CHAPTER VIII

THE WORLD OF THE MAKERS OF LUXURIES

“I would not like to work in a candy store,” said a young lad, “because then I could not have the fun of buying candy.” A visitor to Atlantic City stepped into one of the shops to make a purchase. She said to the little girl in charge, “It must be delightful to be able to live in Atlantic City and work right here on the boardwalk.” “You may think so,” replied the girl. “But I guess if you put in all your time in this store, and had to come to work at eight in the morning and work until nine at night every day; and all the time saw these thousands of people passing along outside, going up and down, with nothing to do but just enjoy themselves, you would not think it is such a snap.” Two boys were playing the game of “wish.” When the turn of the youngest came, he said, “I wish that I worked in a chocolate factory, then I could have all the chocolate I wanted to eat.” When we become acquainted with the people who are at work producing the luxuries, we find a common and far-reaching disillusionment. The hardest work in the world is to work when other people are playing, or work hard ourselves just for the purpose of giving other people enjoyment. And yet there are literally hundreds of thousands of people who spend their lives in producing luxuries.

Oliver Wendell Holmes used to say that if he could just have the luxuries, he would not care anything about the necessities of life. This was a whimsical way of stating a fact that is common to all experience, that is, that life is enriched by the luxuries we enjoy. I asked a man of the typographical union what he considered the one thing that had done most for the advancement of printers. He replied, “Pianos in their parlors.” By this he meant that when hours were decreased and wages increased, printers began to have something to hope for; and with a margin of money they bought luxuries, and in the margin of time enjoyed them. Thus they laid the foundation for future development.

=Luxuries.= What constitutes a luxury? This is a difficult question to answer. Some people think that it is a luxury to take a bath. In fact, many of the monastic orders put special virtue on foregoing the use of soap and water. An old gentleman living in a little town near Chicago who owned a great deal of the property in the town, fought every effort to put in water-works and a sewer system. As the climax of an impassioned speech at a public meeting in which he had denounced the extravagances of the present time, he said: “These new notions of our young people are going to ruin us. My daughter made such a fuss that nine years ago I put a bathtub in our house, but I never use it and I guess I am about as healthy as any man in town.” One of the religious sects forbids its members the use of buttons on their clothes, as they are regarded as useless luxuries. They fasten their clothes together with hooks and eyes. Cutting the hair, shaving the beard, wearing gold and silver, adorning the person in any way, all of these things are considered luxuries by some persons. Luxury is really a thing that we can get along without. But at best it is a relative term, for what one person would consider a luxury another would consider a necessity.

=Growth by Wants, Not Needs.= A merchant in Memphis had a carload of supplies arrive early one Saturday morning. He was very anxious to get the goods unloaded so that he could release the car. He started out to get help, but every Negro on the street had some good excuse why he could not help. Meeting an old fellow on the corner he said to him, “Look here, Bob, what is the trouble with all these Negroes? Not one of them wants to work and yet they all seem to have plenty of time and nothing to do.” “It’s just like this, Boss,” replied old Bob. “All the worth-while niggers is out working, ’cause you see they’s got to support their Fords. These here fellers ain’t no good; don’t want cyars and won’t work nohow when the sun shines on both sides of the street at de same time.” In this statement we have summed up the philosophy of all workers. It is only when we desire something better than we have and are willing to work for the thing desired that we begin to advance. Luxuries are the things that are not essential for mere existence, but they are the things that are of infinite value in enriching and adding to the meaning of life.

=Classes of Luxuries.= Luxuries can be roughly divided into two classes, those that are harmless and those that are hurtful. The extra dress, the piece of cake, the sugar in our coffee, the coffee itself, and in fact a great many of the things we wear, eat, and drink are luxuries. The line between these things and necessities is such a thin one that it is hard to know just when a thing ceases to be a necessity and becomes a luxury. Most things are harmless in and of themselves, and it must be acknowledged, luxuries have the effect of increasing the value and meaning of life. There are, however, luxuries such as beer, wine, whisky, brandy, and other alcoholic stimulants used as beverages, also tobacco used as snuff, for chewing or for smoking, which add nothing to life; but on the contrary must be classed with the habit-forming drugs so injurious to the race. In this chapter we are considering luxuries from the standpoint of production, and not the moral value involved in their use. Therefore, we must think of the workers in the brewery, the cigar and cigaret makers, the makers of artificial flowers and willow plumes as all belonging to the same class. They are the ones who are making the things that are not absolutely necessary for our existence. Were the production of bread to stop we could not live. Iron, steel, coal, and transportation are all part and parcel of our very existence, but we could get along very well if not another artificial flower, cigar, or fancy dress were made.

