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institutions of mankind.

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One of the best things about the militarism of the old pioneer of civilization was his protection of the women and the children. As a last resort in defending his home, the little ones were placed in the center, the mothers next, and the men outside. We work to-day to carry over into the new industrial order that chivalry of the Age of Militarism. We have not reached it; our children are not protected in the center; they are exploited in industrial places; our women work more hours than their own health and welfare, or the welfare of the next generation justifies, and other monster evils attend our industrial life. Our next speaker will take us still deeper into this great question, the relation of industry to the Peace Movement. She comes here as the representative of the Consumers' League, a movement intended to organize the conscience of the buyer, and make the purchasing public a factor in industrial regeneration-Mrs. Frederick Nathan, President of the New York Consumers' League.

Industry and Its Relation to Peace

MRS. FREDERICK NATHAN.

In primeval days it is possible that the individual savage was wholly independent. It is probable that he was able to procure for himself all his limited requirements. But the earliest savage life of which we have any knowledge reveals to us the fact that even in primitive days men were interdependent, although within narrow group limitations. Gradually the advance of intellect has evolved an industrial interdependence which leads us at the present time to become inhabitants of the world in satisfying our wants.

It is a far cry indeed even from the colonial days of our great grandmothers to our present day. Our ancestors very largely produced all that was required for their lives. In their own fields were grown the flax, the hemp, the cotton, which they themselves spun and wove into material which in turn was cut and fashioned by their own hands. In their own gardens grew the vegetables and fruits which they themselves prepared and canned and pickled for their own consumption. The heads of the household often did their own butchering of live stock, while the women members attended to the raising of poultry, the needs of the dairy, the making of raisin wine, of soap, of rope and

twine, of candles for illumination, and of rag carpets for the floor. They even confessed to covering their own furniture.

But when the invention of some cumbersome machinery took all these industries out of the home, work was done under entirely different conditions and all labor has gradually been revolutionized until we find to-day that so specialized has all work become, that even, for instance, in the making of a cotton undergarment, not only are a large number of people utilized, but as many as a half-dozen countries may contribute to its production.

Trade, which in the early days was a mere species of organized piracy, warfare thinly hidden under a milder name, has gradually developed to be a great, if not the greatest agency for peace. The merchant, though perchance unwitting and unwilling, has become the benefactor of the race.

The need for international relationship in commerce and industry, the need for world markets and the interchange of products, has led to the holding of great World's Fairs. These International Industrial Expositions have drawn the Nations together in peaceful rivalry and have shown by object lessons of unexampled power how the work of the world demands peace and fraternity among all mankind.

As commerce and manufacture have become more obviously the leading elements in our civilization, governments have assumed industrial functions. Our consular reports, widely distributed, without cost, upon demand, are filled with matter concerning the various industries of the different countries, and reporting all data of value to our manufacturers and importers.

In former days treaties were drawn up between countries to settle boundary lines, to decide amounts of indemnity to be paid, to bind each other to mutual assistance in the event of war with other nations. They were at best mere armed truces, temporary pauses in perpetual war. But two years ago an epoch-making treaty was drawn up between the delegates representing fourteen European countries, which had for its fundamental basis-not a plan for the exploitation of their citizens, either by taxation for indemnities, or by pledging their men to be used as targets for bullets-but (mirabile dictu) a plan to protect their citizens by mutually agreeing to prohibit the work of women in factories at night. This sprang from a similar narrower movement of the year before, when the governments of France and Italy arranged

the earliest labor treaty, providing for factory inspection, abolition of night work for women, reduction of hours for women, a day of rest once a week, and granting to French and Italian colaborers in both countries equal treatment in respect to payment of pensions, and sick and accident benefits.

Yet another European treaty has recently been made, one more remarkable still in its high moral purpose. It aims to place industrial competition on a higher level; it forbids, getting down to practical detail-forbids the use of white or yellow phosphorus in match-making. The fumes of this phosphorus are specially dangerous to the working men and women employed in the manufacture of matches, and various governments had long wished to forbid its use, but were met by the manufacturers' cry that their competitor in other lands used it and would undersell them. So matches intended to enlighten the world were made in the darkness of cruelty, and inhumanity. Now at last. seven nations have combined, and it seems we are to have truly enlightened matches.

