# The Saturday Evening Post/Whereas, the Women

Extracted from The Saturday Evening Post, Vol 195, 22 July 1922, pp. 12–13, 38, 40, 42. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted.
WHEREAS, THE WOMEN
By George Kibbe Turner
DECORATIONS BY GUERNSEY MOORE
BY HEAVEN—said the fat foreman—you ought to seen them stare. A woman in overalls right in there amongst them—painting automobiles with the rest!
“Say, what's the grand idea?” they says, coming over to Six Hour Kelly, the union president, at noontime. For they were all kind of leery there lately about what the management was liable to do to them. “What's the plan now? Are they going to run in women on us?”
“And that's only a beginning,” says Six Hour Kelly, glancing up with that still sidewise gaze he had.
“Is that a fact?” they says.
“Ain't they running them in all over the country into everything now?” he tells them. And they all cursed out the women.
“It's time someone come along and put them where they belong,” says old George Cooper. He was the oldest living member in the union, and a kind of an old bachelor. Some woman must have done something bad to him sometime. For he hated the women special and unusual. “It's time,” he says, “something was done,”
“You're just right on that,” says Six Hour Kelly,
“I am,” says old George, looking at him hard and steady over that old white-and-yellow mustache of his. “For I tell you fair and square, and I make no secret of it—if the women keep pushing on and pushing on into men's work and business the way they've done these last few years there's going to be bad trouble all over between the sexes.”
“You'll think so,” says Kelly, looking up slow and sidewise when he got done talking, “unless we can head off the management from doing what they're after with this ore. There'll be trouble here all right.”
“What kind?” they says.
“What kind?” he says. “You know as well as I do. It's just one more of their schemes to take away from labor the gains and advances we made in the war. It's women now. And this one's just the entering wedge.” And he showed them what was up.
“What'll we do?” they says. “Give her the run out?”
“No,” he says. “You'll leave her to me!”
And so they went on back to work again, cursing and swearing and suspicious at this woman and women in general—breaking into overalls, taking away men's work and livelihood all over today. But they done no more at the time. They shut up and left it in the hands of that there Six Hour Kelly, their president, For they knew he was the one to handle it.
A wise boy he was, and crafty and hep to all the different games of the employers. A tall lean feller, and silent generally. Yet a grand persuading talker when he wanted to be. 'Twas him that got through all them gains against the management during wartime—more money and shorter hours and big pay overtime and against speeding up. Six Hour Kelly they called him, because he come out and showed them plain and simple how six hours a day and five days a week, like the miners wanted, would cure up most all the labor troubles now. And he got his name and reputation from that.
“I got the dope,” he tells them that next day.
“What is it?" they asks him, anxious.
“And what to do about it.”
And they begged him to tell it to them.
“You know who this woman is,” he answers back.
“Her name is Perkins,” says another one.
“Raw Rhubarb, it should be,” says one more, “from the looks and appearance of her face.”
“Milly Perkins,” says the other one.
“Yes,” says Six Hour Kelly. “And she's the daughter of old man Perkins, that dropped out of the shop and died last winter. And she says she's got to work somewhere to get a living.”
“Let her go somewhere else, where a woman belongs then,” says old George Cooper. “This ain't no place for her.”
“She can't place herself nowhere else, she claims,” says Six Hour Kelly, looking up.
“Aw, let her stay!” says one feller, “She don't look dangerous to me.”
“That's where you're wrong,” says old Cooper, starting bristling up. “That's where you're wrong. Let them just stick their heads and ears in anywhere and they're dangerous.”
“She won't be dangerous,” says Six Hour Kelly; “not if you handle her the way I tell you to. She'll be a help!”
“I warn you!” says old George.
“Nor we won't lose her her job, neither,” says Kelly, addressing the other man, who wanted her kept on.
“I warn you,” says old man Cooper, finishing up. “The less you have to do with them the safer you'll be.”
“Aw, shut up, George,” says one of them. “Let him talk.”
“Go on, Six Hour,” says the rest, grinning. For they seen he had another one of his deep schemes hatched probably that he was always working out. “What'll we do to her?”
“We'll let her stay right on at work,” he says, “without no protest. Like good generous-hearted men should do.”
“Yes,” they says, waiting.
“And then we'll give her a glad and glorious welcome into the union.”
“The union!” says old George, in a hard frozen voice.
“How can you keep her out—or any other working painter—under our present agreement?” says several.
“The next thing,” says old Cooper, bitter, “you'll have them all in tying ribbons to the chairs in the Labor Temple, and little silver bells on all the cuspidors.”
“And next,” says Kelly, going on after he was done again, “we'll elect her an officer in the union.”
“An officer!” they says—surprised now, the whole of them.
“Yes,” says Six Hour Kelly. “A joint associate lady president.”
“Joint lady president!” they says. “What's a joint lady president, and what are the duties of that office?”
“We'll work out the duties,” he says, “later, when we create the place.”
“Yes—and bust up the union!” says George.
