The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-03-29
WOMAN is
THE RACE.
So Says Carroll ID. Wright,
Commissioner of Labor.
He Talks of Industrial Enamel
patton of Women.
MEANS HIGHEST TYPE
Purity and Sacredness of Mar
riage Will Be UpIifted.
AS Woman is Raised So Only
Can Man Be UpIifted.


emancipation means the highest type
of woman"
So said Carroll D. Wright at the New
Century drawing room Saturday. Mr..
Wright is the United States commits
sioner of labor, and as such enjoys a
national reputation as authority up
on matters Industrial He was talking
to an audience composed of members of
the society for Ethical Culture and their
friends. More than half of his hearers
were women. After starting out by
saying that as a result of many years
struggling woman has fairly won from
the world an acknowledgment of her
social and intellectual equality, a de-
NelOpment which had been persistent
and sure, if slow, the commissioner OF
labor went back to the early days of
mankind and showed how, in his opiil-
ion, as well as the opinions of learned
writers, she had come to hold an infer
Tor position.
Woman, by her beauty he said,
had at first the right to choose her
male companion This caused her to
become the subject of contention be
tween men, which, in time, transferred
the right of selection from her to man
Thus first she was the prize, then the
property, and usually the slave"
Her long continuance in this condi-
ton, Mr.. Wright declared, was largely
due to dogmatic teachings of religion,
while per contra, much of her present
emancipation can be credited to what
is known as the higher criticism of that
religion
Having achieved her social and in
tellectual emancipation continued the
speaker, ''Woman'S further emancipa-
ton relates to her industrial condition
This secured, her political emancipation
will follow, in fact, think they will be
coordinate. The entrance of woman
into the Industrial field came with the
substitution of the factory system for
the domestic system in manufactures.
From that moment she became an econ
Onic power and was obliged to assume
responsibilities as an economic factor"
Mr.. Wright then traced the increase
in the number of women engaged in
various industrial pursuits, as we'll
in the number of such pursuits them
selves. In 1910, he said, there were but
seven employments open to women
Today it is almost impossible to give
the number of these empIoyments.
I'm fact" declared the commissioner,
sit may be said that there is no line of
remunerative employment which is not
open to woman, whether it be in the
professions, in trade or in manufac-
lures,
Passing to the effect, moral and in
tellectua1, upon woInankind, of the new
environment brought to women through
their entrance into the fields of indus
try, Mr.. Wright took issue with what
he termed the popular belief that
the working woman had refrigerated
either morally or intellectually. as COM
pared with women whose occupations
were purely domestic. He had taken
this stand, he asserted, after giving the
subject a most searching investigation,
both in this country and Great Britain.
This investigation, he said, has
convinced me that woman has sustain
ed no loss of respect through cO-em-
plOyment of the SexeS-On the contrary
such unemployment has brought about
an increased respect for the woman
who works. This result can be account
ed for by the independence which her
newly acquired capacity to earn gives
her"
Concerning woman's remuneration as
compared with that of man, Mr.. Wright
said that statistics showed the wages
paid to the two sexes for the same
class of work to be much nearer the
same than is generally believed. Only
in the high-priced positions was the
difference very marked.
whatever disadvantage woman suf-
fers in this respect" he continued, lis
due to a number of reasons which time
will eventually wipe out. One of these
reasons is the present lack of that in
fluence and power which comes from a
combining of individual forces. A part
of that power is political Woman, not
being political factor, of course loses
this
Mr. Wright gave the woman who, in
comfortable circumstances, takes work
to do at her home when she does not
need it as a means of livelihood, rap
over the knuckleS.
Il have known in New England" he
declared, the wage scale of a whole
town to be regulated by what these wo-
men were willing to work for"
One ultimate result of wOman's in
dustrial emancipation, as viewed by
the commissioner, is worthy of especial
note.
while the emancipation of woman
he said, will tend temporary 20 a de-
crease in the number of marriages and
an increase in the mum Der of divorces.
the time will shortly come when the
purity and SacrednesS of married life
will be uplifted. Relieved of the neces-
sity of looking to marriage as q means
of freedom from bondage, women will
accept only such marriage relations as
are based on genuine love. Then the
recruiting of the human race will be
from the highest instead of the lowest
elements"
And this is what he said in conclud-
ing:
woman is the race. As she is raised
so only can man himself be uplifted.''
Before it Is Too Late.