The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1912-05-17

WDlte PHOSPHORUS, out F1nlanu mas
had woman suffrage for some time.
Legislators Are Polite, Anyway.
1T is true, as clubs, we can go to
our Legislators with petitions; we
find them very polite, and they
promise us careful consideration, but
what club woman does not know the
difference between this indulgent
kindness and eager response to the
demands of voters? 1t is inter
esting to note, that at national
child labor conference, a delegate
from the state of Colorado declared,
that Colorado had no child labor
problem; that the men and women
of the state had legislated child
labor out of existence. Does the
wage of the daughter effect the
mother? Alice C. Smith, Of New
York, who as probation officer, has
earned the titles of the angel police
woman, the friend of the fallen, and
who has record of 1900 women
saved through her efforts, says that
it is the economic cause Of sin
which she considered the chief agen,
cy in the production of her cases.
Average Wage Paid Clerks.
"The average wage paid in the
department store is Sc. per week.
If this is the average, how many
girls receive much less. One girl
was found in factory in Chicago,
who had received SO cents for one
weeks work. There is record
of a French working girl with an
annual salary of $50. In London
women receive for sixteen hours
work, one shilling, and shirts are
made for seven and one half pence
per dozen.
But granting that the average
wage paid is Sc per week, this is
$500 per year. Five per cent upon
$4,000. In other words, girl rep.
resents as professional prosti.
tute, capitalized value more than
four times greater than she does,
as a hard working industrial work,
err. These are unpleasant facts, but
when you realize that such things
can be corrected by the govern
ment, through the voter, can you
still say you are not interested in
woman suffrage?
About Fire Protection.
"And what about fire protection?
Does it matter to the mother IL the
doors of the school building open
in or out, or if the person whose
business it is to make this inspec-
ton is competent or not. What
shall we say concerning pure food?
Surely the mother is interested in
this, first as an economic question,
and secondly because so many
adulterants are poison. Sickness
was once considered visitation
form heaven; but now many dis
eases come very close to being an
evidence of poor housekeeping. Ii the
housewife is to be held accountable
for the typhoid and the dipbtherla
which occur in her family, should
she not be given some authoritive
voice in the disposal of garbage,
and sewerage, in the milk and water
supply, and other municipal ques-
tions? &c
Would Keep From Graft.
'If women were given the ballot,
do you think they would be subject
to the influence of graft? In
answer to this ! would ask. Do
you think that mothers would sac
rifice their husbands and children!
Woman should have power to con-
troll those things which effect the
very type and character of her child.
What may be the effect of alcohol,
upon the offspring? What may be
the effect of the brothel even unto
the third and fourth generation!
Idiocy, blindness, bone disease, in
sanity, criminality, tendency to can
Ger and tuberculosis. There are
many others. Did you ever see
that strange anomaly in the veg
etable kingdom, called black corn?
It is Just like the white, the same
husks, and silk, only each kernel
on the ear is black. Growers OF
white corn do not like to have the
black near by; it causes dark, ugly
kernels to appear in the white. In
the human world we are all garden
ers, each with our field of corn.
There Is Patch of Black.
always, somewhere there is the
patch of black, waiting only for the
waiting breezes to scatter the pollen
over our field. AS long as the
black patch exists there is danger.
And what of the policeman culti-
waiting in this garden of the world?
They are told not to uproot this
patch of black because it pays tax
es, and has a protecting license.
Does this concern women? Truly
it is the home for which we are
pleading.
did you read the article Organ
lied Vice as Vested Interest in
Current Literature for March? 1t
gave the report of the vice COM
mission of Chicago, which showed
that in that city alone the annual
profits from prostitution are six
teen millions of dollars. Chicago
is typical of the state of affairs in
every important city The commits
sion believes that there are in Chi
,,,o OnO porcons WIN dpyOtp their