“Go on,” they says to Kelly. For they knew for sure now he had another one of them deep schemes of his under way.
“And next,” he says, with that still laughless look he had on his face at such times, “we'll start up and inaugurate the Milly Perkins movement.”
“The Milly Perkins movement!” they says.
“The Milly Perkins movement, yes. For fair play for women!”
“Fair play for women!” they says.
And old George Cooper gave a groan.
“Fair play, yes,” says Six Hour Kelly. “For women against the men. And a grand farseeing movement all over this country, and the whole entire world. For the grand, high, noble principle of equal pay for equal work.”
“Go on,” they says, smiling, yet puzzled too. “Where does all this fit in on us?”
“Don't you see it yet?” says Kelly.
“We do not,” they says.
“Then I'll explain it to you,” he tells them, and started out and done so—the rest all keeping still and listening around him.
“You know what the game is,” he says, “of the management—and the capitalists all over. It's to make us lose and forfeit all the gains that labor won during the war; and especially to attack and bust up that one great principle that we seen and worked out during wartime for spreading regular employment to all the toilers all the year by having short days and short weeks—each one stretching out the work, so all can share.”
And of course they all remembered that, for it was the thing he was always preaching to them.
“And now they're out again—attacking us with this woman, trying another tack. For you can see their idea plain if you give it but the slightest thought,” he says, going on—“what they're trying to do with this big raw-boned Perkins woman. They're just merely trying it out with her to see if women can do our work here, or any part of it.”
“Yes.”
“And when they see they can, what'll they do? They'll either replace us or cut us down to women's wages. It's a slick scheme, and what's more, we'd have one wild time beating it—with labor fixed the way it is now.”
“What'll we do then?” they says, anxious, for they seen what he said was true.
“What can we do but just one thing?” he says. “Come right out and declare free and strong and open for the equal-pay, equal-work principle. Start up and push on the Milly Perkins fair-play movement through all the women of the country, every possible way we can.”
“But what——” they says again.
“By advertising and resolutions,” he goes on.
“Resolutions!” they says. “What good are resolutions?”
And old George Cooper gave a low sarcastic grunt.
“Say, listen,” says Six Hour Kelly. “Are you dumb? Who is it has the most to say about buying automobiles? And specially the high-priced ones like this here? And about the looks and painting of them, more specially still? The women, ain't it?”
“Yes,” they says.
“Well, then,” says Kelly, working out his scheme for them, “suppose we elected her lady president—just to put and set it in all the women's minds all over as something strange and new!”
“Yes,” they says.
“And then suppose we pass our resolutions strong for equal pay for equal work—as started here by this here high-minded company—and fair play for women all round the world, and sign them with my name and her name side by side as president and associate president and send them out to all the women we can think of—the women's clubs and political parties and fraternities and sororities, all over this grand land, asking them to write and resolve back whether or not they would indorse our action and the action of the company, and push forward shoulder to shoulder with us here the grand movement for equal pay for equal work for women all over.”
“Yes,” they says.
“Then when or how would the management here dare to drag in more women here expecting to cut down their pay later—or force ours down by means of them—when the minute they done so we could start the women screaming murder and treachery all over the land—spoiling their sales all over? It would just knock the whole thing in the head where it stands, wouldn't it?”
“You'd think so,” they said, smiling.
“Do you mean you'd leave her in here working right along?” old George Cooper asked him, speaking again.
“I do,” he says.
“There's where you make one grand big mistake!”
“What would you rather have,” says Six Hour Kelly—“one woman here for a lesson and example, or women swarming in all over the place?”
“One's all too many,” says George, “as you'll find!”
“And the beauty of it all is, boys,” says Six Hour Kelly, going on, disregarding him, “not only what it'll do here for us but what it'll do all over to the women, where they're breaking in everywhere, grabbing off men's jobs, as you'll see when you think of it. For the more they resolve for equal pay the less jobs they'll be liable to get. For who'd pay equal pay for a woman when they could get a man? Nobody—you know that. So then, if this thing should ever get started good and rouse the women right, you'd see an odd strange sight—you'd see the women all up hollering themselves out of a job from Maine to California.”
And they laughed hearty, thinking of it, and slapping him on the back. “One grand idea!” they says, laughing still—all but old George Cooper.
“You think you're smart and cunning,” he says, coming in, “fooling and managing and playing with millions of women. But you ain't—and I'll warn you of it plain and simple. No man yet ever managed one, let alone millions. And you're headed for disaster and bad trouble if you start mixing it up with them. For there never was a man yet that could compare with a woman in slick lowdown trickery and deceiving—not even you yourself!”
“I'll take my chances,” says Six Hour Kelly. “I've seen and studied thousands of them; and there's one thing you can always count on—you can always lead them where you want to by playing up to their pride and vanity.”
“That's where you're wrong again,” says old George Cooper. “Flatter them up, and they get pleased with themselves more than ever and think they own the earth. And the next thing, they're loose! Loose entirely, and God only knows what they'll do then!”
