Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-05-20
Women and the Eight Hour Law.

The Chicago News in speaking of the
recent striking epidemic. and the effect
of reducing the hours of labor for men
from ten to eight, discourses in the fol-
lowing truthful strain.
There is a class of people in this coun-
try who get up at o'clock in the morn
ing and who never get back to bed until
10 or II o'clock at night; who work with
out ceasing the whole of that time, and
who receive no other emolument than food
and the plainest clothing; they under
stand something of every branch OF
economy and labor from finance to cook
ing; though harassed by thousand
responsibilities, through driven and wor-
ried, though reproached and looked down
upon, they never revolt; and they cannot
organize for their own protection. Not
even sickness releases them from their
posts. No sacrifice is deemed too great
for them to make, and no incompetency
in any branch of their work is excused
No essays or books or poems are written
in tribute to their steadfastness. They
die in the harness and are sup
planted as quickly as may be.
These are the housekeeping wives of
the laboring men. It is they who get
their husbands breakfast at five o'clock
in the morning, get the children off to
school, do the washing, ironing, baking
sewing scrubbing, sweeping and market
ing, caring all the while for the babies
and doing the mending after the husband
lies snoring. They do go to bed but
hardly sleep, for nursing children often
draw their life from them all the night
long.
hat lnic ont
What chance for improvement or uplift-
ing? And what do they think of the
eight-hour movement? They think it
means that the calico they buy for cents
will cost cents by and by; that the coal
will soon be 81 and So ton, and that the
pittances out of which they now buy these
will be less before long. Is it pleasure
to them that their husbands will have
two hours more leisure? If the
men stay at home during that time the
chances ale the wives will be reprOached
for what is deemed neglect and that
some of the children will be whipped.
VIII the husbands fetch coal, or black
the stoves, or take the washing from the
line, or 90 to the market? Not for one
day out of the 365. They will irritate
them with their criticisms, will make the
children unhappy, and then leave for
some place more suited to their selfish
ness. 1t sounds hard, but it is true, and
every woman knows that it is true. She
knows that there will be two hours less in
which to earn money and two hours more
in which to spend it. She knows that her
burden will be no lighter, and In patient
cyniciom she awaits the result.
Are those women striking for eight
hours? Have they union to which they
can appeal against the cruelty of their
taskmasters? Are eloquent voices raised
in their behalf? Are there any laws en-
acted for their benefit? Are there any
prominent journals advocating their
cause? What would their husbands say
if these women turned out enmasse and
voted not to work but certain number
of hours per day, and demanded that a
more righteous division of the income be
made hereafter?
They would doubtless saysit was mid
summer madness. Is the picture over
drawn? Do or do not these women re-
ceive their share? Is working Is hours a
day cooking over hot stoves, scrub
bling over washtubs, exposing the
body to every change of our tickle
climate, bearing on an average one child
a year, and making both ends meet after
the rent is paid and the husbands beer
money is spent, in return for food, shelter
and the plainest clothing-is this fair
half of the working partnership? Is this
an equal division of labor with an equal
distribution of the profits, What would
some of the men who are parading the
streets voluntarily out of work and in their
best clothes do if they found themselves
bound to employers by tie that could
not be dissolved, while their work was
made a thousand times more laborious
and the hours nearly doubled?