Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-07-06
RAPS EMPLOYERS
PREYING ON GIRLS
Dorothy Dix Says Wives Who
Blame Stenographers
Should Ponder
BY DOROTHY DIX

Fl "A woman SenuS me letter IN winch
she asks me to write scorching ar
ticle to working girls, scoring them for
making themselves so attractive to
their employers. She says 1t is the
| stenographer, and the salesgirl, and
the factory girl who constitute the
real home-wrecking crew, and that
they fuss up their hair, and paint their
faces, and wear o-theminute
clothes ,and flirt with their bosses,
and go out to dinner with them, and
that this breaks the hearts of the poor
neglected wives at home.
And this jealous wife thinks that
something awful, with boiling oil in
it, ought to be done to these giddy
girls, and that a law should be passed
against permitting them to look so
pretty, and be so young and gay, while
wives get old and worn and can't al
ways be dressed up.
Perhaps. Heaven knows the busi-
ness girl who has a sentimental af-
fair with her employer, and who
goes about with him to places of
amusement when he is a married man.
does a foolish enough and wrong
enough thing, and one for which she
pays dearly enough in the end.
But why blame everything on the
girls? What about the recreant nus
bands who take the girls about? NO
girl can go out to dinner or to the
theater with her employer unless he
asks her to go. She can't compel
him to treat her to such diversions or
to make her presents or to spend
money on her that should be spent
on his wife, as any elderly and plain
and homely working woman can tes-
tify.
Moreover, it is the privilege of the
employer to have only those about
him of whose conduct he approves
and if he didn't want little Miss Ste
nographer to make goo-goo eyes at
him he would send her packing at the
very first roll of her orbs in his direc-
tion. A girl can flirt with a stone
saint on a monument in cemetery
as easily as she can with a man who
isn't flirtatious himself and you may
be very sure that any husband who
gets stolen away from his own fire.
side has been guilty of, at least, con-
tributory negligence.
Cynically Amusing 10 Hear Wife Ac-
cuse Girl of IS Without Experience
is cynically amusing to hear a wife
accuse a little eighteen or nineteen
year-old girl with no experience of
life, no knowledge of the world of
kidnapping a man old enough to be
her father, if not her grandfather,
and bearing him, struggling and pro-
testing, away from his once happy
home.
According to the wives the hus-
bands, no matter what blear- eyed old
FOUNDERS they appear to be, are mere
innocent, unsophisticated infants, en-
tirely unable to cope with the arts and
wiles of any little girl behind a coun-
ter or before typewriter.
Undoubtedly the reason that wives
cling to this theory of their husbands
ina ability to resist the hypnotic power
of their female employees is because
it saves their own faces. In their
hearts they are bound to know that
in every affair between a man and the
girl he employs the original insti-
gator is the man. He is the aggressor
and he is the one to blame, because
he strikes the note of the relationship
between himself and those he en-
ploys.
He can make it purely business
| like, as is the case in the great ma
jority of offices. He can nip any sem
timentality in the bud. He can dis
miss any girl who shows flirtatious
! tendencies. He can do more. He can
| form the manners and the morals of
the girls he employs and teach them
/ to be dignitied self-respecting gentle
women, who Will know how to avoid
even the appearance of evil.
The man who is honorable and
( straight himself is in no more danger
| from the arts and wiles of his girl
| employees than lion is from a sick
/ mouse.
/ Not Girls. but Wicked Old Employers
| Who Do the Prcying
AS a matter of fact, it is not the
| wicked little girls who prey upon their
! employers, but it is the wicked old
/ employers who prey upon helpless lit
/ tie girls. And this is the more das-
| tardly because the girl who works is
not free to resent familiarities and In
suits, as is the young lady in society.
! The working girls bread and butter,
! and often that of those nearest and
| dearest to her, depend upon her hold
| ing her job, and her job only too
! often depends upon her complacency
/ to her employer.
Many stenographer listens, with
disgust in her soul, while her fat and
amorous old employer tells her how
/ unhappily married he is, and how
| happy he would be if he only had a
/ sweet young thing like her to console
him. Many a salesgirl and factory
! girl loathes the attentions that a bald
headed old married floor walker or
superintendent forces upon her, but
| she has to summon up a smile and
! look pleased and flattered and jolly
! along the man whose favor means her
| keeping her situation.
It's as cruel a dilemma as life Of
fers, for if girl is willing to work IL
shows that she, at least, wants to live
honestly, and the pity of it is that she
so often finds it so hard to do so.
Mother Should Think of Her Own
Daughter Before Making
Accusations
Perhaps it is too much to expec