Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-07-16

me consular reports publisher by the
state department in 1885 on labor in Amer.
| lea and foreign countries were authorized
at her suggestion, and the work was done
/ in many instances under her supervision.
! While a senator from New Hampshire
Hon. Henry ". Blair asked Mrs. Smith to
compile statistics for his great report on
! education and labor which was published
by the senate, and which contains ex-
haustive researches on the relations exist
ing between capital and labor. Today
Mrs. Smith is the recognized authority in
Washington on all questions pertaining to
labor, and she has been repeatedly cited on
the floor of both the senate and house
during the last ten years.
Many of Mrs. Smiths achievements were
effected single handed and alone She
was the pioneer in the field of agA ton of
woman's rights as a breadwinneF, and she
was amazed to learn that many of the suf-
| trage and other societies which had long
! been in existence for the ostensible pur-
pose OF advancing woman had not only
failed to accomplish anything tangible, but
were without information concerning the
condition and needs of industrial women.
Mr.. Blair and other investigators have
been compelled to depend upon her for
facts and statistics, and the learned libra
rian OF congress, Mr.. Spofford. has admit
ted that until Mrs. Smith began work the
shelves Of the national library were almost
wholly destitute of books in which the in
dustrial interests of women were discussed
or touched upon.
Several years ago Mrs. Smith, perceiving
that many of the charity associations were
failing to extend protection to industrial
women, applied in disguise for work in
several factories in New York and Boston,
now as vestmaker, cloakmaker or shirt
maker, and again as seamstress. Thus she
was able to investigate for herself the in
justice done to women and to girls, and on
her appeal to the public searching inquiry
was made by the authorities in Massachu-
sets. So called Intelligence offices from
which girls had been sold at two dollars a
head to dens of infamy were broken up
and stringent laws against these and other
abuses enacted.
In Richmond she instituted legal pro-
ceedings against the perpetrators Of cruel
ties and abuses in the cigarette factories,
and she was instrumental in abolishing the
publication of indecent literature and the
reproduction of photographs of pretty
cigarette girls in immodest costumes. In
1884 and 1885 Mrs. Smith travelled dis
gulsed, paying her own expenses, in order
to investigate the indignities to which in
dustrlal women were everywhere subject
ed, and in many places and many ways eff
fected real reforms.
In Washington the number of good laws
which her efforts have induced congress to
enact is very great. She secured the en-
actment of a law prohibiting the sale of
tobacco and cigarettes to minors in the
District of Columbia. The now famous
anti-opium bill, which was introduced by
Senator Blair and which was largely the
cause of Mr.. Blair's rejection as minister
to China by the emperor of the Flowery
Kingdom, was passed at Mrs Smiths
solicitation. The bill providing for the
promotion of silk culture in the United
States, which year after year is giving en-
ployment to greater number of women,
was framed by her and passed by congress
as result of her efforts. She championed
the oleomargarine bill, the pure food bill
and the lard bill. She it was who had the
Worlds fair bill so amended as to give
woman voice in the management.
The Isabella monument was first sug-
gested by her. She insisted that women
should be appointed commissioners of i'm
migration. The resolution introduced by
Mr.. Plumb a year or so ago, exposing the
starvation wages paid to women in many
factories-a resolution which stirred up
long discussion in the senate-was drawn