Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-07-28
WORKING GIRLS.
Injured by Unintentionni hut Utterly
Unjust Suspicious.
~ Dbu

Injured by Unintentionni but Utterly
Unjust Suspicious.
From the Philadelphia Press.
Those benevolent-minded people who go
about the earth sowing dragons teeth
under the impression that they are scat
tering seeds of kindness have a perennial
concern" as our Quaker neighbors say,
as to the working girls character. Two
ideas, If presented to them, would make
them open their amiable and invariably in
experienced eyes in widest unbelief-oue,
that the girl who works for her living is
not necessarily a suspect: the other. that
she is uncommonly like other gi-ls. and
that 1t ia as tiresome, in as bad taste and
as entirely unnecessary to drag her morals
into every discussion wherein she figures
as to do so with boarding school graduates
or any other distinctive class Of young
women. They work such harm as only the
weii-meaning are capable Of and incident
ally they make themselves ridiculous in
the eyes of all to whom the working girl
is fact and not fad
why. these girls must be looked after.
you known is the vague explanation
usually given when YOU visit any of the So
called homes" for working girls in this
city-or, so far as I know. in any other
and find the hapless residents surrounded
by restrictions which call forth such COM
ments as that of one young inmate, who
sarcastically explained:
'Oh, working girls are so much worse
than other girls, you known or else, like
Tilda Squeers when she wasn't engaged,
they're going to be-"
There is the restriction Of the real home
and that of the ordinary boarding house,
to which every reasonable woman expects
to submit; there is also that of the reform
school, to which that of these homes is
most closely allied. The inmates must
indoors at 10 o'clock. unless by special per-
mission. and if delinquent on this score are
frequently called before the ladies" to eX-
plain; their visitors are regarded with I'M
wholesome distrust their actions super
vised, and in countless little underlined
ways they are made to feel their morals
to be in perfect perpetually unstable equil-
ib-ium.
This notion is everywhere Not long ago
prominent clergyman, in soliciting asso-
ciates for working girls society, from
among the ladies of his congregation found
il necessary to add the reassuring intelli-
gence, Respectable girls all of them"
don't suppose II occurred to him that he
was insulting every working woman within
or without hearing distance, any more than
to stipulate that the ladies who should offer
themselves as associates should be respect
able also. Yet, why not? For the benefit
OF such people, well-intentioned or other
wise, as affect to believe the working girls
morals more brittle than those of other
women, the census of Carroll D. Wright
labor commissioner for the United States
~
have made the fatal downward step come
not from the laboring classes, but from the
much-vaunted safe environment of the
home So much for that fallacy.
Now, tell me; don't you think a pretty
girl going into business is apt to be in
sulted? bright-faced young stenographer
was asked. Her reply was curt and con-
temptuous. "Yes-by such questions as
that. After which she turned to me and
weariiy inquired: If you wrote steadily
on the subject for ten years do you sup
pose you could convince people that bust
ness men occasionally do something be-
sides fiirt with their female employes?"
That the people who hold this mischiev-
GUS notion are chiefly supplemented home
Keeping women, knowing nothing of how the
other half lives-rather fond of imagining
IL lives wickedly-nakes the injury no less
Like all i'll weeds the tradition once started
g-ows apace. a sweeping condemnation
passed on Isolated cases, and places a sim
lister mark against whole classes of per-
lectiy legitimate occupations. "Oh,
couldn't have my daughter a shop girl.
calmly informed by comfortable matron
did not know, nor do l know any one
else who knows. Working girls may be no
better than other girls. but they are as
suredly no worse, and when so large a bill
OF accusation Is made out against them the
accuser usually argues from some such
limited scope of observation as did the man
who, when asked, "Why are you so sure
indlans always walk in single file?" replied.
wei, never saw but one, and he did,