Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1902-08-22
For Congress, 4th Cong. District.
A. L. SORTER,
of Cerro Gordo County.
Women are Working as House
Painters at Syracuse, NY.

Line American UTdVcllnB LOT lile
first time in Europe is shocked when
from his car window he sees a woman
working in the fields. He is shocked
still more when in some cities he sees
women mixing mortar and carrying
the hod.
1t will give all Americans at home
shock of the same kind to read dis
patch from Syracuse, New York, stat
ing that Italian women are employed
to paint the buildings on the State
Fair grounds. The business agent of
the Syracuse Painters Union, which
has sent committe to Governor Odell
asking him to help it to secure the
painting, says that these poor women
are dressed in blouSeS and daubed from
head to foot with paint.
1t is the novelty of the thing that
shocks. Let women continue to work
as painters and it will not be long
until we shall view them on their lad
ders and swinging platforms with the
same indifferenteye that we now turn
on the women who at the end of their
long and hard day in factory and store
and Office pour out upon the streets of
every busy American city. We have
even become accustomed to the sight
of little girls, mites not beyond the
doll-coddling age, toiling for wages.
Northern capital crowds the cotton
mills OF the South with children.
Women house painters? Why not:
The civilization that fails to blush
when it puts women and young girls
and children by the million into facto.
ries can't be expected to feel shame
at the spectacle OF women on swinging
platforms high in air, plying the brush
on the walls of buildings.
The ladies who write and lecture
and fancy themselves the Lemancipat.
ing cham pions of their sex and are
given to rejoicing over the "openinl
of new avenues Of employment fol
women" should give thought to these
bloused house painters Of Syracuse, il
the rich and christian American
State of New York.
These ladies fancy that in them
Selves-with their literary and ora
torical gifts and club aptitudes ant
aspirations for careers unhampered b.
traditional rictioDs-is seen tn
new woman. In reality the new wo
man is not the woman who writes ant
lectures and has talent for art ant
the professions, but the woman VIII
works for wages and living with he,
weak hands. The talented are few
the needy are innumerable.
The meaning of the female hous5
painters of Syracuse is plain to those
who have eyes to see. She is sister tc
the digging and blowing peasant VIC.
man seen by the shocked American
from his European car window, siste,
to the half naked woman of England
mines, sister to the female hod-carric
of'the Continent, sister to the woma
wage-earner in all manual occupation
in America-pathetic proof that hav
produced the heart-breaking contrast
Of wealth and penury in the Old Worl
are operative in the New, and yield
ing the same bitter fruits.
Monopoly Of natures resources
special privileges for the able and en-
ergetic and grasping, government by
the rich for the rich, and hard work
a narrow life and poverty for thu
many-that is the significance of thu
women house painters of Syracuse.
The remedy? 1t lies with the PEG
pie themselves, and only with thu
people. No monopoly, no abuse wa
ever abolished by the class that prof
ted by 1T.
In this Republic men have the ba,
lot. Until they learn how to use it il
is impossible that we shall have a
state OF society founded on the prin-
clple OF equal rights to ALL privileges
to none.
That is democracy.
And in such democratic state OF
society there would be no need fol
women house painters, OF women wage
earners of any kind. Ameri
can.
President Roosevelt learned thu