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because I had to make and direct all the investigations that the Consumers' League made in order to present any material to the legislative committees that would be factual and effective. So I made most of the investigations myself and sometimes in a burst of generosity the board of directors would let me hire a person for two months to help out and make a larger coverage of a particular subject.

When I came into the Consumers' League there was pending a bill to abolish home work in the tenements. That system had been a kind of social disease in New York and a frightful thing it was. Samuel Gompers was involved in this as far as the cigar industry went and his purpose was to bring the union greater membership by bringing work people into the shops so that they became members of the union, get union rate wages and conditions. Thus you wouldn't have these poor people taking cigars home and rolling them in their home. Cigars were still being made in tenements on the lower east side at that time, but the union was pressing that out.

We were concerned with the home work that originally arose out of the needle trades of all sorts - the finishing of men's clothes was all done in the tenements. You saw women with great bundles of coats, pants or overcoats on