Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1913-12-02

I DIS HeI lever pair OF Steel-Sray eyes
She was leader of women, becaus,
she was, above all, womanly. Sh'
was not of the "suffragette" type
but she had the calm, dauntles'
courage of a good woman.
City councils, school boards, liquor
organizations, and boards of direct
ors, all had good cause to respect hel
fearless courage, limitless resource.
fulness and masterful leadership. She
was one of the few women who could
assume leadership over women with.
out inspiring envy or jealousy. When
you can find woman like this, you
have found the only queen who has
the right to reign in this age. She
had cleaned up the school board
made it misdemeanor to keep sa-
looms open after eleven o'clock and
made lot of tight-fsted people give
up large sums of real money to
build public bath houses for the city
poor, homes for working girls and
lots of other real charities.
When Mrs. Smith said women s
clubs Kellen thought of Mrs. Per-
ron, and when he thought of her,
an idea came into his mind which
proved big enough to make a new
world for all of us poor telephone
operators.
"Mrs. Perron,' he said, when he
called at her house five minutes af-
ter leaving Mrs. Smith, "this is not
an official call. Please forget that I
am telephone man."
II am glad to see you Mr.. Kellen,
and don't be afraid to be official, for
am very much interested in the
telephone company. 1 believe you
have something like 1900 girls
working for you, haven't you?' ~
"Mrs. Perron, that is just what l
came to see you about, I must con-
AOSS, Jul w NV COIlc dS a ulSIc
official of the company. l come as
one who believes that there is a
great work to be done in this city in
behalf of the telephone operator. And
aside from my connection with the
company, l am keenly and sympa-
interested in the telephone
operator from a purely humanitar-
ian standpoint"
"Mr. Kellen! I never knew you
were such a fine orator. Pardon me
for interrupting you"
"Well, isn't that the way you've
got to talk to prominent women's
club women to make them listen?"
"No, I'm afraid it isn't-you know
club women are not supposed to lis
ten to anything"
seriously, Mrs. Perron, you ladies
can do great work for twelve or
fifteen hundred young women in this
city, if you make up your mind to
it. There is no class of working girls
today who are less understood, or
less appreciated, than the telephone
operator"
''To begin with, Central is a real
human being. She is a conscien-
tious. capable young woman, who
does her best to please everybody. Of
course, now and then she fails, but
she does not fail purposely and very
seldom does she fail through neglect
or carelessness. Most people, how
ever, believe that she does, and I am
afraid that some ladies think she
tries to annoy them purposely by CIV
ing them the wrong number"
81 hope, Mr.. Kellen, that l am
not one of that kind"
mo, you are not, Mrs. Perron, be-
cause you have faculty of being
able to put yourself in the place of
others and have sympathy enough
to appreciate some of the things that
an operator has to put up with. In
order to do the operator justice, one
must have at least general idea of
how calls are handled at central"
Tell me, Mr.. Kellen, why does
an operator report the line busy to
me and then find out later that the
line wasn't busy at all?"
There are a variety of possibili-
ties, Mrs. Perron. First of all, I'M
derstand that an operator can gain
absolutely nothing by telling you
the line is busy when it is not. She
only makes more work for herself,
because the chances are that you
will repeat your request in a few
minutes and she will have to do her
work all over again. OF course your
line is accessible to every operator
in the exchange in order that any
calling subscriber may be able to get
you through his or her operator, but
no operator has to listen on your
line to find out whether it is in use