boarder with one of the families. There were several children,
three men, and two women in this room. The tobacco was stowed about
everywhere, alongside the foul bedding, and in a corner where there were
scraps of food. The men, women, and children in this room worked by day
and far on into the evening, and they slept and ate there. They were
Bohemians, unable to speak English, except that one of the children knew
enough to act as interpreter.

Instead of opposing the bill I ardently championed it. It was a poorly
drawn measure, and the Governor, Grover Cleveland, was at first doubtful
about signing it. The Cigar-makers' Union then asked me to appear before
the Governor and argue for it. I accordingly did so, acting as spokesman
for the battered, undersized foreigners who represented the Union
and the workers. The Governor signed the bill. Afterwards this
tenement-house cigar legislation was declared invalid by the Court
of Appeals in the Jacobs decision. Jacobs was one of the rare
tenement-house manufacturers of cigars who occupied quite a suite
of rooms, so that in his case the living conditions were altogether
exceptional. What the reason was which influenced those bringing the
suit to select the exceptional instead of the average worker I do not
know; of course such action was precisely the action which those most
interested in having the law broken down were anxious to see taken.
The Court of Appeals declared the law unconstitutional, and in their
decision the judges reprobated the law as an assault upon the "hallowed"
influences of "home." It was this case which first waked me to a dim and
partial understanding of the fact that the courts were not necessarily
the best judges of what should be done to better social and industrial
conditions. The judges who rendered this decision were well-meaning
men. They knew nothing whatever of tenement-house conditions; they
knew nothing whatever of the needs, or of the life and labor, of
three-fourths of their fellow-citizens in great cities. They knew
legalism, but not life. Their choice of the words "hallowed" and "home,"
as applicable to the revolting conditions attending the manufacture of
cigars in tenement-houses, showed that they had no idea what it was
that they were deciding. Imagine the "hallowed" associations of a "home"
consisting of one room where two families, one of them with a boarder,
live, eat, and work! This decision completely blocked tenement-house
reform