylor, Prof. Graham 667 PANDERING: Testimony. M , Mrs. Z, F , G B , E T , E Frank, H. R O , A N — , J Brooks, Miss Virginia . Farwell, Arthur Burrage Buzzell, Miss Belle .... 135 .... 137 . ... 139 . ... 140 . ... 149 .... 151 . ... 155 .... 157 . . . . 160 . . . . 168 172, 173 968 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (Pandering — Continued) Ballam, Mary M 176 M , P 190’ W , L 230 J , P, 293 Foster, Ardeen 350 Finch, G. Stanley 353 Rubens, Walter J 376, 377 Bower, Wililma F 510 Williams, Rev. Elmer 522 PROSTITUTION; Professional prostitutes, testimony of. H , 1 215 Hall, Georgia 327 Hartman, Bertha 334 C , M 334 Mueller, Sarah 529 Forrest, Olla 563 Patton, Florence 582 Profits of. M , R 212 Hall, Georgia 327 C , M 332 Mueller, Sarah 531 PUBLIC HEARINGS HELD BY THE COMMITTEE: At Chicago — Session I 131 Session II 149 Session HI 167 Session I\' 177 Session V 195 Session VI 217 Session VII 233 Session VIII 249 Session XII 375 Session XIII 407 Session XIV 421 Session XV 423 Session XVI 443 Session XVII 469 Session XVIII 487 Session XIX 503 Session XX 529 Session XXIV 659 Session XXV 679 Session XXVI 711 Session XXVII 739 Session XXVIII 769 At Springfield — Session XXI 559 Session XXII 603 Session XXIII 633 At \\’ashington — Session XI '. 347 At Peoria — Session IX 281 Session X 309 At Alton — Session XXIX 789 Index to Testimony and Witnesses 969 SOCIAL DISEASES — -Testimony and statistics: Woodward, Dr. William G 367 Folkner, Dr. Elnora C 372 (See also chapter on Prevalence of Social Diseases, p. 875.) VICE, EXPERIENCES WITH: Personal testimony of principals: H , R 131 F , G : . . . 137 B , E 139 T ^ , E 140 O , A 151 M , J 155 L , F 163 M , P 190 B , P . 210 R , A 210 M , R 211 R , R 214 C , L 213 H , 1 215 , L 230 S , C 291 T , P 293 S , R 330 C- , M 332 B , G 336 D , L 341 S , M 423 As told to employers and recounted by them in testimo^^^ Block, Henry C 299 Rubens, Walter J 376 Peterson, Carrie 408 As told by other observers and investigators. Barrett, Robert S 370 Tollman, George 446 Williams, Rev. Elmer 520 WELFARE INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS: Their purposes, operation and conduct. Collins, Mrs. Mary 164 Farwell, Arthur Burrage 168 WAGES — Paid to Girl Workers: In retail stores and mall order houses. Employes’ testimony. Benson, Eleanor 187 Houck, Emilv 188 R , R^ 214 S , C 292 Barnes, Mary 607 Kane, Sylvia 610 ]\IcGill, Agnes 614 Briggs, Pearl 618 Emplo 5 fers’ testimony. Rosenwald, Julius 177, 184 Miller, George H 178 Rosenwald, Lessing J 184 Mandel, Edwin F 195 Dunne, Peter J 197 Simpson, James 202 Shayne, Roy 209 970 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (Wages — In retail stores and mail-order houses — Continued) Hillman, Edward 217 Lytton, George 237 Thorne, Wm. C 249 Pirie, John T 261 Lehmann, Edward J 266 Ellinger, Albert 274 Persons, W. E 281, 319 Young, Frank J 283 Heidrick, Edw. C 286 Block, Henry C 295 Greer, Thomas L 311 Bush, Frank 313 Givins, H. H 321 Roos, W. J 322 Gasque, C. W 693 Steele, L. R 695 Harris, Abraham 763 Gates, W. C 796 Other witnesses. Kahn, Mrs. Adolph 360 Pierce, Julian 360 Ransome, Mrs. Virginia 361 In domestic service: Employes’ testimony. B , G 339 In manufacturing industries: Employes’ testimony. B , P 210 M , R 211 D , L 341 Berenson, Esther 386 Davidowitz, Mary 387 Schultz, Rebecca 