The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-12-17
WOMEN AND COMPETITION

DR.. S. G. Smith, pastor of the Peo-
pies church of st. Paul, has been
preaching a series of sermons on the
relation of women wage-earners to
motherhood and their economic inter-
ference with men workers
There was time when woman was
the slave and man the master, when
the wife and mother followed all the
callngs of peace, while the lord of
creation was only active in war. In
savage eras of the worlds history wo-
man not only performed the mental
asks. but attended to the vulgar re-
quirements of trade, bought and sold.
worried and worked, while the men
were at war, engaged in the spoliation
of weaker nations OF tribes, or lying in
the shade recounting deeds of proves,
and discussing the ACCESSIBILITY of a
larger standing army.
We are on the road to another condi-
ton of similar savagery, says DR..
Smith. TT began when the discovery
of machinery and the factory system
took the place of the man and tool
fingers of woman and the dimpled hand
of childhood to grasp the fallen task.
Economic conditions have no chivalrv,
and human avarice has no sense of
honor
1t is true that women are crowding
labor, of business. The last decade has
shown a marvellous increase in the
number of women who are doing the
work formerly done by men. The lines
of sex are being obliterated in the world
of labor. Women aspire to take the
places of men in everything but war
This leaves the ancient vocation of
1t was his choice before. He may have
to choose ere long between war and
idleness.
AS competitors in every field but the
battlefield, the motives of women are
laudable. No one can raise an objec-
ton on that score. With many. too. it
has been a matter of necessity rather
than choice. Some have had to rely
upon their own efforts for support, and,
perhaps, for the maintenance of loved
ones; others have crossed the recogniz-
ed boundary lines of the sphere they
have occupied for centuries. to find in
dependence or to enable them to dress
better or be freer to go and come at
pleasure.
But there are dangers to encounter,
1c- oh, Oh
risks are not those of the individual
female so much as they are risks of
the race. Unless all signs fail. the next
half century will show disastrous re-
suits of this competition. 1t will coars-
en- women and weaken men. It will re-
duce wages 10 the starvation point,
which Will have at least an indirect eff
feet upon women. More women will
suffer than be benefited by this inev-
liable outgrowth of the present strug-
gle. No matter how much women NAV
wish to be independent, the number
who really desire to be independent all
their lives is very small; and there will
surely come a time when dress and
decoration Will cease to be the ruling
passion of life.
g o %
Then this competition hurts woman
and morally. If it stopped
here we might leave her TO her fate
But it goes further. Through her it in
lures the whole race. Nature sltended |
to be a mother. If the race is |
20 be continued she must recognize this |
ruth, this requirement. As the moth |
er, she must train the child and must |
guide its footsteps during the most i'm
,ortant period of it's life. She forms its |
character. There is no more important |
ask for any human being to perform.
But this duty cannot be discharged, |
his function cannot be observed, if We
nan continues to rush into this crush
ng competition with mana steady.
wearing. grinding work which is pc
.uliarly the province of man.
., (.
Commenting upon labor statistics,
Dr.. Smith says, further: THE major
" of working women in this country,
low 100000 of them, are between the
lges of IA and Is. The great fact of the
asst decade. however. is the enormous
Increase among the number Of girls
lnder 16 years of age. We are 1evour-
ng the possible strength of the nation,
" draining the life of its future moth