South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1913-12-24
WOMEN EMPLOYEES
LACK HUMANNESs
Many Women, Indifferent to
Welfare of Girls Are Respon-
Sible for Downfall of Girls
Who Are Unprepared for
Life.
BY NIXOLA GREELEY SMITH.
copyrighted. 1913, by the Newspaper
ENTERPRISE AsSOciatiOn1

copyrighted, 1913, by the Newspaper
Enterprise Association
What girl of fourteen knows is
not much; it couldn't be-but what
is eager 10 know is the test Of
her worth to herself and to her world.
Ii her eagerness is to know how to
dance the turkey-trOt, how TO marcel
her hair, how to buy silk stockings on
a So weekly wage, in short how TO
catch a beau, she is, indeed, only fol-
lowing the dictates of her nature in
its passionate adolescence.
But a girl is less intelligent than
any other animal, from the lowest up,
if she trusts TO the presumption that
mating and motherhood will absolVe
her from all further struggle for life.
OF course. she may be that eXcep-
tiOnal woman who will never again,
after entering wedlock, have to earn
dollar for her own support or for
the support of others; but she will be
a less efficient mother than any She
wolf if she cannot give her children
better instruction than they get else
where in how and where TO forage and
when and how TO fight. And If she
Were as effectively trained as she
wolf is, she would have eagerness for
self-sutficiency. 1t is reserved for the
complacent human species to provide
the only female IN nature who tries
10 get her living by her charms rather
th%1 - - intelligence"
.. lara +. Laughlin, noted writer,
summarizes her Indictment of Ameri-
can home and school conditions which,
year .z>>r year, send thousands OF
Vers yGung girls out into the world TO
n a living with no adequate moral
o.. mental equipment for the struggle
which confronts them.
Studies Working Girls.
Miss Laughlin has made special
OF RI Uhn leave school at
fourteen to take out working pa
pers" and who practically, as chill
dren, set about the stern and SOBER
business of self-support. She presents
the result of her observations IN her
very interesting new book, called "The
WOrk-A-Day Girl, ana tney are
briefly, that neither the girls home
nor her school equips her properly
for her place on the firing-line or
that gallant army of 100000 women
who earn their own living IN the
United States.
"A girl goes TO work now as early
as a boy does-but with different
purpose" Miss Laughlin says. she
has seldom any idea of developing
high proficiency-I am not speaking
now of the trained professional girl
but of the great mass of girl-labor'
She goes to work for two reasons
pleasure and matrimony
search for a mate which makes IL
necessary for society to take a special
interest in the conditions of work ana
play of the girl who earns 50 or less
a week.
incidentally Miss Laughin taVors
the establishment of a minimum wage
of IS a week. not because she THINKS
the unframed girl worker is worth so
much money-she says she is not In
many cases-but because she bel1eVeS
that it is good business policy 10 de-
velop efficiency by paying new en-
ployeS. practically apprentices, money
enough to enable them to have prop
er sleeping quarters and an adequate
supply Of fOd and clothes.
She accepts work as the antldote
to temptation and regards efficiency
as the greatest shield and protection
a girl can have. In the picture she
presents of the night court or New
York. that grim tribunal where girls
who have deserted from the army or
toll and araigned and sentenced, she
traces the moral downfall of two
Young women TO the door OF their own
homes.
Unprepared for life.
In one case a girls life was wreck
ed by the over-indulgence of a fool
ishIv fond mother, who had brought
her ND to think that everything In
life must belong to her the moment
she wanted il. In another instance