=The Cigarmakers.= The cigarmakers living in Tampa and Key West form the most complete compact group of workers to be found anywhere in the United States who are interested solely in producing luxuries. Tampa is known as “The city that furnishes the world’s smoke.” Last year this city shipped (in round numbers) 300,000,000 cigars! Havana and Key West have always been considered the principal cigar cities, but the production in these latter places has been declining for a number of years, while it has been increasing in Tampa. It was a clash between the Cuban and Spanish workers at Key West which led the first manufacturer to move from that city and build his factory at Tampa. To-day there are 15,000 Cuban and Spanish workers employed in Tampa in making cigars. A person could live in the city, and by restricting his business to certain districts, from one year’s beginning to the end would never hear a word spoken in any language except Spanish. The city is a foreign city, and a city of workers producing a luxury that all the world demands. Since the time that Columbus sent his men to explore the island of Cuba in November, 1492, and found the natives “carrying and smoking firebrands” made from loosely rolled leaves of a weed which grew extensively on the island, until the present time men everywhere have found enjoyment and pleasure in the narcotic value of tobacco.

=The Making of a Cigar.= In its manufacture a cigar goes through a process dependent upon the knowledge and skill gained from years of practise on the part of the worker. The tobacco that is used in making the best cigars still comes from the island of Cuba. It is grown very carefully, cured, baled, and shipped under bond to the United States government. The bales as they are received at the tobacco factory weigh from 80 to 120 pounds. The tobacco is of two qualities, that to be used as a filler (which makes up the body of the cigar), and that which is known as the wrapper or the outside covering. From the time that the tobacco begins to grow until the cigars are packed in the boxes ready for shipment the weed requires special care and attention. As the bales of tobacco are brought into the factory they have to be piled in a certain way. Some of them are piled high, some of them low, some on their sides, and some on their ends; all depending upon the quality and conditions of the leaves.

The tobacco is cured by a process which adds to its value; and the curing must be carried on with precision, for a faulty method will spoil the best tobacco that can be grown. Any one who has visited Tampa is impressed with the humidity of the atmosphere. The climate of Cuba is more nearly reproduced there than in any other city in America, and because of its equable temperature, it being neither too hot nor too cold, the city has become famous as the manufacturing center for cigars.

The cigarmakers sit at long tables in parallel rows throughout the room. In one room in a large factory eight hundred workers sit as close together as possible. The tools of the trade are a flat, broad-bladed knife, a hard block, a gage, and a rule. This gage is simply a hole bored through a piece of board and as the worker makes up the cigar, from time to time he puts it through the hole in the board to see that it is the proper size and places it against the rule to see that it is the proper length. Should it be too large it must be rolled tighter, if too small it must be loosened up a bit. Much depends upon the way a cigar is rolled. “I learned to make a cigar in three months,” said a Cuban cigarmaker, “but it took me two years to learn how to put an end on it.” This is the real test, and until a machine is invented which can turn this trick, the hand-made cigars, rolled, and finished according to the old Spanish method, will hold first place.

=The Reader in the Factory.= The Tampa cigarmakers are all either Spanish or Cuban, and in conversation they gesticulate with their hands to such an extent that it is impossible for them to talk and work at the same time. Hence, the manufacturers are very sympathetic with the old custom of maintaining a reader in the factory. This reader has a little balcony from which he reads to the employees while they are at work, making his selections from current magazines, newspapers, novels, telegrams, dispatches from abroad, and extracts from books on national history. It is an interesting sight to see a factory of four or five hundred workers busily engaged in plying their trade, and listening at the same time to a story read by the paid reader, who, with coat off and suspenders hanging, gesticulates and shouts at the top of his voice. One of the readers in a Tampa factory has held his position for twenty years. He reads daily from the New York _Herald_, translating the news articles into Spanish as he reads them. The reader is well paid, for each worker gives him twenty-five cents a week; and it is reported that some of these men receive as high as $300 a month. The workers decide what shall be read. Some years ago there was a strike in one of the factories occasioned by a protest on the part of the women workers against the reading of an especially vulgar novel. The management ordered the reading of this novel stopped. The men then laid down their tools and refused to go back to work until they were assured that the story would be continued. Among the cigarmakers the tradition is that the custom of reading grew out of the desire of the early workers for a more liberal education than was offered by the church and its schools.

