The Virginia enterprise., 1907-08-30


organization on the part of the women,
their influence has not been entirely
| wanting in the organizations of the
past They were admitted on equal
terms with the men in the old English
crafts guilds. and seem to have re-
ceived full recognition.
Women's unions were not unknown
in the early annals of the English
trades unionism. We hear of them as
early as 1888 To quote from history
by Sydney and Beatrice Webb: Nor
were the women neglected. The grand
lodge of Operative Bonnet Makers vies
in activity with the miscellaneous
grand lodge of the Women of Great
Britain and Ireland, and the Lodge of
Female Tailors asks Indignantly
whether the Tailors' order is really CO.
ing to prohibit women from making
waistcoats. Whether the Grand Ma
tional Consolidated Trades Union was
responsible for the lodges of Female
Gardeners and Ancient Virgins, who
afterward distinguished themselves in
the riotous demand for an eight-hour
day at Oldham, is not clear"
While women have been admitted
to membership in the older, more con-
servative mems unions for over 20
years, their greatest advance in num-
bers and influence has been during
the last ten years. To-day women not
only sit as members in the central
labor unions of the great cities, but
also exercise the full rights of dele
gates in the American Federation of
Labor They have not received such
ganization of men.
That this great central body has
complete faith in wise use of what
ever power they may help put into
the hands OF women is proven by the
adoption of the following resolution
in favor of woman suffrage, which
was introduced by Vice President
Duncan at the 1903 meeting:
'Resolved, That the best interests
of labor require the admission Of
women to full citizenship as a matter
of justice to them and as a necessary
scale of wages for ALL
The labor organizations have dis
covered that the principles of union
ism are as applicable to CONSUMPTION
as to production; they are trying to
influence the demand for the finished
product, as we'll as the condition un-
der which it is made. They hope to
hyy mo of
In the recently published prize essay
on the subject Macarthur says: 1.-THE
union label enlists and arms in labor's
cause those elements which determine
the issue of every cause in civilized
society, namely, the women and chill
dren.
In many places there are women's
union label leagues organized to pro-
mote the demand for union-made
goods.
THE instincts of woman and the
interests of labor are conjoined in the
union label. Both stand for cleanli-
ness, morality, the care of the young,
the sanctity of the home; both stand
against strife and force The union
label makes woman the strongest, as
she is the gentlest of Gods creatures"
One has only to look over the rec
ords of the American Federation of
Labor to realize that the labor organi-
cations are unqualified in their con-
demnation of child labor. Over ten
years ago President Gompers declared
the damnable system which permits
young and innocent children to have
their very lives worked out of them
in factories, mills, workshops and
stores is one of the very worst of labor
grievances, one which the trade unions
have protested against for years, and
in the reformation of which we shall
never cease our agitation until we
have rescued them and placed them
where they should be, in the school
room and the playground" Since
then the president and delegates have
repeated and indorsed these senti.
ments so often that they are now
looked upon as automatic, the last
committee on the presidents report
remarking, that the child belongs in
the school and on the playground in
stead of in the workshop and factory
is as we'll known and recognized bv
those not blinded by personal inter-
ests as IS the multiplication table"