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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
On the other hand, even though we are certain that our clothes are made in a wholesome place by workers who receive fair wages, our responsibility to society does not end. The fact that any garments at all are manufactured and sold with the germs of disease and the life-blood of the workers upon them
should be sufficient incen- tive to all people to de- mand that the horror cease.
"What can we do?" some may ask. The answer is clear: Insist upon a guarantee on every article of clothing you buy. Dealers are only too eager to satisfy their patrons. If we accept without question what they offer, why should they change ? Their only desire is to suit their cus- tomers the consumers.
The tenement-house workshop should be ex- terminated, and there is but one sure way of driving it out of existence ; that is, by united action on the part of those who buy clothes. There is an organization whose primary aim is the rous- ing to action of lethargic persons who disregard social and moral responsibility, and in addition to this the Consumers' League aims to endorse only clothes made under wholesome conditions. The Consumers' League label has become quite a potent factor in the mercantile world, and it bids fair to become even more powerful as the organization enlists more and more of the intelligent sym- pathy of the community It may be noted here that the Women's Union Label League stands for the same principle, but its indorsement is a trades-union label. This is creating a public conscience in a class but little affected by Consumers' League logic, and so is doing an excellent work for society.
SWEAT-SHOP COAT CARRIERS.