=Wages and Unions.= The wages of the cigarmakers are based on the piece-work system. An expert may make as high as $35 a week; the average is a little higher than in other employments using the same grade of labor. Some years ago, when a bitter strike was conducted in Tampa, the question of wages was one of the grievances of the men but was not the real trouble, for the problem in Tampa now as well as then is racial and psychological rather than economic. The strike was settled on the basis of an agreement called the “equalization agreement.” This provided for the appointment of a board to be composed of three manufacturers and three cigarmakers who would meet regularly, hear complaints, and make adjustments. Most of the workers belong to the union, and under this agreement there is a fair degree of peace in the industry.

One great difficulty is that the workers in the cigar industry carry into their trade no moral enthusiasm. They are doing something that is not absolutely requisite for human welfare, and while they make good money, they have no commanding purpose to impel them to carry on their work. The people live simple lives for the most part. On Saturday nights the streets of the city are filled with people, and every one is in a holiday mood. The majority of the cigar workers in Tampa are communicants in the Roman Catholic Church and it is the finest building in the city. It is constructed of marble and decorated with magnificent windows. The church takes little interest, however, in social or economic matters. One of the workers said to me the last time I was in the city, “When the business men forced us back to work, and through their private army guarded the city with sawed-off shotguns, the church was back of them. All the priests want is our money.” To the cigarmakers a church is a church whether it be Catholic or Protestant. They remember the days in Cuba under the domination of Spain when the priests held them in a kind of bondage of fear, and made it easy for the political forces to exploit them. In America they do not intend to give the church a chance at them.

The Cuban is easily pleased; very emotional, and more inclined to be fickle than the American or Englishman. A few years ago the butchers of Tampa raised the price of meat. Just at that time there happened to be a representative of the Industrial Workers of the World in the city. He gathered some of the people together in East Tampa, harangued them regarding their wrongs, and called a second meeting. He aroused so much enthusiasm that nearly two thousand of the cigar workers quit their jobs; procured sticks, and bought beefsteaks and stuck them on the end of the sticks. Carrying these over their shoulders as though they were banners, the whole mob marched through the streets to the City Hall, where they demanded of the startled mayor, that he force the butchers to reduce the price of beef. The mayor gave the necessary order and the people then dispersed and went quietly back to their homes. Union organizers complain that it is very difficult to maintain a union of any strength among the cigar workers in Tampa. “They are very enthusiastic for a time, but it is difficult for them to persistently and constantly follow the union rules,” said one of the leaders.

The city of the cigarmakers swarms with children, many of these youngsters play in the street, and as the climate is warm most of the year, during the summer they wear very little clothing. Until recently there was no provision made for organized play among the children of the city. Even now the provision is totally inadequate.

=The Protestant Churches.= The Protestant churches have attempted to do what they could among the cigarmakers; but the needs have been so great and the equipment so inadequate that the best results have not been secured. In West Tampa there is a very interesting piece of work being conducted by the Methodist, the Baptist, and the Congregational churches. One of the churches has a plant consisting of a church, a school, and a house that is used as a social center for the entire community. For many years two homes were operated by this church; one for boys and one for girls. Some seven hundred children attend the school in connection with the church. The services on Sunday are in Spanish, and while it has not been possible always to secure a large attendance from among the people, still there is usually a representative and interesting group present. A man who served as pastor of the Cuban church was for a number of years a regular worker in one of the big cigar factories. This gave him a peculiar relationship to the community. He was accepted as a friend and equal; and was listened to with reverence and respect where another man would not have secured a hearing.

