The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-03-16

GIRLS GIVEN BUT $500

limited Press Leased Wire Service.l
PEORIA, ILL.,, March 15.-Low
wages is the direct and predominating
cause of white slavery and vice.
Victims of starvation wages say so.
Those who profit through the social
evil admit it is true under oath. They
told the Illinois senate white slave
commission this afternoon they could
not be mistaken.
Moreover several employers testi-
fed, some reluctantly, one readily,
that poor pay closely is connected
with the downfall of young women.
Inmates and keepers Of tenderloin
resorts furnished the committee with
sordid facts that caused Lieutenant.
Governor O'Hara and members Of the
commission to direct their INJURY
almost as savagely at the system Of
employment of large stores and fac
tories The committee learned that
some Peoria business houses paid IS
and 81 week to girl helpers En-
ployers We're asked if they would not
feel moral responsibility if these low
paid girls should go wrong. None de-
MED he would but defended his pay
ment of wages as the best he could
give upon the earnings of his concern.
Two young women who testified
they were good girls trying to make
a living honorably, said they found
the struggle too hard. One lived at
home in Peoria before she yielded to
temptation and the other said she left
her home in Burlington, Iowa, to take
employment here. They gave names
which they admitted We're fictitious
and the commission did not ask for
their true names.
Senator Edmund Beall of Alton, the
"stork mayor" took keen interest
in the girls stories and frequently in
terrupted Lieutenant,G O'Hara
to ask questions. When one girl had
recited the story of how she worked
for So a week, all of which she gave
to her mother to help support fam
lily which drunken father neglected,
Senator Beall asked:
do you think you should have
gone astray if you had received IS a
week or more?"
Promptly and earnestly came the
reply:
Il know should not have"
The other victim testified that she
spent $24 out of s27 which she earned
as telephone operator at hotel for
the necessaries of life. Lieutenant.
Governor O'Hara asked her to tell
the commission just how she spent
the remainder of her wages and
when the girl laughed scornfully al
his question the lieutenant-governoI
looked abashed and excused her.
Georgia Hall, whose ethics caused
her to shun association with inmates
Of a resort which she conducted fol
| twenty-five years, testified that nine
out of ten girls who came to hel
place blamed low wages for theil
choice of an easier life. Her testi
mony was severe Indictment of EN-
ployers She swore that girls told
her that when they refused to work
for starvation wages some employers
asked:
Haven't you friend@'
The employers side of the ques
ton mainly was protest against s
minimum wage law They admitted
/ that many girls who could not depend
upon help from home could not live
on wages paid in Peoria but professef
to see no way to remedy the situa
ton.
w. j. Roos, manager of a depart
ment store, declared low wages wa:
a factor in vice and keld the commits
sion's close attention while he an
alyzed the conditions which he sale
made it necessary 20 pay some of his
girls as low as s4 a week. Many girls
are not worth 81 a week, he said bu'
his store, smaller and less profitable
than others, had to pay that much Ii
keep their employees from going te
other stores which could afford te
pay them more. Their families ought
to bear the burden in these cases
the witness declared.
Something should be done TO give
girl a living wage said Roos, "bu
a minimum wage law would ruin OIL
business"
The commission completed its hea
ings here today and will go to SOM
other city probably on Monday, t.
continue the investigation.
Sunday Sermons.
4 CHICAGO, March is. Aroused b,
the revelations concerning low wage
paid girls in Chicago department
stores, many Chicago ministers to
morrow will appeal to their congrega
tions to get in behind the movement
for minimum wage law for women L