The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-05-08
FACTORY LABOR
FOR WOMEN.
Will They Regret 1t In the Days
That Are to Gomez
MEN MUST MEET CONDITIONS.
Being Usually More Desirable They Will
Not In Turn Dispiace the women"
An Open Question That Is Be
Ing Much Discussed.

No city in the country Is interested in
a greater degree, proportionately, in
the female factory labor problem and
the servant girl question, than Can
ton. Difficulty to find desirable domes-
tics is experienced by every family that
can afford to keep girl" The in
dustries of Canton, many of them, pro-
duce such goods as can be made with
the assistance of women. They are
cheaper and so long as they do their
work we'll and work for less money than
men can afford to work for, they will
hold their positions A writer in the
Chicago Chronicle discusses the subject
in a manner that is pertinent and good
reading. He says
Reports from employment bureaus
throughout the country indicate curl
Gus industrial condition.
There is famine of women employees,
especially for domestic service. There
is a surplus of men for every kind of
employment.
The inevitable result of this industrial
condition will be that hundreds of
thousands of women will be at no far
off day without homes, without in
come. For the law of nature is that
of selection; the stronger will push the
weaker aside that the fittest may sur
vive. "Fittest" in evolution means only
the most adaptable to environment
The race of women from home to
factory and store labor has been one
of the startling phenomena of the
century. Without apparent reluctance,
indifferent to new dangers to health,
mind and morals, the security of home
was lightly rejected by women Of every
age, and hundreds of thousands who,
according to tradition and prejudice,
should have shared their mothers
CHEEKY toll in the household until they
became wives in turn preferred a course
of deeper drudgery for unreal indepen-
dence and precarious freedom.
While the factories and stores were
dismissing men to take in women at
lower wage domestic service was re-
plenished by immigration. With re-
establishment of peace in Europe and
improved conditions in the British
islands domestic places appeal in vain
to employment bureaus.
Advertisements and labor agencies
corroborate the statement that for three
homes applying for domestics there is
but one woman seeking that class of
employment.
The country is thronged with idle men
going from town to town in vain search
of work. They have held out long for
the pay they used to get. Necessity
will gradually compel them to take
what pay they can get and thus the
places taken from men by women will
revert to men, for, all other things be-
ing equal, II is conclusively establish
ed that mens are more adaptable,
negatively and positively, to work than
women.
Men do not need to sit part of work.
ing day. For wmen seats have to be
provided. Men are said to be more
patient as statesmen, more enduring un-
der physical strain, reader in emer-
gency, more versatile and resourceful
Men. native and foreign born, have no
stubborn dislike to domestic work. A
man deems degrading no kind of work
that is honest and profitable.
The fact cannot be blinked that
American families must do more of
their own housekeeping.
Happily, the new mode of keeping a
home facilitates this. Many of the
inconvenience of earlier homes have
disappeared. Mechanical devices miti-
gate all the labor of domestic service,
while domestic engineering and more
rational systems of management COM
bine to reduce hme toll to a minimum.
The true friend of her sex among
leaders of women will be she who shall
inauguratc fashion of home keeping
for the adoption of intelligent and re-
fined women. The educated women of
the day ought in common sense to in
augurate such a fashion among them
selves.
All their clubs and federations will
not repair the evils of dispersed
families nor restore the honor and hap
piness of desolate hearths.