Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1912-01-25
TO PROTECT WOMEN
Miss Margaret Carey Makes Stir
RING Address Here Before
Meeting Of Consumers
League.
FOR 10 WORKING HOURS.
physical and Moral Health Demand
clorl.r Hours For LabOring Women
Nature not a Creditor Who
Forgets Her Debts.

r. ..r hour law for working wo
...- 1911. the subject yesterday morn
.,a.s interesting addresses by Miss
I~.. Rogers and Miss Margaret
,,l-a. both Of Baltimore, at the home
.rW-. Daniel X. Randall, College
avenue.
Miss Carey in explaining the
soon, Of the proposed law, dwelt on
e.mIar laws already passed in the
leading manufacturing countries of
Eur8ue, and the leading industrial
.tate. oC this country, and pointed out
fba, industrial progress had been
frightened rather than hampered by
such legislation.
"Ia the lives Of working people, "
said Miss Carey mo single factor
counts as much in determining the
rhvsiral. mental and moral health of
fhe workers, as the length and regular
tg OF the working hours, such i'm
n0rlant matters as wages, housing,
insurance, none are subordinate. All
the possibilities of life, the workers
whole plane Of existance. rises and
falls with his scale Of time expen-
diture.
1T is impossible for the average
woman TO work more than ten hours
under the conditions that modern
industry demand, without injury to
her health. This isn't a philan-
thr5u.c or sentimental fction-it is a
fact to which any physician will tes-
ufy With this knowledge is It con-
ceivablc that the State should neglect
TO furnish protection 10 its women
workers from the exploitation of this
strength
Isn't II indeed as much to the
interest of the State that health
should be preserved as that life
should be made secure. Isn't the
conservation Of human resources a
matter of at least as vital import
anca as the conservation of forests,
or mines or water power If the
State fails TO protect today the
mother of the men and women of
tomorrow. il will be sure to pay the
piper later on-in hospitals and asy-
lums and prisons and poorhouses.
Nature is not a creditor who forgets
his debts.
Some people will argue that such
% measure as "a ten-hour law would
cripple industry and others that it
would reduce wages and others that
m deprJyng a woman of her freedom
~ contract it violates the fourteenth
amendment The first two arguments
are deeated by the testimony of those
states or countries that already have
50 legal Imitation Of the working day
Of women. You can't build permanent
industrial progress on the physical eX-
haustlon OF women and children.
" States with shorter work days,
says the report Of the United States
Industrial, Commission for 1900,
actually manufacture their products
10 lower cost than states with long
er work days As to wages, the bet
ter health and greater leisure for
mental development gained by the
women where their working day has
been limited by law, has resulted in
increasing their efficiency to reach an
extent that the legal restriction had
eventually had a favorable effect on
wages.
As TO the third objection, in the
case of Muller VS.. Oregon, D., U.
s. sl2, the Supreme Court held con-
.ututional the ten-hour law for wo-
men of the State of Oregon.