tely guarded
mangles, collar presses, and collar dampeners, or else unguarded or
inadequately guarded gears and belts. In a laundry visited when the boss
was out, we conferred with the engineer about one particularly bad
mangle.

"'What's this machine for? To cut girls' hands off?' asked the inspector.

"'Well,', said the engineer, 'it came pretty near finishing up the last
girl we had here--caught her arm in an apron-string and got both hands
under the roll--happened over two months ago. Fingers cut off one hand,
and all twisted and useless on the other.'

"Instead of having the machine guarded, after this mutilation, the owner
had employed a man to take chances here, instead of a girl.

"This and all the illegal defects discovered were ordered remedied by the
factory inspectors. But New York labor legislation, no matter how
excellent, cannot be enforced, with the present number of inspectors. An
inspector will arrive on one day; will discover that rules are violated;
will impose a fine; will return in the next week and discover that rules
are not violated; will, perforce, return to another part of the field;
and after that the violation will continue as if he had never observed
it.

"Further, it is difficult for the inspector to discover, through
employees, violations of the State laws enacted in their interest, as
they risk being discharged for complaints. In addition, moreover, to this
danger, bringing a charge means that the complainant must go to court,
thus losing both time and money. A union organization would be the only
possible means of settling the matter. Made up of the workers themselves,
it is always present to observe violations; and it offers to the workers
the advantage of reporting to the State, not as individuals, but as a
body. The cooeperative spirit present among almost all of the laundry
workers should make organization entirely feasible.[35]

"On entering a new situation I found, as a rule, cordiality and friendly
interest. On several occasions it was expressed by this social form:--

"'Say, you got a feller?'

"'Sure. Ain't you got one?'

"'Sure.'

"The girls are really very kind to one another, helping one another in
their work, and by loans of lunch and money.

"In one place a woman with a baby to support--a shaker earning $4.50 a
week, and heavily in debt--used to borrow weekly a few pennies apiece
from all the girls around her to pay her rent. And the pennies were
always forth