The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1913-03-11
STARVED INTO SIN"

mentabe fact is found in the discussions Of the
white slave" question and the working girl in
New York. Chicago and elsewhere and in many
magazines and newspapers The volunteer
friends of the working girl seem to assume that
unless she earns a certain sum a week she will
go wrong" and is not to be blamed for doing
so. She is Starved into Sin" we are told.
This is moral poison dangerous as could
be spread abroad. We told nothing of the
thousands and tens of thousands Of girls and
women who earn their lvings and who,
even on scanty wages. contrive to be virtuous
and to maintain their characters. We have pa
raded before us those who confide'to sociological
Investigators and legislative committees that
they became bad because they could earn at
honest work but So IS or IS week. The plain
implication from this is that the woman girl
who cannot does not earn enough for her
needs is rather to be commended for making
herself peril to the community and wrecking
her own soul and body. The responsibility is
put on the employer. The honest working girl
has Haunted before her that the other kind OF
girl is the object of pity and sympathy, not Of
condemnation is not a free agent, the burden
of her vice being on the merchant manu-
facturer. In Chicago formidable committee of
the legislature is enquiring into the conditions
Of female labor in connection with pending
bill to establish a minimum wage of sl2
week for women. The minimum waee may
be all right, If 1t does not drive industries and
establishments out Of business and leave the en-
ployes of both sexes, with no wages If any
zind-which might, in practical results be
worse than low wages We have no quarrel with
anybody who tries honestly to better the CON
ditlon of working people and secure fer them
just shares of the results of their labor. There
is serious objection to the methods of this in
vestigation as there is to preceding enquiries
and publications along the line.
AT Chicago the RED Light" district was
scraped and women were escorted into the pres
ence of the committee-and a packed crowd of
enthusiastic but closely observing reformers-
and asked solemnly why they were bad This
seems somewhat absurd when we recall that
hardly one. human being of us explain a
any time why we were guilty of any specified
wrong doing We used to have the fashion of
putting it all the Devil and letting 1t go at
that: but now that venerable scapegoat seems
to be replaced in Chicago at least by the
local heads of department stores and makers
of shoes and garments Knowing our own self
searches to be hopeless we imagine the
value of the testimony of disreputable woman
as to why and how she became a social derelict.
Several of the witnesses replied promptly that
they had been Starved into Sin"
People who know human nature and some
thing of the world know that not one woman in
d thousand deliberately adopts vice a means
Of livelihood or would seek that method of
averting starvation. To do would be
trary to all a woman's instincts. to say nothing
Of her training, self-respect and consideration
for her own safety and welfare. We have limited
in remarks by the Chicago Investigators and
by some of the other investigators and writers,
that girls are driven wrong by lack not only
of food and clothes but OF amusement and rec
reation 1t would be interesting to know from
these philanthropists what they regard as the
wage limit of virtue. If a girl is not expected
to be good at IS a week, might we look to see
her a model of propriety and department at So
and beyond the reach of all possible temptations
at $12?
1t is an atrocious and vicious Il uninten-
tonal, libel on the working women Of this coun-
try to suggest that they must be paid to be
virtuous and well behaved, 1t is frightfully
perIous to drill into the public mind the sug-
sestion that if women who do not receive a,
certain standard of wages to be excused, il
not justified, for entering upon disreputabie
life 1t would be equally just and safe to i'm
ply that the clerk who does not earn a
stated amount week is likely to rob the till
and entitled to sympathy when he does it
4 Where there is wrong it should be righted, if
Fighting be possible Where there Is oppression
II should be lifted If the law reach It, We
eve to the fallen woman OF any class pity and
what help we give, regardless Of the causes
and motives Of her SHINING. 1t is not right to
insist that working girls driven 70 crime by
lack of money while many thousands of
them earning the same wages the criminals
. earned, live and die pure and respected.
That portion OF the public which has been
wondering what the express companies would