Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-21
IN LABOR CIRCLES
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The conferences to be held this after
noon between President Samuel Gompers
and other officers of the American Fedora
tion of Labor with President Roosevelt,
Speaker Cannon and the presiding officer of
the Senate are fraught with much interest
to the labor world 1t is known that or
sanized labor is much displeased with the
attitude of Congress toward industrial
legislation, and 1t is limited that the con-
ferences today will be IN the nature of a
protest from the organized toilers of the
land against the continuance OF present
tactics in the Senate and House.
The effort for the enactment of labor
legislation was renewed at the beginning of
the present session. In the House a NUM-
Der of eight-hour bills have been introduced
A successor has also been introduced to
the anti-injunction bill which was so vi;or-
ousIy pressed for passage and more vigor-
ouSly resisted in the last Congress. In the
Massachusetts Legislature an eight-hour bill
for public employees has been introduced;
also bill to make picketing lawful in
cases of strikes.
Labor unions of Kansas have decided to
blacklist all members of the legislature who
turned deaf to labor bills before the
last session of that body.
Arrangements are already in progress for
the annual convention of the International
Brotherhood of Bookbinders, which Will he
held IN this city In June.
1t is claimed that Danbury, Conn, is
city where organized labor enjoys social
prestige. In Danbury perhaps better than
anywhere in the world" says a labor
writer. may one witness just what the
trades union may do for the working man.
In this Connecticut town the student of
social science has a concrete example Of
theory put into practice. There, in a city
of 1850 population-alnost entirely
wage earning population and more than 10
per cent of which are women and girls
there are no disreputable houses, no gam
bling resorts, no fragrant immortality of any
sort and no slums.
ION the contrary, one finds city of com
Portable, pleasant homes-homes filled with
books and easy chairs. nearly every one
boastnE a piano. And yet all of them
working mems and working girls homes
The majority of the latter own their own
homes. few live in boarding houses But
what boarding houses they are, Why, the
best families In Qanbury are not at all
averse to taking into their circles as board
ers girls who work in factories and mills
and whom they treat as their own daugl-
tiers, and who quite as likely not may
some day or other marry one of their own
sons, now. perhaps away at college
"Danbury exercises no social discrimina-
ton against the girl who goes forth at
Lie siren Call OF the factory whistle In the
morning. six days of the week Acuuaint-
aEce with a time register does not pre-
cl1de her possibilities of marrying. as she
so frequently does. either her employer or
one of his sons or brothers. And once mar
rfed. whether 1t be to fellow factory
worker Ike herself. to the leading citi-
zen. she Is always proud of the fact that
once she was working girl, and she never
grows too smart or too old to recall
with pleasure her days in the Shop
Whyf How account for this to all an
pearances Ideal social system obtaining in
provincial Connecticut community The
answer is as simple as 1t is gigantic. for
the answer is: Trades unionism among
women workers.
Because, something more than twenty
one years ago the women wage-earpers in
the Danbury hat factories organized them
selves I'm a stanch and powerful trades
union, and because In all those twenty-ons
years they have lived consistently up to
the principles of the trades union cospeI
things are what they are today In Dan
bury.
I'm numbers the Hat TrimIners' Assncfa
ton. to use their corporate name. is by
far the largest individual trades ui,ion in
America. Sixteen hundred of paid-ip
membership. this mammoth organization,
composed solely of women and girls, has
carried year to year through more than