Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-03-13
THAT VICE INVESTIGATION.

giving local papers basis for buy at
homep editorials galore, if nothing
more. 1t is also causing consider
able discussion among local business
men as to women in business. There
is little doubt that there is some
connection between wages and i'm
morality, and equally no doubt the
wages of many are too low, but there |
are other reasons which have much |
to do with the immortality of both |
men and women.
1t is an old saying that neither
man nor woman ever became crimi- !
nal between daybrcak and sunset; it
is the old lure and lust of the night, |
together with the desire for clothes
and style, which causes many a
downfall. In the beginning it is
often the pleasure of little clandes-
tine filtration with some stranger,
Filtration only seductive because it is
cIandestine; little by little the stran-
ger gains an ascendency over the
mind of the girl until the final fall
of the maiden.
Just what proportion of the cases
of immortality are caused by poverty
is hard to tell, but outside OF the
big cities the per cent caused by
want is infinitesimal.
n-o 4ho IL, bo China
go investigation made a pertinent
suggestion when he said that many
more than the $4,000 girls alleged
to be working for $5 per week in
Chicago stores and factories could
get good places at SIS per week, a
good room, board and washing if
they did not feel themselves above
doing housework. The girl who bar
ters her morality for fine clothes or
even for necessities rather than pock-
ct her pride and work in kitchen
has more pride than morality. She
is deserving little pity. True pride
is a good thing, but the sooner the
American people, both men and wom-
en-, get over the idea that they are
too good to do any honest work, but
little improvement in national or in
dividual morality can be expected.
An Ashland business man whose
only clerk was loafing away most of
his time for lack of business had a
car of coal come in. When asked
to help put it in the bin the young
man refused; the business man then
left the clerk to ponder on his pride
and put in the coal himself. 1t is
thus with the younger generation to-
day. Many a girl would rather clerk
in a store and be immoral, finally
leading an open life of shame, than
work in anybody's kitchen, Otter
even that of their husband. Many
a young man would rather play the
ponies or gamble on his employers
money in an attempt to ape the loca
capitalist in his way of living thar
go out and shovel dirt or do Other
menial labor and live on the wages
his ability will honestly command.
What is the cause OF this condi
tion, which is steadily growing
worse? 1t seems to be simply al
accompaniment of the present pre-
Vailing worship of the material
Success, spelled by material wealth
and style. is the only thing to b,
sought after. The world today, in
stead of being in advance of the pas
in civilization, is really receding
when material success is the mail
aim and material reasons are givel
for every delinquency of the human
mind.
The fact is that in Chicago at leas
100000 men are in kitchens an
elsewhere doing work which wome
ought to be doing, and in Chicag
and elsewhere at least 100000 won
en- are in offices and elsewher
where they have no business to bt
Every woman who goes into bus
ness office with the idea that she
entitled to different treatmer
from that accorded men in the sam
line of business is making a fat;
mistake. She wants at the san
time to be the clinging vine and tn
sturdy oaf and ends by being neitl
er and only too often an outca
from society. There never has bee
a time or a city in America in whiC
a girl could not make her livir
safely and well if she were williI
TO take domestic service, and the
has seldom been time when a ms
could not live honestly in a city