The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-08
MALE VS.. FEMALE LABOR.
| A Practical Argument in Favor of Employ
ing Women in Trades.


The Art Age.
wood engraver gives the following reasons
for rot employing females: when a young
man comes to me and begins his work he feels
that it is his life's business He is to cut his
fortune out of the little blocks before him
Wife, family, home, happiness, and all are to be
carved out by his own hand, and he settles
steadily and earnestly to his labor determined
to master it and with every Indictment squirting
him on. He cannot marry until he knows his
trade. 1t is exactly the other way with the girl.
She may be as poor as the boy and as wholly
dependent upon herself for living but she feels
that she will probably marry by and by and
then she must give up wood engraving. SO she
goes on llstlesslessy she has no ambition to ex-
Gel: she does not feel that all her happiness de-
ponds on it. She will marry. and then her
husbands wages will support her. She may not
say so, but she thinks Sound it SPOTS her
work."
1t is trife wearisome to see these same stock
objections to female laber trOtted out periodical
ly, the basis of all being that women may marry.
If !, omen are not to be permitted to have trades
because men say they will marry, what is left
for them as refuge except marriage2 There
should be no more occasion for women marrying
than men. Still, women do succeed in trades.
They faithful to their employers interests,
seldom drink, seldom are absent and rarely
iDsolent In contrast with the above, from an
English paper, is the following from the Inland
Printer If women not ambitious and work
listlessly, this is queer reading:
"MANDAN, OAK, Juno TO- 1885.
''In writing to you, I will state frankly that
write for no advice as to the way in which shall
run my business, or the way in which / shall
treat my employees l am conceited enough to
believe that l have learned the lesson pretty
fairly. and that need no advice But there are
few facts concerning the trouble l have had
with my printers in the West which would COM
municate to your readers, and / would inform
them of the methods l adopted to emancipate
myself from them.
over two years ago I found myself the pos
SCISSOR Of newspaper outfit in Western town
of 3, 900 people. was running a daily and a
weekly, and doing good job business Those
were booming times, a thousand miles west of
Chicago, and l made money. To-day / am in the
same town, running the same business and, as
am not hampered for money even in these dull
times, l can pay 100 cents on the dollar easy
enough, and 1 am not owing type founder or
papermaker a cent But how is it that in
town of this size l daily and weekly
newspaper copies of which send you to inspect?
This question | will answer.
Il started in by paying my foreman $25 @
week. my compositors 30 cents thousand ems,
and my job man $50 week Now my job work
is set up as we'll as ever land am not ashamed
of its appearance), by a woman, who also makes
up my forms, to whom L pay $l0a week, while
my composltors are girls. whom taught to set
type, and who are paid % cents. / have not had
| a word of grumbling from them, while before
that time, under the union regime, my men were
always grumbing if a piece of solid matter
struck them, when earning from $40 to $27 a
week each.
"What Disguised me with my printers was the
supremacy offensive independence of their man
ner; their general uncleanly personal habits;
their filthy language when at work; their
slant kicking because l could not see that every
fat ad. should 60 to them. A climax came when,
because had complained to my foreman because
be gave me nine hours instead of ten hours
day. he walked out one day and took all the men
with him. Then revolted, and set to work to
teach girls the work. IAN EMPLOYER"
At least let women have a fair opportunity to
do something else besides get married. What
man is there who would not resent being told
that his chief ambition in life should be to be a
fatherl Yet women are told daily that they
should devote twenty years OF lifetime in pre-
pairing for motherhood, at least ten years in
bearing children. and the rest of their lives in
recovering from the effects. If they prefer to
think that the world is populated sufficiently, or
that bear child does not call for the sacrifice
of lifetime, they snubbed, and especially so
when they show any inclination TO compete with
men in trades.
The element of fair play is not abnormally
prominent in the masculine method of Getermin-
ing the whole duty of women.