The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-02-23
EVENING CHAT
BIZ RUTH CAMERON.

| Not long ago 1 was delegated as Il
| newspaper woman to help investigate a
certain strike.
| The strikers We're men employed in
weaving certain kind of coarse bag
ging. 1t was made in rolls. For each
roll the workmen had been getting %
cents. Then they had been cut down to
| 20 cents a roll and had gone on strike.
AS 1t happened to be convenient I
went first of all to the head of the firm
| and asked him to explain the situation
| to me.
"It is absurd for the men to say they
! cannot live on 20 cents a roll. Why,
| Miss Cameron, that is far better than
! any other concern of the kind pays. AS
| a matter of fact, our nearest competitor
pays only IA cents a roll. The men
simply don't realize how we'll they are
| treated
He talked to me for some time in this
| strain, and when 1 left his office 1 was
quite convinced that the men were I'M
reasonable. If the nearest competitor
| paid but IA cents a roll it seemed to me
| these men ought to be satisfied with 20
| cents.
| 1t did not really seem to me that ]
| needed to look any further to find out
| If the strike were just or not. But |
| had been told to see both parties, so /
went to one of the representatives of
| the men and told him what 1 had heard.
| He laughed scornfully
| The boss forgot to tell you that the
/ rolls that firm pays Ia cents for aren t
| but so feet long, While ours are 100,
| didn't hep he inquired. And then, too,
| maybe you don't know much about the
weaving business, but it makes a good
| deal of difference what the stock you
are using is like. There's a lot of coarse
| hard stuff in what we use that keeps
| breaking the machines, and every time
a machine breaks that's a loss for the
weaver, you know. Men that comes
| here from other factories usually gets
| clean discouraged because the stock is
| SO rotten and they have to spend so
much time mending their machines that
| they can't make much of anything.
Whereupon L naturally altered my
/ first coeksure opinion. ~es'. -....r
The next day a woman who is rather
| .t odds with her daughter-in-law, came
| to see my mother AS she poured her
| always going about and never stayed at
| home to help with the work, and of an
| evening, instead Of sitting down and
making it pleasant for the whole fam
lily, always wanted to lug John off 10
| her private sitting room, / began to
| condemn Elinor in my heart. And then
I remembered the strike and forebore.
| And few days later when Elinor
over her fancy work casually men,
! toned q few of the difficulties of being
such as having everything you did to
| help down to the making of a bed or
! the busting of a room, criticised, and be-
| ing expected to tell whenever you went
| out, where you were going and how
| long you would stay. I realized that
| strikes are not the only controversies
| that have two sides.
| When you hear a case of any kind put
| strongly and apparently logically your
natural impulse is to be convinced
Don't.
No matter how absolutely one sided a
case appears it is pretty safe to say that
| it has two or more likely more sides
| to it.
Doubtless the townpeople could have
given me the third side to the strike
and Elinor's husband could have con-
| tributed a third angle to the mother
! in-law question.