The Washington times., 1914-01-17
STORES OF CAPITAL
EASIER ON WOMEN
Three Firms Have Already
Shorteend Hours, Declares
Miss Leupp.
fanagers of Washington department

Managers of Washington department
stores are showing an inclination tc
drop opposition to the La Toilette
Peters eight-hOur bill, and already three
Of the largest stores in the city have
shortened hours to conform with the
principles of the measure.
Miss Constance LeupR, president OF
the Local Consumers League, is auth,
ority for the statement. She and other
women supporting the proposed legis,
lation are praising Washington mer'
chants who have taken the initiative
in reducing the working day for wom-
en- and girls. 1t is declared that the
department stores of Washington give
promise to be models in point of con-
sideration of the welfare of their en-
ployes.
Preparations have been completed for
the mass meeting at the Columbia The
ater Sunday afternoon in the interest
of the eight-hour bill
I'VE expect a more lively meeting
than wethad at first anticipated" said
Miss Leupp today, for We have acci-
dentally discovered that there has been
some comforting among the opponents
of the bill since our notices of the meet
want to do some talking themselves. If
there is going to be any heckling, we
shall be ready for them
Mss Leupp went on to say that,
greatly to the qualification of the
league, the schedule of hours in three
of the big department stores has been
shortened within a few months, and
that the managers of five of the largest
stores in the city have stated that they
no longer wish to oppose the bill. This
attitude, the members of the league
think is in prat due to the amount of
popular sentiment which has been
TIRED in favor of the measure.
The kind of opposition We still have
to meet is typified by the statements of
MIR. Grundy, president of the Pennsyl-
vanIa Manufacturers Association as re-
ported in the Philadelphia papers this
last week." said Miss Leupp, in which
he is quoted as referring to humane
measures for the protection of women
and children as criminal legislation
and intimated that the trainers of the
measure were lunatices.
We are glad to say that our mer-
chants here in Washington are a diff
ferent stripe"
Women have always been the most
iptiful victims of organized greed. Their
labor is largely unskilled because of
their position and their exploitation has
come about largely through the intro
duction of labor-saving machinery into
the industrial world.
While l have made no personal in
vestigation of conditions under which
the women of the District work, ! am
reliably informed there is vast room for
improvement"
Thus did Mrs. Antoinette Funk, suff-
rage leader, who came here from Chi
cagO to assist in the work of the Con-
gressiOnal committee of the National
Woman Suffrage Association, forecast
the trend of the speech she will give at
the mass meeting on Sunday at 3
o clock.
The woman problem is the problem
of the race" she continued. THE Gov
ernment has at last come to consider
that a child is just as valuable to it as
a mule, and that child conservation is
just as important as any other sort And
child conservation is necessarily allied
very closely to woman's status in the
industrial field.
Woman workers outside the home are
comparatively recent. They are COM
pietely at the mercy of employers, with
no remedy for redress.