392 Schwartz, Sarah 394 Siegel, Mrs 400 Kaplan, Libby 401 Fox, Lizzie 402 Rosini, Helen 404 Kaplan, Anna 410 Barnes, Mary 607 Kane, Sylvia 612 McGill, Agnes 615 Briggs, Pearl 619 Ehlert, Ella 635 Patters, Viola 635 Balter, Margaret 635 IMorris, Della 637 IMalinski. Emma 638 Fromm, Hadia 638 Tacoma, Regina 640 Casper, Mary 641 Troth, Mary 643 Holtzman, Jennie 645 Fh'iin, Lucille 646 Young, Anna 648 Lee, Margaret 649 Employers’ testimony. Rubens, Walter J 375 Goldberg, Hj'man 389 Nathan, Louis 397 Peterson, Carrie 407 Index to Testimony and Witnesses 971 (Wages — In manufacturing industries — Continued) Riesenfield, Victor Cable, George Derby, Charles W' Coates, Fred R Alexander, Wm Jones, E. C Swift, Louis F Harding, M. D Charles, C. L Other testimony. Harvey, Willis E In telephone work: Employes’ testimony. C , L S , R In laundries: Employes’ testimony. R , A C , M B- , G Pierce, Julian Employers’ testimony. Munger, George E In theatrical work: Employes’ testimony. Fullerton, Jeanette In hotels and restaurants: Employes’ testimony. Tollman, George M , M Employers’ testimony: Frank, Abe Stimpson, O. B Rosseau, Jacque In institutions as nurses and attendants: Cohn, Dr. Eugene In educational work: Young, Mrs. Ella Flagg Judson, Dr. Harry Pratt. Harris, Dr. A. W 411 411 621 629 650 659 698 701 706 661 213 331 210 294 332 337 360 681 309 .... 443 . ... 579 . ... 481 . . . . 484 674, 679 .... 326 .... 754 . . . . 769 .... 778 WAGES: Low Wages, their responsibility for vice. Wage-earners’ testimonj^ S , R 331 C , M 334 Hartman, Bertha 336 D , L 343 B , G 340 Forrest, Olla 564 Patton, Florence 585 Other witnesses’ testimony. Kuch, Henry G 343 Foster, Ardeen 350 Finch, G. Stanley 355 Hopkins, Mrs. Archibald 357 Wiley, Mrs. Harvey W 362 Barrett, Robert S 369 Brittain, Mrs. Gertrude Howe 434, 466 Bowen, Mrs. Louise 454 972 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (Wages — Low wages, their responsibility for vice — Continued) Bower, Wm. F 509 Williams, Rev. Elmer 520 Howse, E. J 525 Taylor, Prof. Graham 656 Swift, Louis F 699 Young, Mrs. Ella Flagg 754 Minimum Wage, The. Kahn, Mrs. Adolph 359 Taylor, Prof. Graham 670 Harding, M. D 703 Young, Mrs. Ella Flagg 752 For Girl VVorkers — the lowest amount upon which a self-de- pendent girl or woman can feed, clothe and maintain herself in ordinary comfort for one week — • As estimated by girl workers. C , L 214 S , C 292 J , P 293 S , R 331 C , M 334 B , G 340 D L 343 Kaplan, Libby.. 402 Morris, Della 637 As estimated by employers: Rosenwald, Julius 185 Simpson, James 204 Hillman, Edward 219 Simpson, James 233 Lytton, George 237 Thorne, Wm. C 251 Pirie, John T 263 Lehmann, Edward J 267 Ellinger, Albert 276 Young, Frank J 284 Heidrick, Edward C 291 Block, Henry C 297, 303 Greer, Thomas L 313 Bergner, P. A 318 Bush, Frank 318 Givins, H. H .• 321 Roos, W. J 325 Kuch, Henry G 346 Nathan, Louis 398 Riesenfield, Victor 414 Munger, George E 686 Steele, L. R 698 Swift, Louis F 699 Charles, C. L 709 Gates, W. C 796 As estimated by other witnesses: Ballam, Mary F 176 Glenn, John M 226 Hopkins, Mrs. Archibald 357 Kahn, Mrs. Adolph 360 Ransome, Mrs. Virginia 362 Neligh, Mrs. Clara 363 Wiley, Mrs. Harvey W 363 Woodward, Dr. Wm. G 366, 379 Rubens, W^alter J 385 Bowen, Mrs. Louise 455 Schepp, John S 561 Index to Testimony and Witnesses 973 (Wages — Alinimum, The — Continued) For Family Support; For Married Men — the lowest weekly wage upon which a married man can support himself and a family — • As estimated by wage-earners. Siegel, Mrs 401 Tollman, George 447 As estimated by employers. Reynolds, George M 711 Simpson, James 713 Lehmann, Edward J 719, 764 Forgan, David R 722 Rosenwald, Julius 724 Pirie, John T 732 Mitchell, John J 734 Robinson, Theo. W 739 Blair, Henry A 747 Forgan, James B 755 Basch, Joseph L 758 Harris, Abraham 763 Abbott, Wm. T 776, 783 Busby, Leonard A 784 As estimated by other witnesses. Young, Mrs. Ella Elagg 749 Tudson, Prof. Harry 769 Harris, Prof. A. W 778 Campbell, E. E 799 WITNESSES EXAMINED BY THE COMMITTEE; Employers and employes’ executives. Abbott, Wm. T., Vice-Pres., Central Trust Co. of Illinois 776, 783 Alexander, Wm., Foreman, International Shoe Co 650 Anthony, J. R., Emporium-World Millinery Store 421 Basch, Joseph, Manager, Siegel, Cooper & Co 240, 758 Bergner, P. A., Pres., P. A. Bergner & Co 313 Bezark, Lemuel, Leslie Millinery Co 421 Blair, Henry A., Chairman Board of Directors, Chicago Railways.. 747 Bleeks, Tolbert T., Valentine Dressmaking School 421 Block, Carl, Sec’y, Schipper & Block 294 Block, Henry C., Pres., Schipper & Block 294 Bosley, D. S., Jenkins & Co 421 Bush, Frank, Sec’y, P. A. Bergner & Co 313 Burnham, E., E. Burnham & Co 421 Busby, Leonard, Mgr., Chicago City Railways 784 Cable, George, Cashier, Rosenwald & Weil 411 Charles, C. L., Asst. Supt., Morris & Co 707 Coates, Fred R., Watch Material Manufacturer 629 Derby, Chas. W., Supt., International Shoe Co 621 Dunne, Peter J., Supt., Mandel Brothers 195 Ellinger, Albert, Mgr., Boston Store 274 Forgan, David R., Pres., National City Bank 722 Forgan, James B., Pres., First National Bank 755 Frank, Abe., Mgr., Rector’s Restaurant 478 Gasque, C. W., Auditor, F. W. Woolworth & Co 693 Gates, W. C., Dry Goods Merchant 796 Givins, H. H., Garment Manufacturer 321 Glenn, John M., Sec’y, Illinois Manufacturers’ Association 223 Goldberg, Hyman, Millinery Manufacturer 389 Greer, Thomas L., Mgr., Clark & Co 311 Griesman, D. A., Mgr., Palmers Cloak Store 421 Griswold, C. C., Mgr., F. W. Woolworth & Co., Chicago 421 Harding, M. D., Supt., Armour & Co 701 Harris, Abraham, Pres., Chicago Housewrecking Co 763 974 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (Witnesses — Employers and employes’ executives — Continued) Heidrick, Edw. C., Cordage Manufacturer 286 Heidrick, Richard, Cordage Manufacturer 286 Hillman, Edward, Pres., Hillman & Co 217 Jones, E. C., Broom Manufacturer 659 Kesner, A. L., Mgr., Evan Lloyd & Co 421 Komiss, David, Mgr., Stanley, Williams & Co 421 Kuch, Henry Ci., Steuben & Kuch, Can Manufacturers 343 Kupper, Harry, Mgr., Model Cloak Store 421 Lehmann, Edw. J., Pres., The Fair 265, 719, 764 Lytton, George, Vice-Pres., The Hub 236 Mandel, Edwin F., Pres., Mandel Brothers 195 Melando, Salvatore, Mgr., B. F. Rubel & Co 421 Miller, D. F., Mgr., Cutler Shoe Co 421 Miller, Geo. H., Emp. Mgr., Sears Roebuck & Co 178 Mitchell, John J., Pres., Illinois Trust & Savings Bank 734 Munger, Geo. E., Pres., Monger’s Laundry Co 681 Nathan, Louis, Pres., Nathan & Grossman Mfg. Co 397 Persons, W. E., Mgr., Larkin & Co 281, 319 Pirie, John T., Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co 260, 732 Reynolds, George M., Pres., Cont. & Commercial Nat. Bank 711 Rich, A1 H., Mgr., A. Bishop & Co.