“Aw, shut up, George,” they says to him.
“And by the millions, too,” he says, gloomy.
“Aw, hang up, shut off,” they says, “on the mournful noise. Six Hour knows what he's talking about.”
“And I'll go off,'” says Kelly, “to frame it up—to interview her and work up the resolutions.”
So he went and seen her, and first off she was kind of leery and suspicious—like it seemed it was her nature to be.
“I don't know as I want to come in there alone with a lot of men,” she says when he asked her about joining the union.
And then he showed her how she nor anybody couldn't afford not to organize and join the union, and convinced her finally, and then went on and took up the president idea—and fixed that finally, though at first she talked off.
“Well, I'll take it,” she says, “if they all want me to so much, though I don't care much about it. And yet, for that, I don't see no good reason why a woman shouldn't make as good and capable a president as a man.”
“There ain't any,” says Six Hour Kelly, hearty. “And that's just the idea we want you to come in with us on, and spread around like I'm telling you,” he says, going on giving her more about his idea for pushing on the equal-pay-for-equal-work idea all over—that everybody should help!
“For there ain't no reason why a woman shouldn't get as much as a man if she does the same work—that you know of, is there?” he says.
“Not a one,” she says, short, “except men's cussedness.”
And he seen by now just what she was—one of those raw-boned old maids that make their boast of getting along without the men, and fighting them whenever they can.
So he thanked her and spoke kind and cordial to her on what they'd do together, and then went out and wrote the resolution that was going to start off the great world-wide Milly Perkins movement, and it run something like this:
    Whereas, the women of this grand united democracy, having now been given and accorded the ballot all over today, are entitled to free and equal fraternity in all other things, no less;
    And Whereas, at this time the wise enlightened management of the Octo Automobile Company has introduced into its industry the broad farseeing policy of bringing in and standing up shoulder to shoulder together women with men, in the painting of automobiles, with no wrong discrimination as to pay, hours or conditions, as in the dark and unenlightened past;
    And Whereas, Union 250 of the Amalgamated Automobile Painters, Decorators and Varnishers of America stands firm as a rock for the grand ennobling principle of equal pay for equal work amongst the sexes, ever stretching forth a warm hand of welcome to its fellow sisters;
    And Whereas, in order to establish its unalterable position on this grand principle before the public, it has elected its sister member, Miss Milly Perkins, to act as associate lady president, an office not heretofore so common in unions, but yet destined to play a great part in the future of unionism;
    Therefore, Resolved that Union 250, hereby desiring to indorse the wise, high-minded policy of the Octo Automobile Company, and also to further and push on the great cause of equal pay for equal work amongst the sexes, does now hereby resolve and decree that this action be spread upon its minutes and be forwarded to all women's organizations, wherever situated, that may be interested and concerned in the future of womankind, in the hopes that they will forward and give all possible publicity to the desire of American unionism to coöperate in all ways with the grand forward movement for fair play for women and equal pay for equal work amongst the sexes.
(Signed) John Henry Kelly, President, Milly Perkins, Associate President.
“That'll fix 'em!”says the boys when they heard it.
“It'll fix you, you mean!” says old George
And then they elected her joint lady president, and passed the resolutions unanimous, with just only old George Cooper standing out against them.
“I've seen fools,” he says, bitter, “but I never before seen them that would start out looking for trouble, rousing and inflaming up women by the millions!”
They almost put him out finally, but it only made him all the more warning and gloomy.
“Don't you hate to see them?” he says in the shop next day, looking over, dark and moody, to where she was standing at her work. “A woman in overalls,” he says—“there ain't no meaner sight in Nature! And yet they're and insinuating into them—and slipping themselves trousers and politics and men's business generally all over today. And we standing letting them. And you know what that means.
“You know what that means,” he says. “It means bad trouble ahead between the sexes. It means they're loose and have got their heads. And that means destruction for this country—or any country that they once get loose in.
“Look at Rome,” he says, for he was a great reader “Everybody knows what it was bust up and ruined her. It was women—women's rights and women's laws and women scrapes and women mixing and interfering into government. Just women getting loose all over for the first time in history that destroyed the greatest nation yet and brought it down to nothing. And we're going the same way—only ten thousand times worse and faster. And any man of sense can see it and fear it, without going out and stirring them up to more trouble by appealing to the worst appetites and passions and prejudices of millions of them.”
“Aw, shut up, you loon,” they says. “Most likely nothing might come of this at all!”
But there did; it started right away. For Six Hour Kelly had laid his plans far and deep, and sent his notices out everywhere. And the first they knew the papers were talking it up all over, starting with that one that had the longest story on it on a Sunday—illustrating it with drawings of her they made themselves in their office, and calling her little Milly Perkins, getting the idea most likely from the looks and appearance of her name.
“Little Milly Perkins!” they were saying, and laughing around the shop. For of course she was big and strong and bony as a derrick.
“That's the way with things like this,” says old man Cooper. “You never know what direction they'll take or where they'll land.”
