‘Girl Slaves in Milwaukee Breweries’ by Mother Jones from the Chicago Daily Socialist. Vol. 4 No. 135. April 2, 1910. 

It is the same old story, as pitiful as old, as true as pitiful.

When the whistle blows in the morning it calls the girl slaves of the bottle washing department of the breweries to don their wet shoes and rags and hustle to the bastile to serve out their sentences. It is indeed true they are sentenced to hard, brutal labor–labor that gives no cheer, brings no recompense.

Condemned for life to slave dally in the washroom in wet shoes and wet clothes, surrounded with foul mouthed, brutal foremen, whose orders and language would not look well in print and would surely shock oversensitive ears or delicate nerves! And their crime? Involuntary poverty. It is hereditary. They are no more to blame for it than a horse for having the glanders.

It is the accident of birth. This accident that throws them into the surging, seething mass known as the working class–is what forces them out of the cradle into servitude–to be willing (?) slaves of the mill, factory, department store, hell or bottling shop in Milwaukee’s colossal breweries, to create wealth for the brewery barons that they may own palaces, theaters, automobiles, blooded stock, farms, banks, and heaven knows what all, while the poor girls slave on all day in the vile smell of sour beer, lifting cases of empty and full bottles weighing from 100 to 150 pounds, with wet shoes and rags, for God knows they cannot buy clothes on the miserable pittance doled  out to them by their soulless master class.

The conscienceless rich see no reason why the slave should not be content on a crust of bread, for its share of all the wealth created. That these slaves of the dampness should contract rheumatism is a foregone conclusion. Rheumatism is one of the chronic ailments and is closely followed by consumption. Consumption is well known to be only a disease of poverty.

The Milwaukee law makers, of course, enacted an anti-spit ordinance to protect the public health, and the brewers contributed to the Red Cross society to make war on the shadow of tuberculosis, and all the while the big capitalists are setting out incubators to hatch out germs enough among the poor workers to destroy the nation. Should one of these poor girl slaves spit on the sidewalk it would cost her more than she can make in two weeks’ work. Such is the fine system of the present day affairs.

The foreman even regulates the time that they may stay in the toilet room, and in the event of overstaying it gives the foreman an opportunity he seems to be looking for to indulge in indecent and foul language. Should the patient slave forget herself and take offense it will cost her the job in that prison. And after all, bad as it is. it is all that she knows how to do.

To deprive her of the job means less crusts and worse rags in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Many of the girls have no home nor parents and are forced to feed and clothe and shelter themselves, and all this on an average of $3 per week. Ye Gods: What a horrible nightmare! What hope is there for decency, when unscrupulous wealth may exploit its producers so shamelessly?

No matter how cold, how stormy, how inclement the weather, many of these poor girl slaves must walk from their shacks to their work, for their miserable stipend precludes any possibility of squeezing a street car ride out of it. And this is due to our much vaunted greatness. Is this civilization? If so, what please, is barbarism?

As an illustration of what these poor girls must submit to. One, about to become a mother, told me with tears in her eyes that every other day a depraved specimen of mankind took delight in measuring her girth and passing such comments as befits such humorous (?) occasions.

While the wage paid is 75 to 85 cents a day, the poor slaves are not permitted to work more than three or four days a week, and the continual threat of idle days makes the slave much more tractable and submissive than would otherwise obtain. Often, when their day’s work is done, they are put to washing off the tables and lunchroom floors and the other odd jobs, for which there is not even the suggestion of compensation. Of course abuse always follows power, and nowhere is it more in evidence than in this miserable treatment the brewers and their hirelings accord their girl slaves.

The foreman also uses his influence, through certain living mediums, near at hand, to neutralize any effort having in view the organization of these poor, helpless victims of an unholy and brutal profit system, and threats of discharge were made should these girls attend my meetings.

