Wheeling majority. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1907-192?, 1913-04-03
- WE WILL NOW HAVE $50
A Few Remarks
By WALTER B. HILTON

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THE WAGES OF SIN seem to be about SIS or $6 a
week for girls according to the disclosures of the nyest
cations of the Illinois Vice committee Girls have brought
their shame to court with them to tell for the salvation
their still clean sisters that purity and poverty are diff
cult combine in world that lures Proprietors of big
department. stores have been nailed to the by the
Investigators long enough to disclose the fact that mil
lions of dollars of annual profits have been made by
that paid wages to their girl employees that were far
less than the cost Of honest living As to just what is
the responsibility Of low wages in recruiting the army of
perhaps million American who have adopted the
easest way the witnesses have differed some of the
employers averring simultaneously that it has nothing
all to do with it. and Others claiming that low wages is
the whole FAULT
Those who do not believe that low wages are response
BILE probably consider only direct cause, and this is
wrong conception 1t is not generally true that girl re-
ceivng S. when it costs SO to ve will deliberately go to
hell get the other 81 She usually hard to live with
the $5 But the living is pitiaby limited that the
girl dazzed by temptations held before her by wicked
men, girl takes her first joy ride not because she wants
to be lad but because she for the exhraton of
ride in automobile. And So in Wheeling, there are
men with automobiles who dangle Them figuratively
speaking before the eyes Of poor girls who are only hui
It is simply that low wages create environment
which leads to vice. because vice is hidden like the traps
they catch wild ANIMALS alive beneath
appearing surface.
In the Of girl struggling along week after week
narrow coloress life is easy enough to understand
the attraction that draws her YOUTH like magnet the
flowers and music and soft breezes. No. she does not
leap into the pit; she falls in
Scratch any of the that have been advanced by
the Feo1mers and you will find Capitalism 1t is the sys
that the girls wages to be too small in the
first place. and that piles her withheld wages up into auto
mobiles and all the varied forms that pleasure takes
the other hand Thus the wage system itself is to blame
for the girl permitted to reap the reward Of her
labor she would have these things herself and would
have to depend upon man for them Under the CAPT
tais system she has to the things of life twice.
And the thing is an endless chain. Every life that is
ruined, r1ins another much whole of dominees
is flattened by the falling of The girl who lives sat
home simply has the difference between her wages and
the cost Of her keep made up by the others of the family
She sets pace though that must be followed by othe
girls less fortunate who have father to make up thu
difference but who must get somehow And both girls
workngf for less than must get because he has bu
stores and affect, relatively every male wage worker
that hundreds of thousands of young unable t
marry and support family, and this turn, hun
dreds Of thousands of unmarried women possible recruit
for the army OF the fallen.
A minimum wage will help It will not-solve every
thing for that cannot be solved until live upo
the unpaid labor of girls and men, but there is limit
decency Of living beneath which have right to lie
the employer send his employees this to the pres
ent and future generations.
Thre are merchants in Wheeling today guilty
any merchant princes in Chicago or New York And whl
posing Christians and benefactors and phanthropis
they exertlng every effort to prevent the Reta
Clerks Union from improving the conditions Of clerks
because they know that it will mean higher wages.
If you helping the Retail Clerks Union you
helping to make life safe and pure and good for the gil
clerks of this city. II you not helping you assist
ing the greedy employers in their miserable efforts
Why have twenty merchants signed an endorsement
the Locke Shoe Companys fight against the union? Cam
you that they are trying to hold down the wages
their clerks9
THIS is ADDRESSED to those whom Mr. Ogden
calls busy bodies cranks faddiss office seekers notoret
H. tod