“They'll land all right,” says Six Hour Kelly. “Don't you fret. It's going big all over. And the management is wild about what we've done to them—heading them off. And we've had successful schemes before. But in my opinion this is the grandest move we've made yet to keep and protect and consolidate all the gains we've made in the war—for more pay and less toil and more leisure for the worker—that they're all the time working to take away from us. And it's only beginning. For the women are only just starting to come in.”
It started though right after that—the women answering and resolving back to the resolutions they sent them. And the union received them, a whole mail bag of them. And they had her—the new joint lady president—get up and read them at their meeting, all hands keeping their face straight. And the first one she started in on was from the women's clubs of Massachusetts, that ran on something like this:
    Whereas, the women of Massachusetts for long and untold centuries have ever stood strong and firm for the best there was;
    And Whereas, recognizing that the grand old Bay State—first in religious liberty, first in the abolition of human slavery, first in the education of woman, and in all other great movements, too many to speak of here—cannot now look backward from the cause of humanity and of womanhood, by far its best and most precious part;
    Therefore, Resolved that to us, the best and leading women of that great historic state, little Milly Perkins must ever stand up as a symbol and watchword of all that is wise and forward looking in the grand and noble onsweep of women today into American industry, wherever placed or located;
    And Resolved that together with the Octo Automobile Company and the Union 250 of Amalgamated Automobile Painters, Decorators and Varnishers of America, our voice will never be wrongfully hushed or stilled till the coming in of the great and new and saving principle into industry of true justice for women founded on the grand eternal principle of equal pay for equal work.
“Did they bite?” says Six Hour Kelly, after the Perkins woman had gone out.
“You'll think so!” says old George Cooper, gazing at him, severe, “when you've roused them up a little more. They'll be biting us—by the millions!”
“What—for giving them fair play and justice?” says several.
“Justice!” says old George. “Since when do women want justice? Snatching is One thing after another! You just gave them the ballot—and what happened? Do they want to fight, or go on juries, or do police work, or work on the roads, or do anything in return? They do not. They want more special laws and legislation, for women only—to get more and more advantage for themselves over us. Snatchers, I call them—and gimmes. It's 'gimme this, gimme that' from the time they start in, fifteen minutes after they're born, to hang out ribbons on them to serve notice they're softer and lazier and got to have all the privileges there is over the men!
“Snatchers!” he says. “That's what they are by nature and training. Did you ever know anything or anyone that could satisfy them yet? The Almighty could not,” he says; “that's sure. And we're outside the Garden of Eden now for that special and particular reason. And that ain't no guesswork nor say-so of yours or mine. It's divine Bible history.
'And now,” he says, “not willing to leave bad enough alone, you've got to out with this justice-and-equality talk again, inflaming them up by the millions and sicking them direct on us ourselves right here—swelled up with thinking there's something more here to be snatched. And the next thing you know they'll have grabbed all our jobs from us.
“And as for this woman here, you can see already what they've done to her. She's puffed up now so she can't hardly see out of her eyes. And the more you give her the more she hates you—and all the men!”
And they laughed, for of course that was her all over.
It was a week or two more then, when more resolutions came in from farther out in the country, starting in with that one from the women's clubs in Illinois, which they claimed first got her going on what she done to them. And it run somewhat like this:
    Whereas, the women of the fine fertile foremost state of our great middle empire have never yet been backed down on any grand forward movement;
    And Whereas, recognizing that as the first chief representatives of the state of the manhood of the Great Emancipator, we shall never give nor take quarter in the grand inspiring battle for the rights of womanhood, too long delayed;
    And Whereas, brave courageous little Milly Perkins has, through merit and popularity among her beloved fellow workmen, been elected and chosen to be joint associate lady president for the first time in the history of the Automobile Painters in America, and no doubt of unionism of all the world, for all we know;
    Therefore, Resolved that together with all the true womanhood of the United States, we hasten to stand beside our brave courageous sister, her fellow and sister members of Union 250 and the Octo Automobile Company, without reserve and without restraint, for the grand principle of equal pay for equal work among the sexes;
    And Resolved, also, that we register our opinion that in this generous rivalry in equality between man and woman, the woman will not be found wanting.
“Not wanting, no—nothing she can grab off for herself!” says old Cooper, after she had gone home from the hall, the way she did right after the meetings.
“Look, ain't she speeding up a little here lately,” says one of the other ones, “at her work? It seems so.”
“She will be, probably, if she ain't!” says old George. “After a few more of these resolutions and whereas-the-women's. For they're nothing but vanity and showing off, just as I warned you. And if they once put it in her head that she could show herself out smart by beating us at working, heaven help us! She might speed us up to where we was working and slaving before the war.”
“What—a woman?” they says.
“You don't know them the way I do,” he tells them.
“Don't worry,” says Kelly, for he'd kept on good terms with her. “If she gets working too fast—for our understanding with one another—I'll give her the hint.”
