Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-04-03
PROTECTIVE LEAGUES
For Working Women Only-Their
Power Make Good Citizens.
Designed to Teach What is Needed. That
They May Free Themselves from Bond
age, Ignorance and Helplessness.
(Copyrighted, 1901


For the Gazette.
In a corner of that bit of old London known as
Bloomsbury, where once there were gardens and
growing trees, there is a low and dingy ramb
ling structure. Clarke's buildings by name. 1t
is hard to find, even when one has come to know
it fairly well, for it seems to be lurking behind
walls, and making for itself all sorts of turns
and twists in which the pilgrim may lose the
way. and come out at some other point. Once
inside it is hardly less perplexing, the only
plain and straightforward thing about it being
the clear eyed and energetic woman who answers
all questions with promptness born of long
practice. Here in this labyrinth is the
Woman's provident and protective league,
modelled after the Women's protective union of
New York. but on a far smaller scale, since till
very recently it has been matter of sore diff
Guilty TO persuade working women to combine at
all for mutual benefit and protection. For fif-
teen years it has labored steadily to bring this
about, and several unions among the various
trades have been formed, the bookbinders
taken any part till now, when, owing
to the agitation and question stirred by
the great strike of the dock laborers, a class
never before affected, have shown disposition
to combine in the same way. They represent
the lowest order of workers, toiling in under
paid industries Of every order, and competing
fercely for the work on which they are starving.
Trades unions among the better order of workers
have already demonstrated their power to
educate, and have shown that they not only i'm
prove the material condition of their members,
but gradually develop many of the qualities that
make good citizens.
Knowing from experience that we'll organized
trades unions and good wages are quite as adj
vantageous to employers as employed, the
officers of the league have worked eagerly to
bring about some possibility of such organiZa-
ton for these women, as well as to help them in
making provision against sickness and want of
work, out of funds subscribed by themselves.
Short the time has been, the result has
already begun to show itself. The first mass
cd in nhar nd TIol
by the bishop of Bedford, had but
small percentage of the poorest
workers in the vast audience, but later ones
showed that they had gained faith in the friends
who urged them to action. Poverty, WEAKNESS
inexperience and sef-distrust have all been
lions in the way, but the entering wedge is in
place and the possibilities in combination begin
ming to be plain even TO these minds so little
capable OF rational thought. 1t is the first step
toward better knowledge and the becoming
skilled instead of unskilled workers, and as
such every working woman on this side of the
sea will give it a Godspeed.
One large union has been formed embracing
both men and women who work in the confec-
tionery and preserving trades. The East Lon
don talloresSeS' union has received large Access
sion, and weekly meetings for women have been
started, all designed to teach them what is
needed, and how they may, if helped by those
who understand, deliver themselves from the
bondage of ignorance and practical helplessness,
in which most of them were born and have lived,
with no thought till now of any better order.
HELEN CAMPBELL, New York.
The department OF sclentlhc instruction OF the
Women Christian temperance union rests on
the principle that whatever the state would have
appear in citizenship it must first put into the
public schools No state votes prohibition until
a majority of its citizens are total abstainers
The only portions of our country that have not
adopted compulsory temperance education are,
of the North, Indiana and New Jersey, and of
the South, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
North Carolina, South Carolina, George, Mis-
vested in the liquor traffic lies IN wait for the
boys. We must protect them by teaching them
the nature of their foe. After most intense
battle of the books, we have now as good va
riety of accurate textbooks for all grades of
schools on scientific temperance as on geogra-
ply. Where the law is not well enforced the
the school trustees or the board of education.
MRS. MARY H. HUNT, Boston.
The social purity department of the Women's
Christian temperance union works for proven
ton, reformation and legislation. Thirty-one
states are now organized. Mothers meetings,
for educational purposes, are held everywhere
Thousands of pamphlets have been published
and distributed. Reading rooms, lodging
houses, missionaries and reformetory industrial
homes are being opened in every.state. Lectures
are delivered by our most talented women
many combining themselves%o this topic. The
age of consent has been raised, and efforts to
license shame thwarted in all parts of the coun-
heavier punishment in-many places, and to meet
the especial emergency of the lumber iRfamies,
Wisconsin has made the. procuring of inmates
DR.. KATE c. BUsHNEILs, Evanston, III.
The new method of petitioning. - The old
method of petitioning by miscellaneous sigma |
lures, obtained hastily. at the door and |
Snt t More stre Gfe,v not ras 4ny Slowes
takes than the method, by deliberate |
vote: after explanation and discussion, in ciri-
zens' meetings, labor lodges and church as |
semblies. These endorsements OF organizations !
also show, by the name of the organization, Just
what sort of people are favoring the movement.
W. +. CRAFTS, New York.