The evening times., 1899-12-13
Women as Wagc-Earners.

AMERICAN CIVILIZATION mas again been
| merciiessly scored by a minister of the
gospel in St. Paul, who holds it responsible
for the alleged interference of the woman
| wage -earners in the field that he believes
| should belong exclusively to the male
| worker. He expresses the opinion that the
| race is dashing recklessly into new say
| agery and that the disastrous journey be-
gan with the discovery of machinery fol-
lowed by the Inauguration of the factory
system
| After stating that he has witnessed in
| Europe the scene of a woman and a COW
| hitched together for the purpose of haul
| ing heavy burden, he adds that he has
also watched the haggard faces of the Amer
lean factory girls. who have been trans
| formed by exacting economic conditions,
brought about by human avarice. Accord
ing to the critics views, .the tendency to-
ward the enormous increase of woman la
bor'' is the greatest evil of the time and
growing menace to the nations life
Unfortunately, it has grown TO be a habit
nowadays to condemn certain features of
the present social and economic system
remedy for correcting the alleged abuse or
abolishing the so-called menace 10 indi-
vidual or national veal. In the nature of
things, where there is real wrong there
must be an effective remedy for IL is not
to be presumed that these evils if they are
such. are incurable. The St Paul preacher
may have outlined a remedial course 9TH
,i,a r1n
something should be torn up by the roots
and thereby annihilated. but it has failed
to appear in the dispatches
1t is not difficult to agree with the &C.
clesiasticai critic that, were such a thing
possible. nothing could be more desirable
than to have the efforts of womankind lin
tied to the home and to those fields OF hu-
man endeavor where the tasks are purely
refined. But the world today teens with
problems, with grim conditions that cannot
be swept out of existence by declaiming
against them. There are thousands of large
families, the heads Of which find it an ac-
tual impossibility to support the daughters
of the house in idleness. They must work,
and, to their credit, they are willing to
girls frequently without anything more
than household furniture and a few dollars.
Stern necessity demands that somebody
must provide living for these women. and
they heroically decide that the proper
course to pursue is to seek employment
All young women cannot gain a livelihood |
by entering the professions or occupations |
mn ad
the talent nor the essential education. To |
these the factory is a godsend and they |
accept it as such.
Matrimony is not always provided as |
refuge for the woman who, by some family |
is cast upon her own resources.
nor are many of the weaker and predomi- |
mating sex born amid conditions that make |
selves regarding the problem of existence. |
Even those who are reared amid luxurious |
undisturbed by the prospect
that the time may come when they will be
thrown into the seething mass of humanity
dependent upon their own efforts, are not |
through the vicisstudes of
suddenly compelled to, assume
the unexpected burden.
The preacher who infers that the law
should take steps to forbid women wage
earners from seeking employment in the
industries either ignores or
'ails to appreciate the more appalling condi-
ion that would follow such course, when
'our millions OF them were plunged into
hopeless state of idleness America GER
.ainly does not need four millions, or half
II that number, Of women to make gowns,
,r paint pictures, or do lace work. 1t fol-
ows inevitably that they must seek that
employment which will afford them their