‘. 421 Riesenfield, Victor, Supt., Rosenwald & A’eil 411 Robinson, Theo. W., Vice-Pres., Illinois Steel Co 739 Roos, W. J., Mgr., Putnam’s 5 & 10c Store 322 Rosenwald, Julius, Pres., Sears, Roebuck & Co 177, 184, 724 Rosenwald, Lessing J., Dept. Mgr., Sears, Roebuck & Co 184 Rosseau, Jacque, Concessionaire 674, 678 Rubens, Walter J., Pres., Rubens & Alarble, ^Manufacturers 375 Schnadig, Julius J., Friend’s Cloak Store 421 Schwab, Henry C., Abce-Pres., A. M. Rothschild & Co 271 Shayne, Roy, Pres., John T. Shaj-ne & Co 209 Simon, Louis F., A'lgr., Maurice Rothschild 421 Simpson, James, Vice-Pres., Marshall Field & Co 202, 204, 233, 713 Steele, L. R., Mgr., Knox 5 & 10c Store 695 Stevens, Thomas A., Chas. A. Stevens & Bros 421 Stimpson, O. B., Mgr., The States Restaurant 484 Swift, Louis F., Pres., Swift & Co 698 Thorne, Wiliam C., Vice-Pres., Montgomery Ward & Co 2-19 Vierbuchen, W. V., Mgr., Palmer House 421 Young, Frank J., Mgr., F. W. Woolworth & Co., Peoria 283, 321 Employing firms and cornorations wFose rfiPrials or executives were examined as witnesses before the Committee: Armour & Company, Packers. Chicago, M. D. Harding, Supt Bergner, P. A., & (To., General ^Merchandise, Peoria, P. .-V. Bergner, Pres., Frank Bush, Sec’y Bishop, A. & Co., Retail Hats and Furs, Chicago, A\ H. Rich Boston Store, General Merchandise. Chicago, Albert Ellinger, Mgr. Burnham, E. & Co., Hair Goods Mfrs., E. Burnham. Pres Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., General Merchandise, Chicago. John T. Pirie •; -60. Central Trust Co. of Illinois, Bankers, Chicago, M'illiam T. Abbojt, Vice-Pres M6, Chicago House Wrecking Co., IMail Order, Chicago, Abraham Har- ris, Pres Chicago Railways Co., Street Railway, Chicago, Henry A. Blair. Chairman Board of Directors Leonard A. Busby, klgr Clark & Co., Dry (Joods, Peoria, Thomas L. Greer, Mgr Coates, Fred R., Mfr. Watch Materials, Springfield. Continental & Commercial National Bank, Chicago, George iM. Reynolds, Pres Cutler Shoe Co., Retail Shoes, Chicago, D. F. Miller, Mgr 701 313 421 274 421 732 783 763 747 784 311 629 711 421 Index to Testimony and Witnesses 975 (Witnesses — Employing firms and corporations — Conlinited) Emporium-World, Retail Millinery, J. R. Anthony, Mgr 421 Fair, The, General Merchandise, Chicago, Edward J. Lehmann, Field, Marshall, & Co., General Merchandise, Chicago, James Simp- First National Bank, Chicago, James B. Forgan, Pres 755 Friend’s Cloak Store, Chicago, Julius J. Schnadig, Mgr 421 Gates, ^V. C., Retail Dry Goods, Alton 796 Givins, H. H., Garment Mfr., Peoria 321 Goldberg, Hyman, Millinery Mfr., Chicago 389 Heidrick, E. C. & Co., Cordage Mfrs., Peoria, Edward C. Heidrick, Pres.; Richard Heidrick 286 Hillman & Co., General Merchandise, Chicago, Edward Hillman, Pres 217 Hub, The, Retail Clothing, Chicago, George Lytton, Vice-Pres . . . . 236 Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Chicago, John M. Glenn, Sec’y. 223 Illinois Steel Co., IManufacturers, Chicago, Theo. ^V. Robinson, A’ice-Pres 739 Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, Chicago, John J. Mitchell, Pres 734 International Shoe Co., Shoe Mfrs., Springfield, Charles W. Derby, Supt 650 Wm. Alexander, foreman 621 Jenkins & Co., Retail Clothing, Chicago, D. S. Bosley 421 Jones, E. C., Broom Mfr., Chicago 659 Knox 5 and 10c Store, Retailers, Chicago, L. R. Steele, Mgr 695 Larkin & Co., Mail Order, Peoria, W. E. Persons, Mgr,. 