Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1894-12-12
WOMEN AND MEN.
Each Must be Left Free to
Compete.
LET WOMEN EARN AN HONEST LIVING
No Reason Why they Should Not be as
Well Paid for Their Labor
as Men.
LET WOMEN EARN AN HONEST LIVING

Lord Byron hated, it is said, to dine
with women. If they set themselves
up for angels, he thought. lot them
live accordingly. He agreed in this
respect with many less noted men, who
would blush to be called poetical; but
their objections would be more ON the
practical side. They would object, at
any rate, to women's providing their
own dinners. A woman, they urge, is
not intended by nature to earn her own
bread; but the farther question how
she is to live without bread, and who
is to earn it for her if she herself does
not this is left in rather vague uncer-
tanty. Surely, if nature intended that
a woman should not earn her dinner,
nature should also either have decreed
that she should live without it, or that
some one should always stand ready to
provide it for her. If this is the theory,
it is evident that society is grossly one
sided All the ordinary expenses of
life are plainly assigned to men and
women with severe impartiality.
Women can no more be transported
from place to place for nothing than If
they were Coxey's Industrial Army;
the conductor of the electric Car holds
out his merciless palm for their FIVE
cent piece as persistently as if they
were men; and no bake-shop announces
over its doors, Women half-price. 7"
Their tea, their beefsteak, their pota-
toes, know no Salique Law; women
must eat, and they must therefore pay
they must pay, and therefore must
commonly earn. They may be very
elevated beings, full Of aspiration and
imagination, but faith asks her daily
bread and fancy must be fed"
Accordingly, as matter of fact, they
are permitted, all the world over, to
work hard for food and shelters, so
long as they are willing to work at dis
advantage and are not paid too we'll.
Even where their faces are veiled they
may still grind at the mill, but at low
prices. The ist.1es'en prevails
in Christian LANDS; witness that school
committee report which said, "Since
this office involves neither honor nor
profit, we see no reason why it should
not be held by woman" 1t is the
low places that excite no jealousy; a
man is willing to be displaced by a
woman when it is question of scrub
bing floors; nobody complains of it
then. 1t is when she undertakes some
higher position, at a competent salary,
that she is censured. She may prove
herself incompetent in dozen dlrec-
tions and not bring down on her head
SO much censure as by succeeding in one.
But it certainly is not her fault when
she attempts to earn an honest living,
and still less her fault when she OBJ
tains a good one. "If a man (or a
woman) will not work, how shall he
(or she) eat?'' After all, it is the
bread and shelter which are at stake.
Women are not so wholly unlike men
that they generally work ten hours a
day for the fun of it. The inducement
is that they may earn a living for
themselves, and perhaps for many
others. In town where I once in
quired into the matter, with reference
to the pay of teachers, it turned out
that almost every woman had some one
depending upon her, while some of the
young men had absolutely no one to
care for except themselves. Nay, /
have again and again known women to
work incessantly to maintain stupid
brother in college or to keep worth
less one out of Jail.
In view of such facts, how idle is the
complaint that every woman indus
trially employed takes the place of some
mani In poor family it is the bright
est and ablest who must maintain the
fortunes of the household, and sex has
nothing to do with it. Even on the
farm the wife's butter and cheese and
her summer boarders often bring larger
cash returns than the husbands crops.
But where young woman is launched
in the world with only herself to sup
port. she has precisely as many mouths
to feed as the average young man,
namely, one. She no more displaces
DlU1 budu uo ulSplaOOo iiOl. ohO hOOuc
her dinner, and so does he. The day e
earnings must supply it, no matter who
eats it. If she can displace him in the
highest business pursuits, is there any
conceivable reason why she should mott
The answer commonly is that if she
stays at home and earns nothing, some.
body will marry her. But if her dinner
is not provided in the meantime, it il
very certain that nobody will marry
her, because she will starve while wait
ing. Who will provide for the COM
missary department in the meanwhile
Are the young men of the age SO uni
formly self-sacrificing that they will
guarantee in advance the dinners of q
whole woman's college, or a whole
factory full Of young women, simply
on the chance of marrying some one
of them hereafterS If not, who il
L.