The Virginia enterprise., 1907-08-30

often take up single-handed strug.
gle for existence in which the war
ware Is no less sharp because the
weapons are the tools of manufacture
and the stake the supply or failure of
their daily bread.
The fact that they have been able
to do this without loss OF virtue, and
with an increasing degree of justice
from the men who are their competi-
tors and employers proves chivalry
to be something more than q beautiful
dream of the past.
Whose little ones gather the spools
and watch the endless threads of the
cotton mills, or run to and fro on
the countless errandS of the great
stores? These are not the carefully
protected children of the capitalist or
professional man. The frail young
girl who stands long hours behind
the counter or sacrifices health and
eyesight in some basement work room
is the daughter and sweetheart of a
Wageworker. In proportion as the
conditions surrounding the working
mans life become less brutalizing, his
finer human sentiments urge him to
insist on the protection of those
bound to him by the tenderest of !1u.
man ties
The labor organizations are not
only pledged to the protection of
women and children workers BY these
most primitive and potent of human
ties, but by ideals that give deeper
meaning to the movement.
Economists assure us that wages
are largely determined by the stand
ard of comfort demanded by the
workers. The high standard of the
American workman is threatened, not
alone by the competition of foreign
ers, unable to adopt it, but also by
the more insidious inroads due to
chlld labor or to some forms of fe-
male competition. How is a child
whose Immature mind and body have
been stunted by the deadening round
OF machine tending to learn pride of
race or attain the manly vigor neces.
sary to claim and defend the priv.
1lege OF his class? Occasionally one
OF exceptional strength may overcome
the difficulties of his youth, but the
majority grow up to reinforce that
class of incompetents, mentally, NOR
ally and physically, who prove heavy
burdens within the unions, or with
out them menace their fellow-work-
men more seriously by their short
sighted readiness to accept the lower
standard against which the unions are
struggling
In the closing paragraphs of an ar
ticle in the Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social
Science, Walter Macarthur says:
"The attitude Of the American
trade unionist is that of appeal to the
spirit of independence and to a reali-
Zation of the truth that the workers
are themselves the sole repository of
power to better their lot The solemn
lesson of history, to-day and every
day of our lives, is that the workers
must depend upon themselves for the
Improvement Of the conditions OF la
bor."
Aside from inherited incapacity for
organization, women have been de-
tered from any systematic and per-
sistent effort to better their condition
as workers by the feeling that their
employment was but a temporary ex-
pedient, from which they would be re-
leased by marriage. White this
must continue to be true of a large
number of women workers, still as a
class there can be no question of the
permanence of their position in the
industrial world or of the necessity
of developing the higher altruism
which shall prompt temporary work
ers to guard the interests of less for
tunate sisters, whose lives depend en-
tirely on their conditions of work