Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1913-05-24
|NEWSy GOSSIP FROM The NATIONAL CAPITOL

, 8 months amounting to about S6 mil
Ilion dollars, slightly less than for the
corresponding months OF 1872, out
more than n 1911.
Wines imported amounted to about
Z 1.2 million dollars, an increase OF
about half a million dollars over last
year. ,
| Imports of feathers, natural and
artificial, reached 9l.2 million dol
lars this year, as against 6 IA mil.
lions last year, ostrich feathers alone
showing a gain of about 2 million
, dollars.
Some striking increases are shown
, by a comparison of the value OF the
imports of articles of this general
class for the first nine months of this
year with the imports for the core
| sp:nding rer'Cd CT 1900. VI art
works, the imports in those first y
mL.lhs Of 1900 were valued at but
ia l,,tle over 2 M:l!on dollars, as ccm.
paied with so million in 1913. The
rnief !mcres Sc in this class las DC
Cured since the enactment Of the ax
works 20 years old and over upon the
free list.
Diamonds and other precious stones
for 1900 show a total importation OF
only IL million dollars, compared
with 80 million for this year, and cot
ton laces, embroideries, ETC., 10 IL
million dollars value in 1900 against
80 million for this year.
Something new is urged in behalf
of the women of the country, especial
ly "the submerged" by Mrs. Flora
Mcdonald of Washington, in a rather
lengthy communication to the Hon.
William 3. Wilson, of the department
Of labor. She seeks the establish
ment of a bureau which would SO de-
velop and apply the science of house
hold economics that instruction in
household arts and sciences would be.
come the basis Of the American girls
education. This novel branch Of the
federal government, she suggests,
should be called a bureau of woman
labor.
In her statements she styles the
mothers of families "the submerged"
and "a sad. silent army of women
toiling in American homes" and init.
that the bureau OF labo: sta.
tistics has investigated the conditions
of women's work in the United States,
but only with regard to woman wage
.earners, and that 1t has utterly ig-
nored the industrial situation of home
makers. She says, among other
Nevertheless, home.making is the
exclusive occupation of six women in
the United States to every one engag-
ed in wage.earning. Approximately
women are occupied ex.
clusively in the home, and only some
thing like il in 20 has any help in
doing all the work for the family, in
addition to bearing and rearing chill
dren; a large majority Of women en-
gagged in wage.earning do all or part
Of the work in their homes before and
their days work for wages is
done. and the 100000 wage.earners
about whom alone the bureau of sta
is concerned are permanent in
industry, not as individuals, but as a
class; as individuals, through mar.
riage, they are constantly passing
out of industry into the home; home
making, therefore, besides being the
actual exclusive occupation OF the vast
majority of American women, is, the
key to the solution of most of the
problems of the woman w~age.earner,
for in the home is the alternative sit
from which and back to which
the pendulum of woman in industry
S wings.
"A necessary task logically indicat-
ed for a bureau of woman labor to per-
is to correct the Investigations
which the bureau of labor statistics
has made of woman's work, so that
ills associated with the employment
of woman in industry may be de.
termined scientifically and efficiently
with respect to the whole matter of
the employment of women-that is to
say, a bureau of woIna labor is nee
essary to define the economic status
and the conditions of woman's work
ih the home for the better understand.
in got the position of women in indus.
try.
There is a sad, silent army of wo.
men tOll1ng IN American homes whose
very lives are sacrificed to the indus
trial inequalities of their situation.
These are women of the social sub
merged, who, under the tyrrany of "a
double obscurity, are economically
submerged, toO-wives working at
home, not from choice, not in my sort
Of hope for themselves individually,
but in blind, dumb obedience to a GER
tain law of the species, which keeps
women of the w"age.earning class at
breeding children and making homes
In spite of everything the effort costs
them.
These omen effect miracles upon
the cost of living. They throw them.
selves, body and soul, into the gap
of an insufficient incon- :, and it sup.
family. But what of their personal
equation?"