=Some Results of the Work.= A little girl in the community where one of the church homes is situated was arrested for being a vagrant. Her face was dirty; she was barefooted and wore a torn, buttonless, brown gingham dress that was positively filthy and which was held in place by a safety-pin fastened in such a way as to give the whole dress a weird, elfish look. The child’s picture was taken on the day that she was arrested and committed to the care of the church. This picture is a typical portrayal of childish rebellion against life and all that it holds in store for the human race. Her mother was a worthless woman, and the child had never known a father. All her life she had really lived on the streets of the city. Her case was brought before the Juvenile Court; she was put on probation and given into the care of the workers in one of the little Protestant churches. She objected to having her hair combed and refused to wash her face. Those in charge of the home were almost in despair of being able to do anything with her. However, they won her confidence by allowing her to go to a party where they had a phonograph and motion pictures. They told her she could have all the cake and lemonade she wanted; so once in her life under happier conditions she had a chance for simple enjoyment and to be her natural self. From that time on she began to take an interest in herself and to gain in intelligence. Two years later she had her picture taken and it was exhibited as the picture of the typical Cuban girl, for she had developed into a perfect little beauty and showed capability. This story illustrates better than almost anything else the infinite possibilities in the Cuban people.

Some one said of the cigarmakers in Tampa that they were not Americans and never could be, and further stated: “They are interested only in their theaters, their clubs, their cock-fights, their coffee-houses, and their gambling rooms.” It is true that they are interested in these things; because they are by temperament a pleasure-loving, happy-go-lucky sort of people and these resources are the expression of their idea of life. If the church would meet the needs of these people, it must be able to appreciate them, and sympathetically to interpret life for them. They can all become, as indeed most of them are now, good American citizens, but they will never be like the Americans in our Northern cities. We must allow them to develop along the lines of their own racial interests. How can we ever expect to be friends with Latin America if we cannot learn how to be good neighbors to the Latin Americans living in our own land?

=The Challenge of Conditions in the Factories.= The conditions in the factories are not ideal by any means, nor is the nature of the business such as to promote the highest type of character. The work is hard, and it is performed in a heavy atmosphere poisoned with the breath of many individuals, and vitiated by the odors of human bodies and damp tobacco. The rooms where cigars are made have to be kept closed to save the weed; and every window is down, and no matter how hot the weather, not a breath of fresh air is allowed to enter the place. The atmosphere is so bad that it gives one a headache even to pass through; imagine what it would mean to spend your life working in such a place.

Tuberculosis makes deep inroads in the ranks of the workers. Statistics show that the proportion of mortality among the cigar workers from tuberculosis of the lungs is higher than in almost any other occupation. Between the ages of 15 and 24 the proportionate mortality from tuberculosis is 48.5 per cent. of the total deaths as compared with 33.8 per cent. for all occupations.[3] The reason for this is that the workers must sit for long hours at a table in a bad atmosphere and surrounded by others, many of whom are suffering from tuberculosis. There are nearly 50,000 members of the union and these men have been fighting for years for a betterment of conditions. However, just as in other trades, the employers claim that it is impossible to make cigars without sacrifice of the working men and women. The workers have accepted it there, as other workers have accepted it in other occupations, with the stoic attitude that marks so many of the laborers of our country.

[3] U. S. Bulletin of Labor, 1917.

One of the most noted social workers in America, a woman with strength and charm of character, who is a leader in every radical movement, began her life in a cigar factory. Later on she married a man of wealth and has lived a life of ease ever since. She says of her early experiences: “For twelve years I was a cigar worker in Cleveland. I was ill-nourished and poorly clad. I worked at night as well as by day to help piece out my family’s existence. I never had anything I wanted.” This might be said of a great many of the cigar workers and their families. The only difference would be that she did not tell all of her story. In addition to the long hours there is an undermining of the health that goes with it. Now all these people are working for some one’s pleasure. They are making luxuries. The most radical person I ever knew in my life was an eighteen-year-old girl whose parents had lost their money. She was forced to go to work in a cigar factory when she was twelve years old. She was bitter toward life and had no faith or confidence in anything or in any person. Said she, “When I look around and see people who have all the money and all the clothes and all the good things that I want and can never have, I know that conditions are unjust and must be changed. I don’t care what it costs; I am going to do my part in fighting and agitating until there is a change.” This is an attitude that is now growing very common. There are deep-seated forces at work perpetuating these ideas. By valuing things more than men these conditions are made a permanent part of our life.

