influence who have given years to the service of working girls.  The committee began its work by a scientific investigation into the dance halls of New York, the summer parks and picnic grounds in the outlying districts, and of the summer excursion boats which ply up and down the Hudson River and Long Island Sound.  The revelations made by this investigation, carried on under the supervision of Miss Julia Schoenfeld, were terrible enough.  They were made to appear still more terrible when it was known that men of the highest social and commercial standing were profiting hugely from the most vicious forms of amusement.  A state senator is one of the largest stockholders in Coney Island resorts of bad character.  An ex-governor of the State controls a popular excursion boat, on which staterooms are rented by the hour, for immoral purposes no one can possibly doubt.  The women of the committee submitted the findings of their investigators to the managers of these amusement places and to the directors of the steamboat lines, and in many instances reforms have been promised.  The point is that a committee of women had to finance an investigation to show these business men the conditions which were adding to their wealth, and into which they had never even inquired.

Another investigation made by the committee revealed the meagerness of the provision made by churches, settlements, and business establishments for working girls’ vacations.  There are, in round numbers, four hundred thousand working women in Greater New York.  Of these, something like three hundred thousand are unmarried girls between the ages of fourteen and thirty.  In all, only 6,874 of these young toilers, who earn on an average six dollars a week, are provided with vacation outings.  They are usually given vacations, with or without pay, but they spend the idle time at Coney Island, on excursion boats, or in the dance hall.

Of the 1,257 churches and synagogues of New York, only six report organized vacation work for girls and women.  Of the twenty or more large department stores, employing thousands of women, only three have vacation houses in the country.  Of the hundred or more social settlements in New York only fifteen provide summer homes.  There are several vacation societies which do good work with limited resources, but they are able to care for comparatively few.  We have heard much of fresh air work for children, and we can afford to hear more.  But that the fresh air work for young girls and women who toil long hours in factory and shop must be extended, this committee’s investigation definitely establishes.

The first practical work of the committee, after the investigation of amusement and recreation places, was a bill introduced into the State Legislature providing for the licensing and regulation of public dancing academies, prohibiting the sale of liquor in such establishments, and holding the proprietor responsible for indecent dancing and improper behavior.