Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-24
good will and hearty content were oyertaken

good will and hearty content were overtaken
by swift debility and decrepitude.
If Mrs. Davis and her Kings Daughters
by prayer, or faith, or Christian charity, or
religious spirit, can bring a regiment or
even a company Of such women from the
ranks of the 200, 900 in New York City into
the suffering villages of New England
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,il
Our faith triumphant DER our fears
Are all with her, are all with her
If Miss Van Etten can so shape legisla-
ton as to transfer such women from the
starving slums 10 the bounteous rural roads,
l can assure her that the doors Of wide
roomed, well-sunned farmhouses wilf be
flung promptly open to receive them.
A VITAL FACT.
What, exactly, do the compassionate Del
monicons propose to shape into the organi-
zation and legislation? Mr.. Oroly pointed
out the vital fact that the vast majority of
the suffering workwomen are unskilled Ia
borers. Shall Congress legislate that un-
skilled workwomen shall be paid just as
much as the skilled? Must the rich people
in New York, must we poor people in the
country villages, pay just as much money
to the woman who can only sew badly
seam already basted, as we pay to the
woman who can take the cloth and cut and
baste and sew, from piece to garment?
Must we even be forced by law to employ at
all the inefficient woman who understands
no trade? We are sometimes forced to it
by circumstances, but by law it would seem
to be framing iniquity. Can even the slop-
shopkeepers, the hardest Gradgrinds of
trade, be forced to employ women they do
not want, or forced to pay higher than the
market price for their work? Can the law
enter poor woman's garret and tell her
that she shall bend over her needle only ten
hours day, or can it enter the clothier's
counting room and tell him be shall pay
her 5000 instead of S100 year?
WHAT MIGHT BE DONE.
Organization is the only way to fight cap
ital, says Miss Van Elten, but what is it
that is to be organized? Is it labor? Alas!
that is fight i'll which victory is almost as
fatal as defeat. What can ten thousands of
starving women, even we'll organized, do
against the well-fed capitalists, with the
tremendous advantage of establishing order
on their side? A "revolt in the ranks"
sup rising''-the words have a stirring
sound at a Delmonico lunch, but what un-
told frenzy of bitter passions, what mental
and physical suffering 1t means in straight
ened honest
Cannot the Delmonicons do better? Cam
not organization provide the way 20 earn,
to share, to enjoy capital instead OF fighting
capital?
Mrs. Davis has profound faith in Christ
ian charity and the religious spirit. Christ
ian charity and religious spirit are already
organized in the very places where the work.
ing women are suffering from overwork,
both in city and country. have previously
insisted and again insist that the Christ
ian churches OF New York and the Christian
churches of the country villages can do no
better Christian work than to combine into
a moral circulating system by which the
poor women of the cities; the women starv-
ing in the garrets, perIshlng in the cellars,
shall be sent to the country villages to save,
not only themselves, but the women who
are perishing in their comfortable ample
kitchens, in their sunny. welLaired sewing
rooms. GAIL HAMILTON.