Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1906-12-30

tant at the present time while the female
stenographers, clerks, salespeople and Office
employees who do>not receive more than SO
are legion, out of this S. too, come car
fares, luncheons downtown, and the cost
OF table board at home none OF which
bears upon the domestic In the ordinary
household.
In these facts and figures may be found
the impelling something which in its appeal
to womankind is making the servant prob
lem" for the country and forcing the aban-
donment of the American home life in
favor Of the boarding table in hotel, res
taurant or boarding house
Servant problem" as descriptive phrase
ology in America, carries with it much Of
the problem of the situation. The word
servant Is repugnant in the ear Of the do
nestle as a first emphatic proposition. In
the case Of the foreign born immigrant who
enters a household unacquainted with the
English language and with American Gus
toms and prejudices. the term has little
| Significance. But the foreigner In the
United States is apt pupil, with ready
instructors at elbow and the green" do
nestle of last January may be a ripened
scholar before the succeeding summer is
done.
| To the extent that male workers in the
! shorter hours, the wages of acknowledged
! specialists in all lines, and to make tn
maximum OF time their own. free of
| supervision of employers, so these advan-
\ tages have appealed to women who must
earn their own bread. In the social rela-
| tons OF the sexes 1t has meant little II the
man working eight hours day has seven
| hours of leisure when the woman is tied
to fourteen or fifteen hours work, per-
! haps seven days in the week. Under these
| conditions woman has b. en- seeking shorter
hours. In this search she has found the
office, factory and store more promising of
| the end, while In domestic service she can
| expect nothing. And when In view Of these
long hours there attaches the stigma Of
Servant" to her position she is in revolt
Recognizing this condition of revolt, the
American home seems TO be In the transit
ton stage of existence.
Some of the causes leading to this condl-
! ton of the domestic are traceable to the
| influences of the household. Where man
is employed for a certain wage in cash and
a possible offer of board and lodging as
the further inducement to securing his
services, one of the first things occurring
to him would be to ask What kind of
board and lodgingf
Insist on Making Her UncOmfOrtnb BILE.
But in the case of the domestic, where
the items of board and lodging are indis-
pensably connected with her position, no
such question is permissible-it is taken
for granted in general that the domestic
will take her meals in the kitchen from the
residue OF the family meals, that she will
accept the least desirable bedroom in the
house, that she will be forbidden the use
of the family bath tub, possibly in favor
OF the laundry tub in the basement, and
that whatever company" she may receive
under frownlng tolerance will be enter
tained in the kitchen.
| out of such arbitrary rulings of the
despotic mistress of the home the domestic
gradually has become pessimistic. There
is reflection Of the attitude of the house,
/ hold in the frequent wording of the DO
nestle Help Wanted" advertisement, In
which one may find the promise OF "a
good home" in addition to the wage bar
gain which may be struck. And out of
this concession OF the employer still
further cynicism has come to the domestic
In the discovery that most of these con-
cessions of the employer mean that she
shall take lower wage for her service.
Rebels at Doubtful ConcessiOn.
1t must be seen that this kind of con-
cession is not attractive. The one saving
grace of domestic service has been in the
fact that all things considered, the SER
want was better paid than the factory
girl or the shop girl. But II her better
conditions of living are only to be obtained
at the expense of poorer pay. she nat
urally rebels.
Even the woman OF foreign birth and
training is coming to this country today
determined to avoid domestic service If she
can find another field for self-support.
She is accepting domestic service as a
necessity, not from choice. With her
roseate view of this country as one prom
is.ng social equality, she feels the sting
of social inferiority accompanying domestic
service as keenly in proportion as does the
native white woman of the United States.
While in the decade between 1880 and 1900
there were 100000 women immigrants into
this country. with tens of thousands en-
tering domestic service, the exodus of
women in that ten-year period more than
counterbalanced the influx. Out of the
5,S19, 1877 women employed in gainful occu-
pations in the United States in the last
census year, only 1.2S3,T63 were in the class
of servants and waitresses.
Decreasing Proportion of Servants.
How the decreasing number of homes
and the opportunities of other fields of en-
ployment are taking the working woman
from the position of domestic may be
shown in census figures. The decreasing
percentages OF women employed as domes-
tics since 1910 are
Total Number