ived, work as she worked. In thus approaching
her I believed that I could share her ambitions, her pleasures, her
privations.

Working by her side day after day, I hoped to be a mirror that should
reflect the woman who toils, and later, when once again in my proper
sphere of life, to be her expositor in an humble way--to be a mouthpiece
for her to those who know little of the realities of everlasting labour.

I have in the following pages attempted to solve no problem--I have
advanced no sociologic schemes. Conclusions must be drawn by those who
read the simple, faithful description of the woman who toils as I saw
her, as I worked beside her, grew to understand in a measure her point
of view and to sympathize with her struggle.

MARIE VAN VORST.
Riverdale-on-Hudson,
1902.

* * * * *

A MAKER OF SHOES AT LYNN

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

A MAKER OF SHOES AT LYNN

"Those who work neither with their brains nor their hands are a menace
to the public safety."--Roosevelt.

Well and good! In the great mobs and riots of history, what class is it
which forms the brawn and muscle and sinew of the disturbance? The
workmen and workwomen in whom discontent has bred the disease of riot,
the abnormality, the abortion known as Anarchy, Socialism. The hem of
the uprising is composed of idlers and loungers, indeed, but it is _the
labourer's head_ upon which the red cap of protest is seen above the
vortex of the crowd.

_That those who labour with their hands may have no cause to menace
society, those who labour with their brains shall strive to encompass._

Evils in any system American progress is sure to cure. Shops such as the
Plant shoe factory in Boston, with its eight-hour labour, ample
provision for escape in case of fire, its model ventilating, lavish
employment of new machinery--tells on the great manufacturing world.

Reason, human sympathy, throughout history have been enemies to slavery
or its likeness: reason and sympathy suggest that time and place be
given for the operative man and woman to rest, to benefit by physical
culture, that the bowed figures might uplift the flabby muscles. Time is
securely past when the manufacturers' greed may sweat the labourers'
souls through the bodies' pores in order that more stuff may be turned
out at cheaper cost.

The people through social corporations, through labour unions,