281, 319 Leslie Millinery Co., Retailers, Chicago, Lemuel Bezark 421 Lloyd, Evan, & Co., General Mdse., Chicago, A. L. Kesner, Mgr.. .. 421 Mandel Brothers, Gleneral Mdse., Chicago, Edwin F. Mandel, Pres., Model Cloak Store, Retail Clothing, Chicago, Harry Kupper, Mgr.. 421 Morris & Compan}', Packers, Chicago, C. L. Charles, Asst. Supt. . . . 707 Munger’s Laundry Co., Launderers, Chicago, George E. Munger, Pres 681 Nathan & Grossman Mfg. Co., Garment Mfrs., Chicago, Louis Na- than, Pres 397 National Citj^ Bank, Chicago, David R. Forgan, Pres 722 Palmer’s Cloak Store, Retail Clothing, Chicago, D. A. Griesman, Mgr 421 Putnam’s 5 and 10c Store, Retailers, Peoria, W. J. Ross, Mgr 322 Rector’s Restaurant, Chicago, Abe Frank, Mgr 478 Rosenwald & Weil, Clothing Mfrs., Chicago, Victor Riesenfeld, Supt., George Cable, Cashier 411 Rosseau, Jacque. Concessionaire. Chicago 647, 678 Rothschild, A. M., & Co., General Mdse., Chicago, Henry C. Schwab, Vice-Pres r 271 Rothschild, Maurice, Retail Clothing, Chicago, Louis F. Simon, Mgr 421 Rubel, B. F., & Co., Retail Confectioners, Chicago, Salvatore Me- lando, Mgr 421 Rubens & Marble, Underwear Mfrs., Chicago, Walter J. Rubens, Pres 325 Schipper & Block, General Mdse., Peoria, Henry C. Block, Pres., Sears, Roebuck & Co., Mail Order, Chicago, Julius Rosenwald, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Dept. Mgr 184 George H. Miller, Employment Mgr 178 Shayne, John T. & Co., Retail Furs, Chicago, Roy Shayne, Pres. . . . 209 Siegel, Cooper & Co., General Mdse., Chicago, Joseph Basch, Mgr. 240, 758 976 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (Witnesses — Employing firms and corporations — Continued) Stanley, Williams & Co., Retail Clothing, Chicago, David Komiss, Mgr 421 States Restaurant, Chicago, O. B. Stimpson, Mgr 484 Steuben & Kuch, Can Mfrs., Peoria, H. G. Kuch 343 Stevens, Charles A., & Bros., General Mdse., Chicago, Thomas A. Stevens 421 Swift & Co., Packers, Chicago, Louis F. Swift, Pres 698 Valentine Dressmaking School, Chicago, Tolbert T. Bleeks 421 W’ard, Montgomery, & Co., Mail Order, Chicago, W. C. Thorne, Vice-Pres 249 Woolworth, F. W., & Co., Retail Mdse., Chicago, C. C. Griswold, Mgr 421 C. W. Gasque, Auditor 693 Woolworth, F. W., & Co., Retail Mdse., Peoria, Frank J. Young, Mgr 283, 321 Wit’''<',‘^ses oth^r than employers: Girl Wage Workers: ualLtr, -iia. garei 635, 647 Barnes, Mary 607 Benson, Eleanor 187 Berenson, Esther 386 Brennan, Margaret 633, 648 Briggs, Pearl 618 Caspar, Mary 641 Davidowitz, Mary^ ■. . 387 Ehlert, Ella 635 Flynn, Lucille 646 Fox, Lizzie 402 Fromm, Hadia 638 Holtzmann, Jennie 645 Houck, Emily 188 Kane, Sylvia 610 Kaplan, Anna 410 Kaplan, Lizzie 401 Lee, Margaret 649 Malinski, Emma 638 McGill, Agnes • 614 Morris, Mrs. Della 637, 640 Patters, Viola 634 Peterson, Carrie 407 Rosini, Helen 404 S R 330 S C 291 Schultz, Rebecca 392 Schwartz, Sarah 394 Siegel, Mrs 400 Tacoma, Regina T 640 Troth, Marie 643 Young, Anna 648 Federal, state, county and municipal ofificials and employes: Beall, Hon. Edmond F 803 Bowler, Wm. F 509 Clybourn, Grace 569, o77 Coan, M. Blair 47c Cohn, Dr. Eugene 326 DeMuth, Mrs. Sophia 802 Farleyq Michael