White Slaves | Page 9

promote the progress of the poor
and ignorant in this country.
Very sincerely yours, *****

III.
REPLY TO A CRITICISM ON "THE WHITE SLAVES OF BOSTON
SWEATERS".
"Freedom's secret wilt thou know?-- Counsel not with flesh and blood;
Loiter not for cloak or food; Eight thou feelest, rush to do."
--RALPH WALDO EMERSON: Freedom.
Among the scores of thankful letters which I have received,
commenting on the discourse on "The White Slaves of the Boston
Sweaters," there is one of an entirety different character, written by a
distinguished writer on social questions, a gentleman for whom I have
always entertained the highest respect. I should be very glad to give the
name of the author of this letter; but as it is marked "personal," I cannot,
in honor, do so.
This letter so clearly and unswervingly outlines and defends the
extreme conservative side of this question, that I feel I cannot do a

better service to the cause of the "sweater's victim" than to answer it in
this public way. My critic begins by assailing the title of the discourse.
He says: "In the sermon which you preached yesterday, the title as
given in the newspapers is 'The White Slaves of the Boston Sweaters.'
Under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, there can be no such thing as 'slave' in this country. Under the
decision of Judge Parsons there has not been a slave in Massachusetts
since the adoption of the Constitution." Wonderful Judge Parsons! who
is able, by the magic wand of his decision, to unshackle all the slaves
who, under the cruel whip of necessity,--more unmerciful than any
slave-driver's lash,--have sweated under the burdens imposed by
avaricious task-masters in every city of the commonwealth.
Can you make men free by constitution simply? Are there no slaves
except those who, like the African thirty years ago, are bought and sold
at the auction block? Ay, indeed! for every black man liberated by
President Lincoln's proclamation, there is, to-day, a white man robbed
and degraded and brutalized by some gigantic trust or other equally
soulless, unfeeling, corporate power.
For every mother whose heart was broken by having her children
wrenched from her arms in the African slave-market, there is a white
mother, whose very soul is crushed at the sight of her hungry, ragged,
little ones. For every black babe torn from its mother's breast by the
iniquitous system of negro slavery, the slums of our great cities have a
white child, whose future is equally dark and hopeless.
My critic's first question is, "How do you justify the term 'white slave'
when applied to the persons whose condition you describe?" My
answer is very simple. If a widow with little children to care for, who
cannot go out to do other kinds of work, and is compelled to work
eighteen hours a day for fifty cents, and dares not give this up for fear
of starvation to her children, is not a slave, then will somebody tell me
what element is lacking to make slavery?
[Illustration: A TENEMENT-HOUSE COURT.]
The second question is as follows: "'Climb three flights to an attic suite
of two rooms, and there one would find a mother and five children,'
doubtless in very bad condition; the mother trying to support them; the
tenement doubtless very bad. Suppose we condemn the tenement,--pull
it down,--then these people will have no roof over their heads. Is no

roof better than some kind of a roof? Suppose we refuse to trust her to
make pants--is no work better than some work?"
To the first part of this question, relating to the roof of this bad
tenement house, I answer frankly: Yes, no roof is better. This poor
woman, working at starvation-wages, is furnishing from twelve to
twenty per cent interest on the money invested in this miserable old
rookery, whose heartless landlord, like the unjust judge of the Gospels,
fears not God and regards not man. If we condemn this
disease-breeding death-trap, it will not be a question of this woman
having "no roof" over her head, but she may have a decent roof, with
healthful, sanitary regulations, at a less rent than she now pays, and still
pay an honest interest on the investment to the landlord. As to the
second part of the question, "Is no work better than some work?" that is
not a fair putting of the question. Our modern Christian civilization
does not dare to put it that way. It is not a question of no work, or some
work. We must furnish this woman some work, at such, just and
rightful wages as shall give her and her children bread to eat and
raiment to put on, and a decent, though it be humble, roof over their
heads.
We