Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-04-13
CONSUMERS LEAGUE
TO HOLD CONVENTION
Mrs. Harvey Wiley, Its Presi-
dent, Tells of Discussions
to Begin Monday.

The officers Of the Consumers League
of the District Of Columbia have issued
a number of invitations to their second
annual meeting. which is to take place
Monday, at 4:45 pm, at Rauscher's. Ad-
mission is free to the public.
Speakers will be Representative An
drew Peters of Massachusetts, and Miss
Frances Perkins of New York. Mr..
Peters will speak on the Peters-La Fol-
lette bill, fixing an eight-hour workday
for women in the District of Columbia,
which has just been reintroduced into
both houses Of Congress, and Miss Per-
kins will speak on the general aspect of
such protective legislation.
"Our discussion this year." Mrs. Har-
vey Wiley, the president of the local
league, said yesterday, will be confined
to the question of legislation. The orig
inal policy of the National Consumers
League, when it was founded twenty
three years ago, was to try to ameliorate
the conditions of working women and
children by policy of persuasion the
consumer, or purchaser, bringing pres
sure to bear on her own tradespeople who
were employers Of labor. By degrees,
however, the pioneers of the movement
saw that what they could accomplish by
this means was strictly limited, and that
they would have to have recourse to
legislation in order to protect the well
intentioned employer against the compe-
tition of his INSCRIPTIONS rival.
Consumers League Standards.
1.-The Consumers League has stand
ards in regard to hours wages and gen.
eral sanitation and fire protection, which
it considers absolutely essential to the
physical welfare OF the working women
of the country. These standards it Is
trying to enforce by statute in state after
state. Several of its standards have
been incorporated into the platform o.
the bull moose party, but 1T was the
social workers and not the politicians
who put them there.
1.-The two social questions which have
this winter particularly challenged the
attention of the city have been the pros
and cons Of votes for women and what
we are going to do about sexual i'm
morality.
well, both Of these questions are
closely related to this program of ours
of restricting the hours of labor and
raising wages by legislation in the So
called parasite industries. Working
women need the vote to voice their own
protest against the shortcomings of the
present industrial system. Don't you see
that a fight for an eight-hoLr law or
a minimum wage law for women is won
as soon as women become a political
factor?
Question of Morality.
LAS to the question Of morality, you
may institute all the reforms there are
and they will none of them have a
chance to operate so long as We ignore
the economics of the situation. Just so
long as young ill-nourished girls are toll
ing longer hours than their strength can
endure for pay which is not enough to
supply them with the decencies of life
1t is unfair to expect them to keep out
of trouble Overwork breeds an abnormal
craving for pleasure, as well as physical
deterioration, and the wonder is SO many
of our overworked girls do succeed in
keeping off the streets and out of tuber-
culosis hospitals.