J 476 Finch, G. Stanley 353 Fullerton, Jeanette • 309 Gillespie, Mrs. Rose 805 Harding, John J 475 Hoffman, Peter 463 Index to Testimony and Witnesses 977 (Witnesses — Continued) Hollinberger, J. Thomas 356 Howse, E. J 524 Josaphare, Maude J 481 Long, Mrs. Margaret 551 Mullen, Joseph J 790 O’Hara, Hon. Barratt 230 Schepp, Hon. John S 559 Trick, C. F 790 Underwood, John H 586 Officers, representatives and employes of various unofficial organizations devoted to investigation of social problems and the promotion of social welfare, as well as individuals engaged in such work. Adams, Susan B 142 Aldrich, Mrs. Alice Phillips 144 Ballam, Mary F 175 Barrett, Robert S 369 Birney, Mrs. A. A 368 Bowen, Mrs. Louise 452 Bowler, William F 509 Brittain, Mrs. Gertrude Howe 430, 459, 466 Brooks, Miss Virginia (Mrs. C. Washburne) 160 Buzzell, Miss Belle 173 Collins, Mrs. Mary 164 Dunn, William H 169 Edgar, Maxwell 688 Farwell, Arthur Burrage 168 Folkner, Dr. Elnora C 372 Foster, Ardeen 350 Frank, H. R , 149 Hill, Hon. Robert P 364 Hopkins, Mrs. Archibald 357 Kahn, Mrs. Adolph 358 Neligh, Mrs. Clara 363 Pierce, Julian 360 Ransome, Mrs. Virginia 361 Schell, Mrs. Josephine 145 Taylor, Prof. Graham 664 Wiley, Mrs. Harvey W 362 Wilkinson, Mrs. Anna J 794 Woodward, Dr. William G 365 Educators : Harris, Dr. Abraham W 778 Judson, Dr. Harry Pratt 769 Young, Mrs. Ella Flagg 749 Physicians : Cohn, Dr. Eugene 326 Folkner, Dr. Elnora C 372 Pfeiffenberger, Dr. Mather 796 Woodward, Dr. William G 365 Clergymen : Golden, Rev. John R 599 Williams, Rev. Elmer 520 Labor union representatives: Coleman, John 805 Harvey, Willis E 661 Theatrical employes and professional entertainers: C , Mr. and Mrs. W 540 Ferrari, Martin 477 H , Marie 543 H , H 481 978 Report of the Illinois Senate Vice Committee (Witnesses — Continued ) J , E 542 L , A 542 “'Natalie” 476 W , E 481 W , John 543 Wilson, George H 485 Wilson, Dora 485 Saloon, cafe and restaurant proprietors, employes and patrons: Garvin, Jack 469, 474 Field, Ed 544 Fozzo, R 510 Gregg, C 483 G , L 472 Jones, Roy 503 Mueller, H. H 473 Novak, Robert C 448 Richter, Charles M 483 S , H. 575 Shemberg, William 516 T — , Mrs. J. D 471 Dance hall owmers, managers and employes: Bassett, Walter 490 Bement, Frank W 487 Johnson, Godfrey 496 McGuire, Frank T 493 Olson, Frank 554 Phelps, R. B 546 Schoen, William J 514 Yondorf, August 437 Hotel owners, proprietors, employes, guests and owners of property occupied by hotels: H , Marie 543 Hardin, Fred H 538 T , E 542 Little, G. J 595 L , A 542 M , M 579 M , J 573 McHenry, E. L 533 Phillips, David L 604 Tollman, George 443 Venable, Mr. and Mrs. C. V 566, 603 W , John 543 Wineteer, Charles G 592 Newspaper publishers and representatives: Campbell, E. E ^ 798 Cousley, Paul B 801 McAdams, John 799 Proprietors of resorts and erring women: B , E 139 B , G 336 B , P 210 C , L 212 C , U 332 D , L 341 F , G 137 Forrest, Olla 363 Hall, Georgia 327 Hartman, Bertha 334 H— , R 131 M , R 211 Index to Testimony and Witnesses 979 ( Witnesses — Continued) Mueller, Sarah 529 Patton, Florence 582 ' R , R 214 R , A 210 S , C 291 S , M 423 S , R 330 Women and girls who escaped or reformed: F , E 157 J . P 293 L , F 163 M , J 155 M , Mrs. P 190 M , Mrs. Z 135 O , A 151 T , E 140 :^^TED BY ATJTHOEITY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOK t 4