Substantially, all the present legal protection for workers in the
stores was obtained in 1896, after the investigation of mercantile
establishments conducted in 1895 by the Rinehart Commission.[10] Ever
since, an annual attempt has been made to perfect the present law and to
secure its enforcement, which had been left in the hands of the local
Boards of Health, and was practically inoperative until 1908. Enforcement
was then transferred to the Labor Commissioner, and has since that time
been actively maintained.

The hearings on the law relative to mercantile establishments are held in
Albany in a small room in the Capitol before the Judiciary Committee of
the Senate and the Assembly Commission on Labor. These hearings are very
fiery. The Support is represented by Attorney Mornay Williams, and Mrs.
Nathan, Mrs. Kelley, Miss Stokes, Miss Sanford, and Miss Goldmark of the
New York and National Consumers' Leagues, and delegates from the Child
Labor Committee, the Working-Girls' Clubs, and the Woman's Trade-Union
League. Both men and women speak fox the amendment.[11] The Support's
effort for legislation limiting hours has regularly been opposed by the
Retail Dry-Goods Merchants' Association, which yearly sends an
influential delegation to Albany.

"These ladies have been coming here for sixteen years," said one of the
merchants, resentfully, last spring. Looking around, and observing
changes in the faces watching him among adherents of the Support, he
added: "Well, perhaps not the _same_ ladies. But they have come."

"These ladies are professional agitators," said another merchant at
another hearing. "Why, they even misled Mr. Roosevelt, when he was
Governor, into recommending the passage of their bill."