One of these foremen actually carried a union card, but the writer of this article reported him to the union and had him deprived of it for using such foul language to the girls under him. I learned of him venting his spite by discharging several girls, and I went to the superintendent and told him the character of the foreman. On the strength of my charges he was called to the office, and when he was informed of the nature of the visit he patted the superintendent. familiarly on the back and whined out how loyal he was to the superintendent, the whole performance taking on the character of servile lickspittle. As he fawns on his superior, so he expects to play autocrat with his menials and exact the same cringing from them under him. Such is the petty boss who holds the living of the working class girls in his hands.

The brewers themselves were always courteous when I called on them, but their underlings were not so tactful, evidently working under instructions. The only brewer who treated me rudely or denied me admittance was Mr. Blatz, who brusquely told me his feelings in the following words: “The Brewers’ Association of Milwaukee met when you first came to town, and decided not to permit these girls to organize.”

This Brewers’ Association is a strong union of all Brewery plutocrats, com- posed as Schlitz, Pabst, Miller and Blatz Breweries, who are the principal employers of women. And this union met and decided, as above stated, that these women should not be permitted to organize! I then told Mr. Blatz that he could not shut me out of the halls of legislation, that as soon as the legislature assembles. I shall appear there and put these conditions on record, and demand an investigation and the drafting of suitable laws to protect the womanhood of the state.

Organized labor and humanity demand protection for these helpless victims of insatiable greed in the interest of the motherhood.

Organized labor and humanity demand protection for theses helpless victims of insatiable greed in the interest of the motherhood of our future state.

Will the people of this country at large, and the organized wage workers in particular, tolerate and stand any longer for such conditions as exist in the bottling establishments of these Milwaukee breweries? I hope not! Therefore, I ask all fair-minded people to refrain from purchasing the product of these baron brewers until they will change things for the better for these poor girls, working in their bottling establishments.

Exploited by the brewers! Insulted by the petty bosses! Deserted by the press, which completely ignored me, and gave no helping hand to these poor girls’ cause. Had they had a vote, however, their case would likely have attracted more attention from all sides. Poor peons of the brewers! Neglected by all the Gods! Deserted by all mankind.

The present shorn of all that makes life worth living, the future hopeless, without a comforting star or glimmer. What avails our boasted greatness built upon such human wreckage? What is civilization and progress to them? What “Message” bears the holy brotherhood in the gorgeous temples of modern worship? What terrors has the over-investigated white slave traffic for her? What a prolific recruiting station for the red light district! For after all, the white slave eats, drinks, and wears good clothing, and to the hopeless this means living if it only lasts a minute.

What has the beer slave to lose-the potty boss will make her job cost her virtue anyhow. This has come to be a price of a job everywhere nowadays. Is any wonder the white slave traffic abounds on all sides? No wonder the work- class has lost all faith in Gods. Hell itself has no terrors worse than a term in industrial slavery. I will give these brewery lords of Milwaukee notice that my two months’ investigation and efforts to organize, in spite of all obstacles placed in my way, will bear fruit, and the sooner they realize their duty the better it will be for themselves. Will they do it? Think of it, fathers and mothers. Think of it, men and women. When it is asked of thee “What hast thou done for the economic redemption of the sisters of thy brother Abel?” What then will thy answer be?

The Chicago Socialist, sometimes daily sometimes weekly, was published from 1902 until 1912 as the paper of the Chicago Socialist Party. The roots of the paper lie with Workers Call, published from 1899 as a Socialist Labor Party publication, becoming a voice of the Springfield Social Democratic Party after splitting with De Leon in July, 1901. It became the Chicago Socialist Party paper with the SDP’s adherence and changed its name to the Chicago Socialist in March, 1902. In 1906 it became a daily and published until 1912 by Local Cook County of the Socialist Party and was edited by A.M. Simons if the International Socialist Review. A cornucopia of historical information on the Chicago workers movements lies within its pages.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/chicago-daily-socialist/1910/100402-chicagodailysocialist-v04n135.pdf