People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1894-05-25
~ ~ ~ ~ A SILVER LINING.

Although young man, remember
when Boston was dotted with small
stores. To-day few mammoth de-
partment stores which have not only
through the power of money and
monopoly succeeded in driving the
small merchants out of business.
thereby crushing out this form of
business life which had existed for a
century, but have also forced these
bankrupt merchants and their chill
dren into these department stores as
meployes.
One man is selected to hire all the
help for al establishment. He is
chosen because he has neither pity or
kindliness, but because ne is brutal,
avaricious and lustful as the slave
drivers OF ante bellum days. The prin-
cipal wage of many of thes3 white fe-
male slaves is the wage OF sin, Their
pay being but from s. to Sc, on which
they are expected to live and dress in
style. How are these necessary ex-
penSes to be met? These sales girls
can not live on their Daltry earnings.
What then is 10 make up the def
c.ency? The heads of departments
and others can answer. Think of it.
and in the name OF virtue dragged in
the mire, girlhood robbed of its happy
Innocence, and womanhood sold in the
shambles, work as you never did be-
fore for the emancipation of our coun-
try from the curse of the money
changers and the hbertines.
4 bright, pure girl app led one day
for position in one OF these dens of
iniquity and was offered 81 per week
for her services. She replied that she
would be unable to live upon that
sum, and was told that the work
would furnish her with the appear
ance Of self-support and her gentle
man friends could supplement- her
miserable salary. Shame! Shame
upon civilization that permits con-
ditiOns like these to flourish. This is
but one of hundreds of similar in
stances.
l have spoken of the slaves of poll.
teal and mercantile life and will now
refer to the particular kind of Breck-
inridgeism which prevails in our
manufactures were girls in large
numbers are employed. The clothing
industry is called the sweating sys-
tenn because the garments are let out
to contractors, s." usually men of
foreign birth, hideouS in appearance.
haOltS ana morals, and who employ
large numbers of girls to make these
garments for wages seldom exceeding
50 per week. | am ashamed to say
that these girls of tender years, in
stead of being in school, are veritable
slaves. have no fear of contradic-
ton when | allege that these working
girls are as much the slaves of their
employers as were the blacks of the
south to their owners. Not by legal
enactment, as then, the despvilers of
labor have found cheaper way and
trust to starvation to compel the same
submission on the part of their vic
tins that was once gained through
statute laws in the south.
will give one more illustration
which indicates the results OF repub-
hcan and democratic legislation and
shows that life with the poor is little
better than constant nightmare.
This city abounds with employment
offices where farm help is secured and
domestics provided for families. In
the large rooms of the agencies scores
Of men and women. wait for farmers
and others desiring help to call and
pick out from the crowd those they
want So degraded did this system
become short time ago that when
an employer called 10 select a man
and wife, that he might use the man
as coiehman and the wife as q do
nestle and it was found that there
were no married couples in The 70 IN,
the manager of the agency would
quietly match up pair who had per-
haps never met before and who were
then palmed off on the unsuspecting
employer as man and wife
refer to these thfsgs to show that
social revolution has kept pace with
the financial and industrial revolution
aud that they are closely related as
cause and effect. These are but
symptoms of the decay and death of
our republic and unless the rights of
the people are restored, our elviliza-
ton WI be blotted out before the
dawn Of q new century. Is it not time
that men ofthought and &C ion should
rise and proclaim from the housetops
from platform and pulpit, at every