St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-12-27

arisen, because it is only within the
past few years that young women have
had either the equipment or the desire
10 do serious work, except where
necessity compelled 1t. But it is
here now, most delicate So
cial problem. ASK ninety-nine out
OF 100 workingwomen, and the instant
response will be, in sentiment, if not in
words: The world is full of women
who must work for an honest livelihood.
Every new worker that enters the field
lessons the opportunities of the others.
The rich young woman must not take
bread from the mouths of the poorer
ones. There is no right but that of
necessity"
Well, there is human nature in the
answer, at any rate. Is there logic?
Let us see. Much depends upon the
way in which yOu regard work. The
mass of us are sure that it is an unmti-
gated curse. Part blame Adam and Eve
for it, and the rest put the blame upon
that first harry, lOng-tailed, inQuisitive
ancestor of ours, who couldn't be con-
tented until he had found out how to
light fire or to construct something
more impenetrable than the leafy roof
under which the Race-in-the-making
had lived 50 long and SO comfortably.
But whoever we blame for it. we have
no fancy for it, and we whine and
whlnper and take great deal of super
huouS credit to ourselves in that our ten
fingers and two brain lo5es have found
out what they were made for.
There ere few people in the world,
however, who are caught in an obstinate
taste for work, who would really rather
keep their wits astir and their eyes
open and their souls growing than sit
nnder the greenest tree by the wayside
and pipe the idlest tunes of ease and
forgetfulness. This is bad taste. And
occasionally one OF these persons hap
pens to be woman, ana a woman who.
N selecting a parent, made the mistake
OF settling on one who had dollars in
his purse. Here arises the complication.
She has dollars and daddy; she NAV
have anything that these two together
cin give her. except the blessed Liberty
ID work with her own hands, to see with
her own eyes, to draw her own con-
illusions and to wrest good out of hard
ship and disciplines and pains.
1t ali depends, you see. The ninety
nine poor women who deny the hun
dredth rich woman the right to work
fail 70 look at it from her point of view.
This much is certain. No woman who
has money enough works for money.
-hNAi NOs anu iiCAS a pan vi liiG
confusion ar Uses. Bnt when a rich
woman or well-tO-do woman works it
is sane to suppose that she works out of
some other love than dollar love. Is
there room for no other motive than the
dollar one? Is there no possibility of a
recognition that ones work in the world
has something TO do with ones worth IN
the world; that strength and wisdom
and competence are worth having for
their own sake? Why, the very feet of
woman who is mistress of some one
thing stand more SQuarely upon the
earth, the very eyes of her look more
sensibly and frankly into the eyes of
men, if she says: This is one thing
can do, and do it WE'LL"
Take the case of a young man who at
twenty-one comes into the possession of
a fortune. Is it held to be any reproach
to him that he at once puts his money
and his brains at work? Nay, verify. is
it not held to be reproach to him if he
doesn't? No one tells him he is taking
the bread out of the mouths of more
needy men. Why. then, should his sis
ter be accused of larder robbery if she
does the same thing? Is there a sex i'm
political economy, as we'll as in political
everything else? Shall we not grant TO
women recognition of the moral quail
ity that goes into work, or, rather, of
the moral dignity with which work in
vests the worker?
"Oh, very well.' says some keen
Drained young woman, reading this, IF
moral rewards are what rich women
are after, let them work for moral re-
wards and let the rest of us have the
dollars. Let them work without
asking pay for it," My dear
shOrt-sighted young woman, don't you
know that this world has some laws of
its own, which it expects us to accept,
and that one of these is the severe
economic one that governs a bargain?
A bargain demands an exchange of
values. and just now moral rewards do
not pass as counters in the realms of this
world. A man may not even give a
piece of land to his wife for the moral
reward aiOne-a certain sum of money
must pass between them. The dollar
sign Is still the outward and visible
sign of a bargain. OF a service rem
dered. of value received. If woman
works worthilv, she ought to receive
money tor it, just as certainly as she
sought to pay money for the new gown
she buys. The spectacle of a young
woman setting forth on a quest Of
work for moral rewards alone is as all
surd and impossible as the idea of a
Broadway merchant distributing
gowns and household goods for the
same lofty emOlumentSs