The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1906-03-17
est upon the mony invested Otherwise
they would fail Of any truly philan-
tbropic oh;oo+

est upon the mony invested. Otherwise
they would fail Of any truly philan-
thropic object.
AS to their conduct as institutions
Their should be no rules, no rexula-
lions which are not in full operation
In the Waldorf-Asto or the Hotel ST..
Regis. The curse Of all such attempts
IN the past has ben the insistence up
on coerc1ve morality. Make them not
only non-sectarian, but non-religious.
There Is no more need of conducting a
working girls hotel or lodging house in
the name Of God or under the aus
pices of religious sentiment than there
is necessity for advertising the Martha
washington Hotel or any fashiona BILE
bachelor apartment house as being
under divine guidance.
A clean room and three wholesomely
cooked meals day can be furnished
to working girls at price such as
would make it possible for them to
live honestly on the small wage of
the factory and store We do not ask
for luxuries or dainties. We do not
get them in the miserable, dark, war;
rens, where we are now obliged to
sleep and we do not get them at the
unappetizing boarding house tables
wher countless thousands Of us find
sustenance I do not KNOW sup
pose nobody does know-how many
workings girls in New York City live
IN lodging and boarding houses. But
they are legion and very few of them
are contented with that life.
The most important necessity of the
model working woman's hotel or lodg-
ing house would be, not a luxurious
table, not a dainty sleeping room. but
a parlor! The number of young girls
who go wrong in a great city like this
Tor want of the various necessities OF
a parlor must make the angels in
heaven weep The houses where the
poorly paid girl lives have no accom-
modations for the entertainment of her
male friends. If the house is conducted
with any respect for the conventions,
the girl ledger must meet her young
man on the "stoop'' or on the street
corner. AS the courtship progresses
they must have recourse either to the
benches of the public parks, provided
the weather be favorable, or else to
the light and warmth Of the back room
OF a saloon. The average cheap lode-
ing house is usually conducted. how
ever, with but scant regard for the
conventions, and the girl usually is
forced to adopt the more convenient
and, as it would seem to her, really
more elf-respecting habit of receiving
her company in her room. And either
one of these methods Of courtship. it is
vident, cannot but be in the end demoer-
alizing and degrading to thoushtless
young people, however innocent they
may be of any deliberate wrong doing.
In the model lodging house there would
be perfect liberty Of conduct and &C.
ton on the part of guests-who will
not be inmates" in any sense of the
word. Such guests should have per-
| feet liberty to go and come when tnev
please at any hour of the day or night:
be permitted to see any person thew
choose to have come, without question
or challenge, so long as the conven-
! lions of ordinary social life are COM
| piled with. Such an institution. con-
| Quoted upon such a plan and managed
so that it would make fair returns to
its promoters, cannot f, | to be well
! coined; and would be of inestima HE
| benefit as an uplifting and resener-
atirg force with those for whom # is
designed.