The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-07-01
BY MAnaAREr ,. sANegrER.


 BY MARGARET, l.. sANGSTER. t Copyright. 1so. by Joseph B.. Bowles.)
 Women are to be taken into account as important factors in the labor mar kets of the world. Wherever there is an important commercial industry. let its nature be what it may, women are employed in its production, its buying and it's selling. Women bind shoes, stitch gloves, make corsets. stand be- side the loom day after day, In cot ton mills. wooden mills, silk mills and paper mills; women make artificial flowers and feathers, paper boxes and safety pins. Women are employed in tobacco factories. candy factories, soap and perfume factories. and. in reality, very few things that we eat. drink or wear have not passed under the shap- ing hand or the finishing touch of woman.
 The labcrs of wage-earning women are confined to no locality. Thousands of women work in shops and factories in Bombay and Calcutta, just as they do in New England and the South and Middle West. Everywhere around the globe women work hard and long, SUD- port families and take their share In the worlds work Although there are labor unions of women. they appear to get on as rule with fewer strikes and less friction than their brother workmen.
 In some localities at morning and evening, the streets are filled with long processions of women. young and old. going to and from their places of daily toll. h the great department stores saleswomen outnunber statesmen. They are equally as gifted in selling goods as their fellow clerks of the other sex. Notwithstanding the disabilities of the feminine organization, they lose little time and make no fuss about the hard shfns incidental to standing behind counter.
 Women set type, read proof, go about as reporters to gather news, and sell newspapers on the street. In very few cases women occupy import ant editorial positions, and in great number of cases they fulfill tvery pos sible requirement. as sub-edftors or managers of fashion departments. Wo- men are pirsor inspectors and matrons at police stations. The trained nurse is a familiar figure. An army of stem ographers and typewriters finds its way Into the great thoroughfares and brightsns business offices by its cheer full presence every day. l. may almost be said that woman's opportunity to earn money Is limited only by her ann bition, her skill, her industry and her needs.
 Young girls, it would seem. might find an appropriate avenue for wage earning In domestic service, but this field of labor is still left to our foreign population. At one time the Irish mo- nopolized 1t. and they were followed by Germans, Danes, Noi wegians and Swedes. At the moment the competi- ton has veered from these toward the increasing number of colored women whc accept the kitchen as their sphere and the constantly augmented immigra- tion from Russia and Poland. Women of Slavonic origin, for the most rars ignorant and totally untralned are be- coming a recognizable feature In the labor market as 1t affects our homes.
 It used to De said that women crowd ed men out of the ranks. This need not much be feared. There still re- mains plenty of work that women are not likely to undertake In very large numbers. The great railway system throughout the country employs men as engineers, f1remen, brakeman DOT ters and conductors; the motormen on electric cars and the more or less civil conductors and guards are men. AL though house decoration enlists many women, particularly in lines where brains are required, yet the actual building. the work that taxes muscles and back, legs and arms, is done by men.
 Occasionally a woman financier cre- ates a ripple of astonishment by her audacity, pluck and success. But the great apanciers of the modern world, the great railway kings, and the man. agers generally of big affairs, are men. Broadly speaking. women bring to tho labor market patience, deXterlty, quick ness and perseverance; they have an e. 1-A. I,,v vrvR4w- how to obey orders. But they are rather privates in the ranks than lead CTS and commanders.
 Naturally. the absorption of scores of women in fields of employment outside the home, tends in some places to lessen the interest in home life. Sim gularly, however, in towns where wo- men are largely employed in mills and factories there Is a large proportion of early marriages.
 Not infrequently a girl who has had a very short childhed, stepping at the earliest moment allowable by law from the schoolroom to the shop or mill, marries in her early teens a young man with no prospects beyond his days wages Neither of the parties to this hasty marriage has saved a penny for the rainy day. and after the wedding both go on working as usual. By and by baby arrives, usually drifting into W who has not the faintest notion of what maternity means, and who has no nourishment to give the little life. When the mother Is able, she goes back to the mill, leaving the infant to be cared for by relative, a mother or an aunt who has grown too old to work. Children born of such maria ges are seldom rosy and strong. The mortality among them Is large, and they survive at all only by tAe law of the survival of the fitte~t This is the gloomiest side of tbg picture, rivaled only by that v-s..cn is the burning shame and disgrace of American life, the ineffaceable stigma brought upon us by the commercial greed in the tol- eration of child labor. Motherhood and factory life should be divorced
 Whether women work by the day or by the piece their earnings are very 1 seldom on so large a scale as the earn | ings of men. V-hy this should be is accounted for by those who believe in | the ballot for women on the theory l that women cannot vote. and that al though they pre- 7onderate in the la- bor market. they have no direct influ. | ence in politics.
 Another explanation Is that they ars | somewhat les thorough and responsi- 1 ble than men in carrying out wha; i they undertake. This is slur on the working woman which is undeservei and mean. It must be admitted, l re. Rret to say, that woman have less re-
 gard for the validity of a contract tha- | men. and that they are much more like i ly to drop their work and change 6 situation on impulse than men are. Mar
 riage. too, often takes them, as it
 should out of the ranks of competition