“A hint—with an ax,” says old George.
But it wasn't so long before Kelly got the chance to pass it on to her in the shop, where she was working near him.
“Say,” she says to him, sneering, “is that the best you can do? I never seen painting done so slow. I thought when I got in here I'd have hard work keeping up to you men. But you all the time keep me dragging. What ails you? Why are you so slow?”
“What's the use of killing yourself?” he says to her.
“What's the use of always having to hold back?”
“There might be a reason,” says Kelly, tipping her the long wink.
And then he thought probably, her being a woman, nobody'd ever troubled to go over with her the principle they were working on today.
“I'll take it up with you,” he says, “when we get the time—the principle of the thing,” he says.
And right after that more resolutions—or whereas-the-women's, as they called them now, copying old George Cooper—came in to be read by her at the meeting. And the best and strongest one was that from them Kentucky clubs:
    Whereas, the women of the grand storied Southland, though for centuries rejoicing in the precious privilege of the priceless panoply of the peculiar chivalry and manhood of the South, yet choose now to stand forth firm and strong in the marts and markets and forums of the world upon their own commanding merit;
    And Whereas, the State of Kentucky, most regal of the star-topped daughters of the Union, has ever held the proud and recognized distinction of leader and pacemaker among her sister states, and expects the same from all within its borders—women, men and horses;
    Therefore, Resolved that the womanhood of Kentucky, holding high the torch of recognition for the success of sweet, brave, noble little Milly Perkins, sets its empurpled seal of approval upon the Octo Automobile Company and Union 250 of the Amalgamated Automobile Painters, Decorators and Varnishers of America, and their recognition of the grand, noble and undisputed principle of equal pay for equal work;
    And Resolved, further, that as true daughters of that great leading state where we were nursed and nurtured, we can do no less than to warn the fellow members of Union 250 to look sharply to their laurels all over on the ground that our brave sister, Milly Perkins, will be found not merely an associate but a leader and a pacemaker among the men, not alone in unionism, but in all departments whatever where they now stand together in industrious toil.
“Pacemaker,” says old George Cooper. “That's it. That's what they're inflaming and prodding her up to now. And she's speeding up, right now, under the influence of it. I heard the foreman jeering and taunting about it in the shop no longer back than yesterday—about her complaining about waiting for men to keep up their end of the work with her.”
And several others said they got it too.
“I'll see her,” says Kelly, “and reason it out with her—how we've got to stand together and organize on that line.”
“Reason with them!” says old George. “Organize them! No, no more than mad raving savages.”
“And another thing,” says Six Hour Kelly to the rest of them—“you want to lay off that snickering and laughing when she's reading them resolutions.”
For they were letting go more now when it came to that little-Milly-Perkins stuff.
“Aw, what difference would it make,” they says, “when you come down to it? She couldn't speed up to amount to anything—a woman!”
“She couldn't, huh?” says Six Hour, for he had been thinking about that lately. “Did you ever stop to think what they done in the mill business in New England—driving practically all the men out of it? And lots of that is heavier work than most of this painting.”
“Well, what did you let her in here for if that was the case?” they says to him.
“Just what I warned you!” says old George Cooper.
“Aw, shut up!” says Six Hour Kelly. “Or I'll mow you one in the neck.” For he was getting a little sore and leery now, the way this thing was going.
So he went to her after work that next day, and explained the principle of the idea—tried to—in a kind pleasant way.
“Say, why don't you use your nut?” he says to her.
And he showed her that principle that labor worked out all over so successful in the war.
“Look,” he says. “It's plain and simple. You want all the money you can get for your work, don't you?”
“Yes,” she says back.
“And you want it—all the time?”
“And you want enough work to go round, don't you—so you won't have any chance of being laid off the job?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then. Now in the past there's always been times of unemployment and low wages and all that—just from nothing but there being too many that wanted work—and the employers playing them one against the other, ain't there? All right. Then what must labor do to meet that?”
“I dunno,” she says.
“It holds back and works less—fewer hours and fewer days and a slower rate of speed. And then there's just so many more folks working, and getting their wages and regular work. And by and when we hold back enough, there'll be work enough for all—and no layoffs whatever.
“That's what the war proved out and showed to us,” he says, going over it. “It's just plain simple mathematics, dividing up so much work between so many workers. And nobody yet has ever come up that can dispute it. And that's the grand principle organized labor is working on today—or ought to be. You see it now, don't you?”
“Well, I dunno,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Well, you'd think maybe,” she says, “somehow, the less work that's done, and the less things that were made, the less they'd have to divide up in wages.”
And that made him hot—for he'd never had anyone try and dispute that principle to him before—let alone a woman!
“Are you dumb?” he says. And he went over it again—raising his voice. And by this time she was raising hers. “Don't you see it yet?” he says.
“No,” she says; “no”—firmer and firmer.
“Well, you see this anyhow, probably,” he says, getting sore finally—“you see how long it would be if we don't coöperate—if the men got out against a woman, speeding up, how long the woman would last—or women in general!”
