Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-09-14
WOMEN AND WAGES.
Dire Necessity Should Not be the
Requirement of UniOnism.
GIRLS SHOULD BE FREE AS BOYS
And if They Choose the Field Of Labor
None Should Object.
A PERNICIOUs PRINCIPLE EXPLODED
WRITTEN FOE THE DIsPATcH.1

" Judging by the speech made Dy tnelr rep
resentatiye ulen Labor Day, the members
of the Working Girls Progressive Union
are cultivating and promulgating some
very erroneous ideas as to the work OF
women. The leading speaker of the union
is reported to have said:
"Women's field is occupied by women
who have no necessity to work and thus
many willing girl is kept from getting the
work that rightfully belongs to her,"
This evidently means that women who
are not urged BY necessity have no right to
work; that it is their bu siness to be drones
and idlers in the field, or, at least. workers
without wages; that if they have husband
to support them, or an income upon which
they can manage to get along, they have no
right to exercise their talents and ability in
the way of making money, but should leave
the field to those who are more necessitous.
THE RULE AMONG MEN.
Equity, as Herbert Spencer observes,
knows no difference of sex. The law of
equal freedom applies to the whole race.
women as well as men. The absurdity of
the position held by the working girls as to
they choose is seen by applying the same
rule to men. According to the idea of fair
ness as held by the union. men who have
enough to live upon should not work or en-
gage in any business, but should leave such
pursuits to those who are not SO lucky.
A lawyer who by the exercise Of his tai
ents has achieved competence should retire
from the courts and give "the BOYS"
chance. A minister who has married rich
wife should step down and out of the pulpit
to give the pious and impecunious young
"stewgents" an opportunity. The editor
who has worked up to large circulation
and fat dividends should depart from the
sanctum and let those whose pocketbooks
are slim step into his shoes. The working
man who has earned enough money to buy
himself home, and saved enough to live
upon if need be, should cease to labor so
that those who need work should have a
better chance to get it. Do men do this?
When men marry wives who, by keeping
boarders, can support them are they re-
quired to quit working on their own ac-
count, so as to give up their places and jobs
to willing hands who need them?
OUR PROMINENT MEN.
Gladstone, the famous statesman, is over
retired from Parliament to furnish place
for men struggling up from obscurity? The
Rothschilds have more than a mint of
money. Should they be retired from the
banking business for the benefit of those
anxious to grow rich and are willing to sue
ceed them? James G. Blaine is million
aIre. Why should he be retained in the
State Department when there are thousands
who would like to draw his salary? George
Westinghouse has won his millions. Why
should he not quit business, let the wonder
full machinery Of his mind rest and fall to
pieces, and devote himself to idleness and
inanity, so that the young fry might have a
show? Whitelaw Reid married q woman
with great wealth, why should he not be
deposed from the Tribune as editor, so as to
give some gifted reporter q nice place?
Mark Twain married money in big figures,
why should he not be restrained from writ
ing books, so as to give young authors foot
hold on fame and a share of fortune?
These girls want women who have means,
and wives who have husbands, and there
fore no necessity to work Gas they think),
to retire from the field OF labor and make
more room for the working girl. They do
not seem to recognize the fact that talents
were given to women not to bury, but to
use, to trade upon, to increase.
WHERE THE THEORY LEADS.
According to their philosophy Harriet
Beecher Stowe having husband to support
her should have kept out OF the field of au-
thcrshIp, and devoted herself to cooking and
scrubbing; Marion Harland as a minister's
wife should have given her time and en-
ergies to the parish sewing society and to
scrimping along on preachers poor pay,
rather than to making money outside by her
pen; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps having got
married, and with husband to Support"
her having no necessity to work, should
cease writing for the public and give the
scrubbing girls chance to make
living; Mary A. Livermore having
a husband to Support" her should retire
from the lecture field. in which she makes
more money than her husband does in his
parish ten times over, and leave room for
some of the young women who are willing
to do such work. Mrs. McGinty, who has a
husband, should be debarred from washing
clothes at dollar dozen, since she thereby
may be taking work from somebody else.
The value OF a born teacher is beyond
rubies or anything else that is precious, but
if she gets married there are plenty of sap
headed people to demand that she shall
bury her talent, and that her place shall be
given to perhaps "a green hand" who has
no energy or enthusiasm for anything in the
business. save drawing her salary.
THERE'S PLENTY OF WORK.
These people have no perception of the
advantage Of having workers suited to their
work by virtue OF talent and ability. They
cannot see that if married woman teaches,
or engages in any trade for which her talents
best fit her, that she does not keep
work from others who need it more
but in reality only exchanges it. If she
teaches or writes, or clerks, or engages in
any business for which she is best fitted, she
must employ others to do her housekeeping,
her sewing, her dresspiaking and millinery.
The work is simply exchanged and adapted
by the best division of labor.
If good teacher, talented writer or a
clever business woman is debarred from the
use of her talents and forced to spend her
time in busting or dishwashing or drudging
there is manifestly loss of skill-her tai
ent is largely wasted. Such would be an
infraction, too, of the law of political econ
omy. which asserts that every worker is
best employed in such way as will make
his labor most productive and useful to
other people, and at the same time most
profitable to himself.
HOUSEKEEPING DRUDGERY.
Moreover, there are many women ostensi-
bly supported" who live the most meager
and stinted lives. With not dollar to
call their own, and reduced to beggary
when they want one, it is rather to their
credit to earn some, if they can, as they
have a perfect right to do. A recent English
writer SAYS: "It is strange to see into what