New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-06
Making the Women Pay.

no plank in the last hepuUllCdH HdIlOial
platform declaring for twelve-hour day
for women.
If there was such principle enunciated
in the last platform Of the Republican
party in this state this newspaper is
equally uniformed about it.
Yet tits fact that the whole machinery
of the Republican party in the State
Legislature is being employed to drive
through an enactment providing a twelve
hour day, six days a week, for the women
who work in cannery factories.
To discuss such proposal from any
point Of view of public policy is a waste
of time. Such an enactment would not
merely be bad legislation, it would be an
insult to every humanitarian instinct, to
every fraction of common decency in this
state. Il would be a direct reputation
of the spirit and the sentiment Of con-
temporary progress.
For If there was one thing above an
other real and vital in the late Progress
sive revolution, if there was one impulse
which was not temporary or evanescent,
It was revealed in the words and the en-
thusiasm of thousands Of men and women
who had themselves given their lives to
making living little more tolerable, the
conditions of life and labor Of the less
fortunate a bit more comfortable. To
these men and women the Progressive
party meant the promise that henceforth
the machinery of government, the law and
the machinery Of the law, were TO be
applied TO the alienation of evils, the
remedying Of abuses, the mitigation Of
sufFerings due to the inequalities in the
social conditions Of men and women.
Vague, emotional, sweeping beyond the
bounds Of possibility or desirability, these
dreams Of the Progressives-the sincere
and the loyal Progressives of 1912-were.
But with the impossible there was much
that was possible, with the transitory
Nor is It less patent that the same spirit,
the same purpose, the same intent, is TO be
found in the words and deeds Of the thou
sands Of women who are seeking the ballot
that they may use it to protect women,
to procure the repeal Of unjust laws, the
passage Of fair enactments regulating the
conditions and hours Of labor for women.
In the face Of all this contemporary
demand for social Justice In its narrowest
and simplest form, the Legislature Of the
State Of New York now proposes to repeal
laws which protect women who must work
in factories and to enact law which will
make twelve hours day, six days a week,
the portion Of women who must support
their children or themselves by working
in canning factories.
What Is the profit in such legislation?
The answer TO this question is the ex-
posure Of the utter meanness of the whole
proiect. Such law will be of political
advantage to two or three legislators COM
ing from districts in which the canning
industry is an important local trade. 1t
will mean some dollars in campaign con-
tributions in a few counties, some votes
in few isolated districts. This is the
maximum Of the benefit that is to be dis
covered.
And for such contemplate gain, for
n profit as mean and sordid as this, the
State Of New York is 10 be made to give
its sanction to a law which can find no
defence in humanity, no justification in
any argument based on common decency
Such arguments as must be raised
against this bill will hardly obtain. hear
ing in Albany under present conditions
its women readers, to its friends who are
the officers and leaders in the movement to
win the ballot for women, cause In which
this newspaper is enlisted, that never
was there an opportunity TO fight for the
protection of women against man made"
laws more unmistakable, more conspicu-
GUS 1t is an opportunity made TO hand,
and il will be misfortune if It is per-
mitted to pass unaccepted.
Meantime is It, perhaps, permitted a
Republican newspaper TO inquire whether
it is the hope of the Republican leaders OF
this state to drive the present measure
the Legislature solely to provide
themselves with campaign issue for next
year? Do they want to fight the next
state CAM ign on the issue, Twelve