“How long would they?” she says, looking up, hard and insulting.
“About a minute, more or less!”
“Is that so?” she says. “Well, I ain't seen that yet!”
He had no idea she had such a swelled head—and he told her so. And the end was they parted worse than ever.
“I'll show you something now,” she says, “how good the women really are.” And the tone of voice she said it in made him anxious.
The bad trouble between the sexes that old George Cooper was all the time talking about started in right after that, for she done what she said she would—she started in showing something in the line of speeding, and making a grand big howl if the others did not hurry up and get her share of the work around to her on time. And the men got back at her more and more, all getting sorer and uglier each day—till finally it all burst into flame in the meeting where she started in reading that last whereas-the-women thing, from Oklahoma, that went on something like this:
    Whereas, the women of Oklahoma, used and accustomed to the broad grand spacious freedom of God's own country, have long understood and seen that women's place is ever first in the van and the foreguard of civilization, since man began;
    And Whereas, we know well it is the sacred duty of America') staunch womanhood to show forth and proclaim with every living breath that self-evident fact;
    Therefore, Resolved that we see cause for rejoicing but not surprise in the new harmony of the sexes founded by the work of the Octo Automobile Company and the Union 250 of the Amalgated Automobile Painters, Decorators and Varnishers of America, in standing firm together in the recognizing of the grand eternal principle of equal pay for equal work amongst the sexes, so long freely recognized in this grand large Western country;
    And Resolved that we extend our fellowship to our sister, little Milly Perkins, and urge her on to be never satisfied with mere equality, but to remember that now as ever, in every civilization worth the name, women will be found leading on and up in the van.
“What kind?” says one. “A moving van?”
“The more it moves the better we'll like it,” says another one, half aloud, “if it only takes her with it!”
“I'll show you what van!” she says, overhearing. “And it'll be moving. And the dust from it will not please you, neither.”
And they laughed and hooted her some and the meeting broke up in jawing and disorder, with her going out ugly with her head up.
“You made a mistake,” says Six Hour Kelly, “getting her mad.”
“What about you with your resolutions and your whereas-the-women's?” they says. And they went at him hard.
It was a bad blow to Six Hour Kelly, the way this thing was turning, for up to that time he had had them eating out of his hand. And now they was getting away from him, and he knew it. But if this was a blow it was nothing to what come to him right after that, when the superintendent of the works sent word to have him come and see him in his office.
“I want to thank you,” he says to Six Hour Kelly, “personal.”
A slick, soft-talking article he was—sitting soft and quiet in his still, fine-furnished office.
“Thank me?” says Kelly, leery already at the soft way he was starting out. “For what?”
“For all the boost you gave us by that advertising of our product with the women all over.”
“Oh,” says Kelly.
“Yes,” he says, looking up; “but that ain't half.”
“What else?” says Kelly, staring.
“For giving us,” he says, looking down to where he was tapping a lead pencil on the desk, “the chance to try out women labor.”
“Thank me?” says Six Hour Kelly. “That's a good one. brought her in—we didn't.”
“Yes,” says the other man, looking up, still and serious. “But only for the minute because she wanted work at once, and was the daughter of an old-time trusty employe—and thought herself she could do it. We had it all fixed up to transfer her to the next place for women we had, when you came along with your resolutions and made us keep her in there, and see—to our surprise—just how good the women are.”
“They ain't so good as men, and you know it!” says Kelly.
“This one is,” he says, “and better—if we are to judge by results. And what's more, if they were not so good—the rest, as her—still, you made it grand business by your appealing and resolving to the women all over, for us to stick them in the shop and show them in our advertising and circulars all over working side by side with men. In fact,” he says, making fine dots with his lead pencil, “it's getting hard work today for us to keep from a hiring more, And that's what I got you in here for now. For it was you that started it—you and your resolutions.”
And Kelly said nothing, only cleared his throat.
“And that wasn't the whole, neither,” says the superintendent, looking more and more careful at the marks he was making on his blotter. “For now we've seen and convinced ourselves that women could do the work, all at once there's thousands and thousands of women applying for the chance to do it. From what I see we have the pick of all the women in the United States,” he says. “They are surging in around us by the millions, you might say, looking for the good pay here. All, of course,” he says, looking up again, “on account of those resolutions of yours starting in the advertising of it through the country.”
And Kelly said nothing. He was too hoarse.
“And so I sent for you,” says the superintendent, “to help stave it off.”
“Stave what off?” says Kelly.
“This thing about the women rushing in here,” he says after a kind of pause. “For you see what it is—all this what you've done has put us in a bad awkward position. It would be to our advantage every way to be hiring women—if only for the advertising from it. And they almost compel us to—after all this talk about it all over. And I don't mind telling you confidential,” he says, soft and quiet, “we'd be giving in to them and hiring them in today if it wasn't for our wanting to protect our old-time loyal employes—the thing I want you to help about.“”
“Help about?” says Six Hour Kelly. “Me?”
