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more cautious employers feared to
tread. Reynolds, Forgan and the
others had said that "custom" reg
ualted the small wages paid to boys
and young men.
Simpson testified that Marshall
Field & Co. paid from $5 to $8 to
boys under sixteen and $8 as the low
est to boys over sixteen.
.. "Why do you pay the boys over
sixteen $8 a-week?" asked O'Hara.
"Because we have to," said Simp
son, with engaging frankness.
."They're very hard to get"
"1 This admission that Marshall: Field
' & Co. pays the lowest wages it pos
sibly can, and pays girls less than
boys because the supply of girls is
greater, made the members of the
commission look quizzically at each
other.
Simpson got himself into trouble
again when he said that the lowest
wages paid any single male clerk was
$10 a week and any married male
, clerk $1.2 a week.
The "commission wanted to know
, how many married men got $12 a
week and how many single men got
$10 a week. Simpson wriggled all
over the witness stand, mopped his
forehead, pulled down his cuffs,
smiled in a sickly fashion at For
gan, and mumbled something about
not knowing, and about the small
number of married men getting $12
a week anynow.
The commission asked Simpson di
rectly if he thought $12 a week
enough for a man to support a fam
Jly on. He evaded the answer.
"Then don't you think the low
wages paid to the head of a family
may have something to do with
vice?" asked O'Hara.
"No," said Simpson.
"What causes vice?" asked O'Hara.
"Oh, bad home conditions," said
Simpson, lightly.
"What makes bad home condi
tions?" asked O'Hara. "Don't you
think money is necessary to get good
Jiome conditions?"
Simpson relapsed into a wriggling
state of moisture again, and finally
evaded by saying that he was sure
that anything that low wages Tiad to
do with vice was "infinitesmal."
When Rosenwald came to the
stand he brought trouble right along
with him. He feared and hated to
think of the ordeal before him. He
wanted to attack the commission.
Yet he feared the commission might
attack his philanthropic reputation in
a way that would make him sick.
Going up in the elevator to the ses
sion, he was accompanied by Joe
Basch, of Siegel, Cooper & Co., and
a Record-Herald reporter. He smiled
wanly on Basch.
"Now comes my hour of misery,"
he said.
I "Uh-huh," grunted Basch, who
probably was thinking of his own
troubles.
He began by saying that Sears,
Roebuck & Co. employed 4,171 adult
males and 1,289 male minors, al
though he objected strenuously to the
term "minors."
He said that the lowest wages paid
any male minor was $5 a week, and
that that was for boys under 16.
Boys over 16 got $6 a week, he saia.
The average wage of the minors was
$7.81 and of the adults $18.82.
Then the trouble began. Rosen
wald said he hired no man over 21,
who was married, at less than $12 a
week. This was a rule, he said.
"Then the lowest wages you pay
any married man is $12 a week?"
asked O'Hara.
"I didn't say that," said Rosenwald,
"I said we didn't hire any man over
21 who was married at less than $12."
"Then there may be married men
in your employ working for less than
$12?" asked O'Hara.
'"Yes," admitted Rosenwald, and
mopped his sweating forehead.
"That's my understandings I
haven't the figures here," he added
hastily. "I don't 'really know."
"Now, Mr. Rosenwald," said Sen
ator Beall, "do you think that a
working woman is. as good as a
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