=Furs.= “Why do you want to wear furs in the summer-time?” I asked a young lady. It was an extremely hot day and she was wearing a white dress with very short sleeves and cut low in the neck, but she had a fox fur around her neck; there was quite a margin between the lower edge of her fur and the upper edge of her dress. “Why,” she replied, “I think it is pretty, don’t you?” This fur had come on a long journey and gone through many processes before it came into her hands. Many men and women had labored to produce it. The man who had caught the fox probably had a line of traps stretched over nine or ten miles of some stream in the northern part of Canada or Alaska. All through the bitter cold of the winter he had lived alone in a cabin, and day after day had tramped that line to take out the animals that had been caught. Bringing them back to his cabin he skinned them; turned the hide over a piece of board and stood it behind the stove to cure. Later the pelts were brought out of the wilderness and sold into the hands of a group of fur workers. They were then more fully cured, and passed on to the makers of scarfs. All of these workers were producing a luxury.

=The Trappers’ Community.= In one of the regions of the Northwest where trapping is carried on through the winter there are three little settlements. There are only three white people and one white family in two of them, and the third settlement, which is a trading post, has about half a dozen white families. From the time that the snow falls in the autumn until late in May of the following spring, no one comes into these communities except the man carrying the mail who comes once in about ten days. No one goes out from the community unless it is absolutely necessary. The only ministers that ever visit there are those who come in the summer to enjoy the fishing in the near-by streams. The wife of a trapper in this region said to a minister: “Our oldest girl is nearly thirteen years old. She has never been to Sunday-school and never heard a sermon. She has never seen a church and you are the only preacher to whom she has ever talked. When I was married fifteen years ago in Missouri and we started for this country, I had no idea that a girl who had been brought up in the church and was a teacher in the Sunday-school could live so long in a community where there is no church or religious service of any kind.” When we learn of places like this where there are no churches, and then hear of some small community that has six or eight churches and only about five or six hundred people, we wonder if there is not a call for a new kind of missionary effort and zeal. The church is not alone to blame nor is any one wholly responsible for this condition, and yet we are all to blame, for if it is necessary that a man should live on the outpost of civilization it should be made possible for some of the good things of civilization to be taken to him. In the foreign missionary work we have crossed oceans, traversed mountains, translated the Bible into new languages, and made every effort to reach new groups of people. In our own land we have neglected people just because they seemingly live in a world outside of our own. While they are producing the things we demand and use, we have forgotten the men who have brought these things to us.

=The Theater.= People have always been interested in seeing life presented in a play. The theater has had a large place in the history of every nation. It has furnished the means of recreation and amusement, and in a large measure it has been a great educator of the people. Religion was once taught through the theater. In fact, much of our church ritual is taken from performances that were meant to symbolize great facts and emotions of human life. The modern theater has become highly commercialized, and those who attend the performances continually demand more magnificent scenery, more elaborate costumes, and more thrills. What of the performers? Have you ever wondered, as you looked at the play, just how the people who are taking part would look if you saw them off the stage? For instance, there is a girl that is playing the part of an old woman. She is dressed in a plain black, close-fitting gown, and hobbles across the stage leaning heavily upon a stick. In actual life she is a young woman under twenty-five years of age, has bright red hair, a charming smile, a figure that her friends describe as willowy, and walks with a springy step like that of a high school girl. Another character in the play is a woman who plays the part of the vampire. At home surrounded by her three children, she is a demure, domestic little body.

A few years ago one of our theatrical critics said that a glimpse behind the scenes would cure almost any girl of the desire to become an actress. The glamor is all in front of the curtain. Behind the scenes we come face to face with a hard-working group of men and women who are doing their best to furnish amusement. One of the leading actresses, in writing the history of her life, said that the only opportunity for success on the stage was for the person who comprehends fully that the theater offers but one thing--a chance for long hours of drudgery and the uncertain rewards that come from the hands of a fickle public. She described vividly the actors’ boarding-house, with its narrow cramped bedrooms; its dimly-lit halls, with the faded and worn carpet; the smell of cooking that permeated the whole place “like the ghost of a thousand dead dinners;” the bitter loneliness, the jealousies, the misunderstandings, and she added, “my whole being revolts against all the petty details of the life.” Then there is the traveling; nights on the train and days spent in the hotels until time to go to the opera house; then the feverish excitement of dressing; the play; and back to the hotel for a few hours’ sleep and away again to another town.