“Yes,” he says, and cocked his head back to one side, slow, to get a good look at the mark he was making on the paper. “Yes, for we've done all we can alone—by ourselves. We've held back against our own interests and all these women as long as we can now, and will keep on trying to do so. But now you've got to help us—or we cannot keep going on,” he says, stopping and looking up sidewise, “fighting off these women!”
“What is it you want?” says Kelly at last, in a hoarse, kind of strangled voice, for he seen something bad was up.
“We'd like,” he says, “to get our product up to the same it was before the war. At least that. For we never had the name of driving nor pushing our men then. And why should we now? It's that or the women,” he says.
And Kelly finally had to come to it mostly; though he did manage to hold out something on him of what they'd gained and obtained in the war. And he had a bad time fixing it with the boys; and more so after the line of talk he had been giving them the past few years.
“So this is your gains from the war!” they says, cursing him harsh. “You see where it lands us, don't you—first letting down and then speeding up like this? There's plenty of us that will drop out now—that will have to. And you're the man that done it.”
And he done the best he could. He showed them the things he'd still held out on the management.
“She'll be taking all that away,” they says, “if you don't hold her back. You've got to get to her some way or she'll get us all discharged,” they was telling him; and especially the ones he had been always strongest with—the younger ones that had always took it easy and held back on the work, according to his principles.
And Kelly told them he'd go and take it up with her—only they'd have to hold back from mixing up and battling with her the way they were lately. For it was getting now something terrible—they calling her down and she all the time sneering and nagging and rawing them up.
“What makes you do it?” he says, going at her, soft and reasonable.
“What?” she says, sharp.
“Rowing and speeding up. Can't you see it's against all our interests? Can't you see that argument I was giving you yet?”
“What argument?” she comes back.
“That argument that everybody knows now, and there's no answer to: That the only reasonable, sensible way is for labor to lay back and each one have short hours and stretch out the work so all will have the benefit of it. So that the less work each one does, the more pay there'll be for labor in the total.”
“The less work,” she says, “the more pay! What sense is there to that?”
“All the sense in the world,” he says, flushing up. “There's no possible answer to it.”
But she refused to see it. “It may sound grand to a man,” she says, “but it sounds like foolish nonsense to a woman.”
And he held back, keeping his head, and went over his arguments again. But he seen he couldn't make no headway with her. Her mind was set, like a woman's gets. You couldn't reason with her.
“How can they pay out as much in wages,” she kept saying, “if they don't make up the stuff to sell?”
And so finally he had to give her up in disgust. He seen he couldn't change And in fact he seen there was no reasoning at all with her. It was all probably just merely the prejudice and the hate she had in her for men anyhow. And that was worse than he'd thought.
“What do I care anyhow?” she says. “I hate men and I always did. I'm a man-hater,” she says, “of the worst kind—and was from childhood up.
“You see these,” she says, taking a big bunch of letters out of her overalls pocket and showing them to him. “Them's proposals of marriage. I get them from all over,” she says, “since you started out advertising me with the newspapers and those resolutions all over the nation.
“And here's one,” she says, picking it out, “from a millionaire!”
“'A millionaire?” he says, giving her a still, mocking look.
“Yes—a new fresh millionaire, from Oklahoma oil,” she says. “An oil king, they call them out there—that's seen those women's resolutions and my picture in the paper. And he's all for hotfooting it on here to marry me.'
“He is?” says Kelly, thinking then of course she was lying.
“Yes,” she says. “But would I accept him? I would not! Nor the best man in the world. I want nothing to do with them, nor never did—more than to fight them and show them up. As I'll seek be doing now to my dying day—staying on right here, fighting and showing up these poor lazy painters here. Though heaven knows I don't take no special pride showing up painters. For they're well known and established to be the laziest and most shiftless of a loafing sex—from high art to barn painting.”
“What'd she say?” the boys asked him when he came reporting back to them
And he told them.
“Ain't that just like a woman?” they says. “No sense! No brains!”
“No, you can't teach them nothing,” says Six Hour, gloomy.
“Well, you've got to do something,” they says, “for she's getting worse each day. And if this keeps up we'll all be fired.”
But instead of doing something to her it was just the other way. For the next day the superintendent was sending for Kelly, talking still smoother.
First he thanked him again. And then he told him they had all got to speed up some more.
“I hate to ask you,” he says, “but the pounding on me to hire more women,” he says, “is getting terrible. And though I want to do the best I can for the good loyal boys here now, yet you can see the least they can do at the present time is to push out as much work as the one woman we've got in there now does.”
“She ain't a woman,” says Kelly. “She's a demon in overalls; and you can search the world for another.”
“She counts as a woman with us,” says the superintendent, “and with all the rest of the women that you stirred up and excited on the matter by your resolutions describing her as such. So you'll have to go off, I fear,” he says, “and stir up the boys to work at least equal to her.”
