The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-12-02
IN WOMAN'S BEHALF.
WOMAN'S INFLUENCE.
Employers Admit It's Refining Character
but Do They Pay for 1t:

Employers Admit 1t, Refining Character.
But Do They Pay for 1t:
It is often said that ''Selfshness Rules
the World" 1t would seem that this is
so, and one of its most stupendous
forms is comprised in the scale of wom-
ans wages as compared with mans.
A woman receives thirty-fve dollars
month for work that her employer
would not think of giving less than
seventy-five dollars for a man. He will
paw sixty dollars to a woman where he
would be compelled to pay one hundred
and twenty-five dollars to man. And
the self-complaisant capitalist will
smilingly assert that womau's presence
in the office or countinC-room is such
refining influence" that the day that
brought women into business was the
red-letter day in ali his business exper-
fence. and the woman he imposes upon
Just takes the sugar-plum and says
nothing about what she thinks, for she
knows there are scores ready to slip
into her place should she for any rea-
son leave it. Yes, scores of women
ready to take up the work, SO wild has
women.
1t would not be an uninteresting
study to note the different plane upon
which woman stands to-day compared
with that she occupied fifty years ago.
But of that hereafter. She is in the
! whirlpool of mans activity. She keeps
pace with him in ability to perform. in
some instances outstrips him in actual
labor accomplished, yet it is only in
exceptional cases that she receives
mans wages. Wherefore so? Let US
investigate. In an elegant counting
room, sits the head of a company own
| ing line of steamers. He has shrewd
| business look, also self-indulgent APP
pearance. He counts his dollars by the
thousand, and these in no smaller
groups than hundreds. He is happy.
He has not as yet learned by experience
! that there is any such word in the
| English language as failure. Pros
perity has been his constant companion
ever since his name was quoted lon
Change" He owns a palatial residence
in Gotham thOroughbreds draw his
handsome carriage, and he has pew
in church, and occupies it too. Well!
there he sits In small inner room
sits young girl at desk. She Is very
young and pretty. She is the book
! keeper for the company. She works
| from seven o'clock in the morning until
six o'clock in the evening. Said the
self-complaisant gentleman, al find it
so refining to have n lady in my office. -
What salary does she receive?'
Thirty-five dollars month, and the
work she performs is perfectly astonish-
ing. Women work more rapidly than
men, and there are a hundred things
| that a man never sees that a woman
takes right hold of. Now. there's our
| boolk-keeper in the home Office in C..
she does more work than any two
men l know of. simply because she
finds so many things requiring atten-
ton. Why, you don't know what an
amount of anxiety she lifts from our
shoulders. Her salary. did you ask?
Well, we give her sixty dollars 4 month.
That's big pay for woman"
| "Why SOP
Because they are more economical
than men. They know how TO live
! cheaper. But then, that Is not the only
reason we engage them. As before
remarked. their refining influence
makes such 4 difference in the office"
well, then, why not pay her the ex-
| ira you would give to man instead Of
! putting it into your own pocllet?'
There's no need OF it. Women don't
require il, and of course one always
does the best he can for himself Any
woman that goes into an Office gets
more money than she would by staying
at home, even il her salary Is smaller
than a mans, and if they're satisfied
1 I'm sure we should be-"
So spake the sample capitalist for
J hundreds of his kind It is strange,
the seIf-complacency with which he ex-
patiates upon the beautiful Influence of
woman, while he pockets the difference
her coming makes in the gains of his
Observation-Disclosures.