Verily may we feel that we have at last begun to enter upon a new era, prophesied by Jane Addams in her new book, "The Newer Ideals of Peace," the triumph of industrialism over militarism. In these treaties the representatives of Great Britain and Continental Europe aimed to "protect their civic resources,' to nurture the real wealth of their nations, the health of their peoples. Strange to say, our country, which is supposed to stand for the highest ideals of democracy, is far behind these European governments in this respect.

Only recently three of the five judges of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of this city rendered a majority decision to the effect that our state law, which had been enacted about ten years ago, prohibiting night work for women, was unconstitutional. The fact that fourteen other nations have found. it practicable and expedient to pledge themselves to refrain from working their women at night, should have at least a moral effect upon our nation and the highest court may reverse this decision.

Not only have governments united in passing laws for the protection of their working people and in the interest of humane industry and enlightened commerce, but the general public has become awakened to its responsibilities as consumers, and has organized the conscience and intelligence of the buyer as a means

of social progress. This is a movement toward universal peace and international fraternity.

To-day conscientious consumers who wish to know under what conditions the articles which they consume are made, consumers who realize that their demands create the supply and therefore desire to inform themselves intelligently in regard to the sources of supply, are made aware of the fact that the boundary line of their investigations is measured only by the boundaries of the civilized globe. For example, in the case of the cotton undergarment, the cotton may have been grown in Alabama, where child labor is not restricted, and is even authorized at night, it may have been spun and woven by machines attended by little children under the tender age of ten. This machinery may have been made in England and its transportation here have necessitated the utilization of ships and ship provisions from countless evil sources. Or the raw cotton may itself have been transported to England for manufacture. Or again the goods may have been bleached in the District of Columbia, where there are no laws prohibiting child labor, and the garment having been cut in a factory, may have been stitched in some wretched germinfected sweat-shop in our own city. The coal for all this factory work may have been procured from Pennsylvania mines where hundreds of little boys work in the breakers. As for the trimming on the garment, the embroidery may have been worked by hand in Switzerland or France, at starvation rates, in a prison or in a convent, or else it may have been made by machinery in Germany. The lace may have been made under the most trying conditions in Belgium, France or Italy; the pearl buttons may have been manufactured in Austria, and the material for them have been procured from the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea. The garment may have been laundered in some Chinese laundry, where the soap used had been made in a Chicago beef-packer's factory, and finally the garment reaches the consumer through the wholesale merchant, who sells it to the retail merchant, who may underpay and overwork the saleswoman who effects the final sale. Women constitute a very large percentage of the purchasing public. As the years go by (no doubt owing to the propaganda of the Consumers' League), an increasingly large number of women show a desire to acquire their purchases with such peace of conscience as is assured them by the treaty which prohibits

night work for women.

Instead of making individual efforts to discriminate in favor of goods free from the taint of cruelty involved in night work, their consciences are freed, once for all, by that treaty as to all goods from all the countries bound by it. Would that similar treaties were enacted extending the exemption from night work to young boys! That treaty is the steppingstone which must necessarily lead to further industrial gains, to be accomplished by the same enlightened method, which makes for International Peace.

The industries of the different nations are their mainstay, and carry wealth to their centers, and are like the arteries in our bodies, carrying blood to the heart, the constant action of which renews our vitality. To these facts mankind is at last awakening. War is becoming too businesslike for a business generation. It costs too much,-costs not only to the conquered, but to the conqueror. In destroying his enemies, he destroys at least in part the source of his own wealth. Hence the necessities of industry work eternally for peace.

Realizing that we have thus reached a point far beyond tribal isolation and that we must in future recognize our international commercial bonds, an International Conference has been arranged, to be held next July in Switzerland, to be attended by delegates from the various European Consumers' Leagues, for the exchange of ideas and experiences relating to the different standards of production and distribution in different countries. The aim is eventually to establish an international standard of the ethics of labor.

The feeling of universal brotherhood has already been aided by this international movement, aided more perhaps than most. of us realize. Women can indeed be proud of the fact that largely through their efforts this Consumers' League movement has been organized and fostered.

Although women are rarely given a voice in the matter of deciding whether war shall be proclaimed or not, the maintenance of the family falls largely upon the women in times of war. Women suffer in war as well as in peace, for that matter, from the reduction in wages and the increased taxes, due to the cost of armies and navies.

From 1897 to 1904 the United States spent $307,000,000 for military purposes. An expenditure of $200,000,000 is now con

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