The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-10-11
VonAn's STRENGTH AND wEAxsEss.

Miss susan r. Anthony and Mrs. Elizabeth
cadv Stanton, and other champions Oh 'ne
r;oht of women to equality with men IN pom
t;cs and in the labor market, are mortned
"a r.,,,,exea at the general failure OF the
attempts which have been made 70 in'rouuoe
female compositors in greatpr1nung esAon.n
ments in New York, on the same footing WIN
v,,o,a co,nnositors. 1t seems that in every IN
s,orce where the experiment has been tined
90 a., exhaustive result, it has failed to demon
st,a,a the ability of female hands to earn as
inch wages as male hands, by performing in
;. .tort a time as much work of as good quail
~ Tn consequence of this disappointment
a co-operative printing Office for women has
been formed, in the hope of thus obtaining |
shelter from the ruinous competition OF male
labor. According to report, itmeets at the start
with considerable encouragement, and pro-
misses to Weld to the co-operators comforta-
BILE compensation and to afford valuable
school for perfecting the more dihgent
and vigorous among them In tne
printing craft. But whatever may be
it's fate, it does not touch the root of the dn-
6cultv indicated in the demonstrated inability
of women to compete on equal terms VIII
men in that branch of the labor market which
Is uumu,ri--.a ~ 49, tsPvBrePhioai Departments
of the daily newspaper press. 1t neither
meets nor satisfies the complaint, which lies
at the bottom Of nearly all the woman's rights
agitations and movements, that as an almost
uniform rule women receive less pay for work,
whether mental or manual, than men re-
reiye The only strange thing about this fact
is that any rational being should think it
strange phenomenon, or in itself SPECIFIC
wrong demanding specific remedy. Read
by the lights-sunlight or gaslight skyllght
or subterranean Ight-o this trading. work
day world, its simple statement is its sufficient
explanation and justification. The labor mar
ket would not be a market if it Disseminated
against woman for other than purely CONNER
cial reasons. As blind as justice, and as in
exorable as fate, it is no more respecter OF
persons or of sexes than geometry, or algebra,
or arithmetic is
It deals with products, not producers. 1t
measures and computes products in their
qualitative and quantitative aspects, and
pays for them accordingly. Here, after all,
if we may so speak, is the plain secret of the
yexed question about the comparatively low
compensation of female laborers. Ii they
have been usually paid less than male labor
ers, let them toll, and fret and complain as
they might, there can be but one reason for
this usual disparity; and that reason is that
they have produced less. 1t would be as pre-
posterous to suppose that female labor, of
ae,s.ual value with male labor, would fail,
merely on account of sex, to command an
equal price, as to suppose that two samples
of wool of the same quality would be rated
differently in the wool market because one
was from the back of female, and the other
from the back of male sheep. The reason
here assigned for the general fact under con-
sideration is well illustrated by some distin.
guished exceptions. Who, for example, evel
thought of offering less price for painting
| bv Rosa Bonheur than for one by Landseel
tparrlcie OF nrerary taste ever prefer, in hii
book purchases, a dull novel by G. P. r
James to piquant and pithy one by Char
lotte Bronte or the lactaqueous twaddle o.
Upper 10 the rich, red wine which flowed
through Mrs. Brownings verses?
And if we look still deeper for an explana
ton of the fact that women have generally
been paid less as lahorers than men, where
: shall shall we find it? Nowhere, but in the
ture, in making man stronger than woman
stronger in bone, in muscle. in nerve fibre
and brain texture, made him the more pow
erful as fighter and the more efficient as
laborer. For labor is simply development
| of strength. 1t may be safely assumed thai
, in whatever sphere men spontaneously enter
, as laborers, they will display an efficiency
with which it would be hopeless for women
, to try to compete. There are, of course, ex
, ceptional men who do not come under thi.
{ rule. This is enough to indicate the norma
spheres of female labor. They include all
positions and functions which men, by instinct
, of sex, spontaneously remit to the more fragile
and the more graceful sex--the sex that, un.
der the talisman of love, and the supreme die.
tates of manhood. always generous in proper.
ton as it is strong, may ever find its
natural, exhaustless, and infallibly conquer.
ing store of power in the fact of its constitu.
tional weakness. The so-called woman's
rights movements, in SO far as they propose
j. to take women from this inestimable vantage
ground and expose her, stripped of the proper
armor and weapons of her sex, to the terrible
attrition of economical forces, are at wal
with nature. with manhood and womanhood
and with the tender offices and incalculable
compensations of love.
|, General Meades latest order is an illustra.
| fion of what we have come to under Radical
rule. 1t is simply an assumption, on the
part of military commander, of the power
to interfere in elections under pretcusc vi
gunruIng Tire public peace. Formerly the
people of this country were so jealous of
their rights and their franchises, that in many
States military companies were prohibited
from parading on election days. The very
proximity of the musket and the bayonet to