The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1911-03-02
WOMEN-AND THEORIES.

cnanSe or alter the conditions under
which the bread-winner is working.
This was made evident a few days
ago when a telephone girl in New
York was asked for her opinion of
night work for girl telephone oper-
ators. Her reply was: eff these
women who are trying to have laws
passed forbidding girl night tele-
phone operators would look deeper
into the thing, they'd leave things as
they are"
1t isn't hard to get that girls view
point. and it shows again what a
dangerous thing little knowledge,
mixed with vast amount of theory,
is. The danger to young woman
who works at night in "a telephone
exchange, a restaurant or any other
place is less than the danger which
attends the average society bud who
dances half the night and part of the
morning, with a lot of perfectly
proper young men who have had &C
cess to punch bowls and bottles for
several hours.
In theory, there is enough land in
this world to give everybody a home;
enough money to give everyone a
share, and enough food to make hun
ger impossible; but the utilities, like
the brains of a nation, seem to be
owned by a few, and we can only
face the facts,
The attitude of the average woman
of today who has been we'll educated,
is peculiar one; the little knoWl-
edge which is so dangerous a thing
gives her the mental calibre and
alertness necessary to get a good
working knowledge Of existent con-
ditiOns. If she turns her eyes to-
ward the political situation she is
Mortified at the rOttenness of it-sO
straightWay becomes a Suffraget
If her son John and her daughter
Jennie are not promoted at school, or
John gets thrashed, or Jennie is
kept in" she decides the whole
Board of Education is wrong and
moves Heaven and earth for an ap-
pOintment to the school board.
If conditions surrounding the girls
who work in certain stores are not
up to her measurement or standard,
she prepares paper on '"The Awful
Conditions of the Working Glasses"
and reads it at her club.
SO-What the telephone girl who
worked at night meant was: ''Those
women who don't want us to work at
night don't know what they are talk
ing about which is exactly true.
Much as we women hate to admit
it, God made very few brainy women,
and even those few never measure up
to q brainy man. The consequence is
we indulge in mental Mysteries every
time we meet anything in Lies Big
Road, which differs from the con-
tents of our own little dOUr-yard at
hOme-we find comfort in trying,
with our puny efforts, to alter the
whole scheme of things as they are,
and make others see as we would
have it.
There is one instance which may
be cited to prove this point: it is the
effort to prohibit the labor of chill
dren in mills, stores and factories.
1t is pitiful to think of young chill
dren spending the precious days of
their youth behind the grimy win
dows of a factory, but would a char
liable "hOme" appeal any more
strongly to those children than it
would to ours?
And isn't it better for these chill
dren to work at these trades and oc-
equations than to be cut off from all
contact with industry, as SO many of
them would be?
The theory of forbidding them to
work, is a good one-and one that