The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-06-08

I a.
refused to pay his rent; out with him.
Society is to be reconstructed on the
subject of woman's toll. A vast ma
jority of those who would have woman
industrious shut her up to few kinds
of work. My Judgment in this matter
1 is this, that a woman has a right to do
| anything she can do well. There should
be no department of merchandise.
mechanism, art or science barred
against her.
1t is said, if woman is given such OPP
portunities. she will occupy places that
might be taken by men. say, if she
have more skill and adaptedness for
any position than a man has, let her
have it! She has as much right to her
bread, to her apparel, and to her home,
as men have.
But it is said that her nature is so
delicate that she is untitled for ex-
hausting toll. / ask in the name of all
past history, what toll on earth is more
severe, exhausting and tremendous
than that toll of the needle to which
for ages she has been subjected? The
battering ram, the sword, the carbine,
| the battle-ax have made no such havoc
as the needle. would that these liv-
ing sepulchers in which women have
for ages been buried might be opened.
and that some resurrection trumpet
might bring up these living corpses to
the fresh air and sunlight.
Go with me and i will show you a
woman who, by hardest toll, supports
her children, her drunken husband, her
old father and mother. pays her house
rent, always has wholesome food on
the table. and, when she can get some
neighbor on the Sabbath to come in
and take care of her family, appears
in church. with hat and cloak that are
far from indicating the toll to which
she is subjected.
Such a woman as that has body and
soul enough to fit her for any position.
She could stand beside the majority of
your statesmen and dispose of more
goods. She could go into your wheel
wright shops and beat one-half of your
workmen at making carriages. We
talk about woman as though we had
resigned to her all the light work. and
But the day of judgment, which will
reveal the sufferings of the stake and
inquisition, will marshal before the
throne of God and the hierarchs of
| Heaven the martyrs of wash-tub and
needle.
Now. say. if there be any prefer
ence in occupation, let women have it.
| God knows her trials are the severest.
BY her acuter sensitiveness to misfor-
tune by her hour of anguish demand
that no one hedge up her pathway to a
| livelihood.
l go still further. and say that
women should have equal compensa-
ton with men. BY what principle of
| justice is it that woman in many of our
cities get only two-thirds as much pay
as men. and in many cases only half?
Here is the gigantic injustice for
WORK equally well, if not better done.
woman receives far less compensation
than man. Start with the national
government; for a long while women
clerks in Washington got 5000 for
| doing that for which men received ST.
500
To thousands of young women in our
cities to-day there is only this alterna-
tive, starvation or dishonor. Many of
the largest mercantile establishments
| of our cities are accessory to these
denominations: and from their large es-
/ Establishments there are scores of souls
] being pitched off into death; and their
employers know it!
Is there a God? viii there be a
Judgment? tell you, if God rises up
to redress woman's wrongs, many of
our large esta blishments will be swal-
lowed up quicker than South Ameri-
can earthquake ever took down a city.
God will catch these oppressors be-
tween the two millstones of his wrath,
and grind them to powder!
There are about $4,000 sewing girls
in New York and Brooklyn. Across
the darkness of this night L hear their
death groan. 1t is not such cry as
comes from those who are suddenly
hurried out of life, but slow, grind
ing, horrible wasting away. Gather
them before you and look into their
faces, pinched, CHASTITY. hunger struck!
| Look at their fingers, needle-pricked
and blood-tipped! Hear that dry, hack
ing, merciless cough!
| Stand at the corner of a street in
New York in the very early morning as
the women go to their work. Many OF
them had no breakfast except the
crumbs that were left over from the
night before, or crust they chew on
their way through the street. Here
they come. the working girls of the
city! These engaged in bead work,
these in fower-making, in millinery,
enameling. cigar-making, book-bind.
ing. labelling, feather-picking, print
coloring. paper box-making. but, most
overlooked by all and least compen-
stated, the sewing women. Why dc
they not take the city cars on their
way up? They cannot afford the five
cents.
One Sabbath night, in the vestibule
of my church, after service, woman
fell in commissions. The doctor said
she needed medicine not SO much as
something to eat. AS she began to re-
vive. in her delirium. she said, gasp.
ingly: Eight cents. Eight cents! Eigh,
cents. / wish l could get it done!
am so tired. / wish / could get some
sleep, but l must get it done. Eight
cents. Eight centsr We found after
ward that she was making garments at
eight cents apiece. and that she could
make but three of them in day.
Some of the worst villains of the city
are the employers of these women
They beat them down to the last penny
and try to cheat them out of that. The
woman must deposit dollar or two
before she gets the garments to work
on When the work is done II is