Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-04-12
WHAT Sno.

Congressman Gardner of New Jersey
made some interesting assertions in re-
porting to the house OF representatives
a bill to authorize the department of
commerce and labor to investigate the
Industrial, social, moral, educational
and physical conditions of women and
child workers in the United States
wherever employed, with special refer
ence to their age, hours of labor, terms
of employment, health, illiteracy, sam
ity and other conditions surrounding
their occupations and the means en-
ployed for the protection Of their
health. person and morals. The act
passed will take effect Immediately
and authorizes an expenditure Of $780,
900 for the expenses of the investiga-
ton, in which the forces of the bureau
of labor and the census office are to
be utilized.
Congressman Gardner said:
1T is said there are female steeple-
jacks and baseball umpires. Women
are found in all but eight of the 303
kinds of employment schedules of the
census. There are no female soldiers,
marines, sailors, street car drivers, fire.
men. apprentices and helpers to roof
ers and skaters, and to steam boiler
makers and brass workers."
In his last annual message to con-
gress President Roosevelt renewed his
recommendation for such an ~investiga-
lItion. The house committee on labor,
in framing this bill in response to the
Presidents message, conferred with
the census authorities and found that
5,319,366 women and children are en-
gagged in gainful occupations in the
United, States, of, which 2,095,4 4 were
engaged in domestic and personal SER
vice, leaving 3,223,877 in agriculture,
professional service trade and trans
portation and in manufacturing and
mechanical pursuits. According to the
census officials, the rate of increase
in the number of women W-age-earners
was greater from 1890 to 1900 than the
rate of increase Of female population.
The remarkable influx Of women into
the Industrial ranks has given rise to
many complex problems Of a social
and industrial character.
The numberSof children from ten to
fifteen years of age engaged in gain.
full occupations in 1900 was 1,750,178,
and 4S5,767 of them are girls. A mum.
USl " oIdGCS nave 1udulAOoICu q oSSP
interest in the subject of child labor,
but their Investigations are made at
different times, along different lines
and are executed in different detail,
and it is therefore claimed that they
are of little value to the general stu
dent as a source of information from
which to make general deductions. It
is claimed by many social economists
that the statistics of other countries
taken on one general plan are of great
value to the investigator, but that
those taken by the states are such that
little serviceable information Of a9gen
eral nature can be deduced from them
A Chicago social settlement worker
declares that in that city it is true o.
many families that Everybody works
but father" and he blames the women
who accept employment at low wages
for crowding the men out of an oppor
tunity to make a living. Just how
much justice there is in his charge Is
hard to determine, but that conditions
are growing more, and more. TOWARD
what he says has already been realized
cannot be denied.