The Story of an Epoch Making Movement by Maud Nathan

Author:Maud Nathan [Nathan, Maud]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367194789
Google: FrmcxgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2019-05-07T03:02:06+00:00

The Post Office Department realized that efficiency was gained by avoiding the swamping of the Post Office by enormous quantities of mail pouring in during a period of a few days—a week at the most. It had always been necessary to employ extra service or pay extra for overtime work, so the new régime of handling this mail over a period of several weeks, rather than having it concentrated within a few days, has resulted in economy as well as efficiency. The demand to-day for these “stickers”—“Do not open before Christmas”—is so widespread that a well-known manufacturing company makes a specialty of fancy labels and tags to meet this demand.

It is only a few years ago that the Post Office advertised that there would be extra deliveries on Christmas Day, in order to facilitate the distribution of Christmas mail. To-day the postmaster advertises: No mail will be delivered on Christmas Day.

The Post Office is not the only department of the United States Government that has recognized the standards of the Consumers’ League. In 1917, Hon. Newton D. Baker was president of the National Consumers’ League. He was at that time in President Wilson’s Cabinet, serving as Secretary of War. When the United States was forced into the great conflict, Secretary Baker was determined that the War Department should not repeat the mistakes in regard to the making of uniforms that it had made during the time of the Spanish-American War of 1898. The uniforms at that time were given out under the contract system and made in sweatshops. Disease among the soldiers was traced to this fact. During the recent war, Secretary Baker appointed a committee of three (one of them being the General Secretary of the National Consumers’ League) to study and control conditions governing the manufacture of army uniforms. The Committee was created in order to uphold and maintain the industrial standards which had been established by the Consumers’ League. Secretary Baker knew the dire results that would follow the lowering of standards, even during such a crisis. He had the rare vision which led him to insist that the high standards endorsed by the League should be maintained in regard to the work done under his department for the Government. It is also interesting to note that the United States Government, during the war, adopted the Christmas early-shopping idea, originated by the Consumers’ League of the City of New York. By the use of enormous billboards and other signs, it requested people to shop early as a measure of industrial adjustment.

Again the Consumers’ League, in conjunction with the Child Labour Committee, influenced Uncle Sam. The pressure these two organizations brought to bear in the interest of child welfare resulted in the establishment of the Federal Children’s Bureau in Washington with Julia Lathrop in charge. Ida Clyde Clarke says that “Uncle Sam needs a wife.” In the Consumers’ League he has found a suggestive and useful helpmate. It is interesting to note the authoritative status of the League’s publications.

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