The trouble is that most of the young people who think that they would like to go on the stage think only of the theaters in New York, Chicago, Boston, or in one of the other large cities. The great majority of the actor-folk spend most of their time traveling from place to place. There are comparatively few plays that enjoy long runs. Nowadays in one-night stands there are few places where special rates at the hotels are secured for actors. Usually the worst rooms in the house are assigned to them. In fact, the rooms that are given to the actors and actresses are known in a great many hotels as the Soubrette Row. The best rooms are saved for the regular patrons of the house, such as traveling salesmen, while anything is “good enough for the actor.” In China the player folk live to themselves. They have no other companions but form a class of their own. We have not recognized the caste system in this country, and we do not officially ostracise the players, but in effect this is what we do. Their world is a world apart, yet they are the ones that help to amuse us. Each year we pay millions of dollars into the coffers of the theaters to see plays that are produced by these men and women who work hard, and who receive but little for their toil.

Once in a while the newspapers tell the story of some old actor, who has just died poor, broken down, and forgotten by the public. One of the most pathetic figures of these modern days was that of an old actor in Brooklyn, who had to be buried at the expense of his friends. They took up a collection to buy the casket in which he now rests; otherwise he would have been buried in the potter’s field although thirty years ago he was one of the most popular men on Broadway. There are thousands of actors and actresses and they live for the most part to themselves. The Actors’ Church Alliance was formed some years ago and has branches in many of our cities. There is, too, an organization known as the Actors’ Fund, which provides relief for the poor found among these hard-working men and women who give so much pleasure to millions of people.

=The Motion Pictures.= The motion-picture business has become one of the greatest enterprises of our day. In 1914 there were over 20,000 motion-picture theaters in the United States. The year before that three hundred million dollars was spent for films, and over five billion paid admissions were recorded throughout the country. The motion-picture has made possible the reproduction of the best plays, and they are offered to the people at a very low price. Five and ten cents will permit any one to be amused for a whole evening. The motion-picture theater possesses great educational possibilities. It has revolutionized our ideas of entertainment. The best books have been put into films and more people than ever before are having a chance to read. This is having a profound effect upon our lives, for as has been said, “the thing we see impresses us more than what we hear.” We often say, “it went in one ear and out the other” but no one ever says, “it went in one eye and out the other.” The making of films requires the work of thousands of actors; besides carpenters, masons, machine operators, directors, and managers. It is a huge business!

A crowd gathered in New York at Thirty-fourth Street and Second Avenue one Saturday afternoon. A man was beating a boy when a disheveled woman ran out from the side entrance of a saloon and threw herself upon this beast. He grasped her by the throat and was just about to strangle her, when the boy, released from the clutches of the man, stabbed him in the back with a knife and thus freed his mother. It happened so quickly that many of the crowd thought that they were looking upon a real tragedy. It proved to be simply a “movie” being enacted upon the street.

In a Florida city an automobile dashed into town; a young girl was in the back seat, while in the front was a young man driving the machine with one hand and holding a preacher down with the other. They stopped in front of a church; went inside, and there they were met by two other men, accomplices of the young fellow, and who stood one on either side of the minister with revolvers at his head and forced him to perform the marriage ceremony. An outrage in real life, but really played for the movies.

In the West there are cities devoted entirely to the motion-picture industry. In some of the elaborate plays hundreds of thousands of dollars are expended in getting the scenic effects. Cities have been built and then burned to give the effect of a sacked town being destroyed by the enemy. Shipwrecks have been shown where real ships have been purchased, and then run upon the rocks and deliberately wrecked to get the proper setting for the pictures and the necessary thrills for the people. What of these people who follow the motion-picture industry for a living? Their lives are apart from the rest of the community. It seems fascinating, but it is one filled with hard labor, uncertain hours, and affords rather scanty pay. The pastor of one of the Los Angeles churches attempted to reach the people living in the near-by “movie-city” but he failed. A plan should be devised whereby a sympathetic understanding might bring these hard-working people into relationship with the church. The influence of such a tie would be far-reaching in results.

=The Makers of Other Luxuries.= Another group of workers are those who make jewelry; others are at work making fancy costumes, special designs in millinery, and artificial flowers. In fact, when we take a census of all of the people who are at work serving the demands of this age, which loves the extraordinary and insists upon luxuries as a right, you find that there are in reality hundreds of thousands of these workers who are in every sense of the word serving humanity. Whether they are serving in the highest and best way is not the question we are discussing. As long as we tolerate an age of luxury and draft an army of thousands of men, women, and children to help produce these luxuries, so long must we consider the needs of the men, women, and children so drafted. The church, if its appeal is to reach all the groups, must reach all the workers who are making possible the abundance of things that minister to an age of luxury.