And Six Hour Kelly gave a great inward groan, for he seen what that would mean to him himself. But he went back and told them nevertheless, for he seen he had to.
“We've got to do it, that's all, boys,” he says. “It's turned against us a way no man could foresee.”
“I foreseen it,” says old George Cooper, “and warned you.”
“I said a man,” says Six Hour; “not a walking wart.”
And they had all they could do to pry them apart.
“Aw, let them go,” says some of the others, “and kill each other off.”
And Kelly seen right then he had lost them.
“I s'pose we've got to do it, boys,” they says. “I s'pose we've got to get in and work and plug, and some of us lose our jobs by it in the bargain. But the next time we elect officers we'll have something leading us that carries something heavier than a Brussels sprout on top of his shoulders.”
“You don't have to wait,” says Six Hour Kelly.
And he done the only thing he could. He resigned. Yet it went hard with him too. For he knew what would happen next to him when the management got wind that he was out and lost his power with the rest. For they'd laid him off long' ago if it had not been for that.
“But let me warn you,” he says, going out, leaving them, “you don't want to get rough with her and try to drive her out. For if you do you'll be doing just what they're itching and longing for. They'd bring women into at least half your places so quick it would make your head totter.”
“It's a shame and pity you never seen that,” says old man Cooper, “before you started in sicking them on us by the millions.”
And then they did have it out. And it was something bad.
And that next pay day, sure enough, they handed Kelly his notice in his envelope.
He was walking down the street that next morning after that, thinking of how things had changed for him and that reputation as a leader he had made in wartime—and now it was all gone and lost! And he was wondering what would be the outcome of that thing he had started out with, so free and easy, with the union. And would she keep on pushing them along with her hate of men and the excitement and praise from all those women's resolutions—or would she break down and bust up under the strain of it?
And he was down at the railroad station finally, and he looks up, and who does he see stepping out of a taxi but the woman all spangled out in a bright new blue dress and a big long red feather in her hat and what looked like diamonds all over her. And with her was a little short leather-faced man with a thick red mustache—and most strange and unusual clothes.
And when they got out and got opposite him, to his surprise she stopped and spoke.
“Meet my husband,” she says, smiling.
And Kelly shook hands with the small man in the big hat and the tall cowhide boots.
“He was the one,” she says, explaining to Kelly, “that was in the oil business, that came to me from your resolutions.”
“The oil king!” says Kelly, startled, to himself.
And he seen then he might have known from the start. For what else would be out wearing checked pants tucked into his boots and a diamond like a headlight, in a red tie and three diamond rings.
But by now the oil king was wringing his hand off, thanking him.
“So you're the man,” he says, “that got me to my little girl! For if it hadn't been for your advertising and spreading all over the world about her in the papers, never in my life would I have found and won her,” he says. “God bless you!”
“And that's no lie neither,” she says, towering over him in her new blue suit and red-feathered hat and diamond earrings and a diamond heart on a necklace in front, and two diamonds as big as your fist upon her fingers.
And the oil king was still thanking him, coming closer and closer. “I was all fixed every way but a bride,” he says, “by them recent oil strikes you seen about in the papers. And then you came along and gave me her—the best of all.
“For you see how it is with me,” he says, “now I have this money. I am bound and determined to have the best there is—in everything—if I search the world for it. That's me today. And when I seen what all said and agreed in the papers and the resolutions about my little girl here, that settled it. I seen she was the one I must have or know why! And so I came on and I got her—thanks to you! God bless you!”
And talking close up as he was, Six Hour Kelly seen that without a doubt he had a drink or so in him.
“Yes,” he says, going on, more and more cordial, “it's the same way with everything with me today. I've got the dough and I'll have the best—from wives and diamonds down to horses, cattle, pigs and hens—while the oil holds out! And if you ever come out to Oklahoma,” he says, “you've got to stop off at my place. I just got me a ten-thousand-acre ranch the grandest in the state,” he says; “and riding horses, and all kinds of ways to enjoy myself. And prohibition won't bother us none either. For I'll get the what's-this in tank cars if I want it, and me and my little girl, we'll give you the time of your life. For we ain't no pikers, and we owe all our joy and happiness to you, God bless you!” he says. “And we won't never forget it.”
And just then their train came in for Oklahoma and they hurried and got aboard it.
“Good-by, God bless you!” says the oil king, waving his hat from the rear end. “God bless you for all you've done for us!”
But she just smiled a kind of mean superfluent smile at Kelly, and waved her hand.
And then they moved off—all their diamonds flashing and gleaming in the sun. And Six Hour just stood there watching.
“What do you see where you're looking?” says the express messenger, coming on by with his truck finally, and seeing him standing there still and rigid.
“Whereas, the women,” says Six Hour Kelly in a low dreamy kind of distant voice, like somebody waking slowly out of a sleep.
“What's that you said?” says the express messenger, not thinking he heard him right, and the train being out of sight long ago
“None of your cockeyed business!” say Six Hour Kelly; only he said it different much more violent—and longer.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1952, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 71 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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