The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-02-20
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.

The report tHdI oSNiN N'''i' has approved the employment ol women in the government machine shops will be heard with astonish- ment. His permission is based upon the success alleged to have re- suited from female employment Ill such factories in Great Britain. The time is too short to declare that the emergency employment ol women has been success in Brltsh industries. and it is admitted on all sides that it is an emergency meas ura because such employment re- leases men workers for the war and the labor supply is not sufficient otherwise on account of the war demands.
 But the United States is not at war The males have not as yet been conscriptad. nor have any ol The emereeucy draft laws like the Dick Bill had occasion te De enforced. There is no dearth of workers and the government can get all the male employees that are needed.
 \ glance at Inc official reports ot state and municipal employment of fees vii show that there was no aC- final shortage of labor, while in the western states the excess of appHca- lions for work over those who got work ls just as great as durns per jads of national depression.
 However it would be very mis- leading to infer that women are en- tjreIv new to the machine or metal industry. Bulletin No. IT,, issued bv inc Bureau of Labor Statistics, a tureau by the way which is doing invaluable and little credited work, roiurs ont in describing the scope ot ifs myestiaatiou of women in the metal trades that it is worth notic- inc that in these industries, none ot which belong to the traditional t2ld .r roman's artiyities, females form .d more than one quarter oI the to- taI working force while in indl- vidual industries their per centage i. much hisher. In some cases the numbers studied were too small to be significant, but in the twelve me tal working industries, each ot which furnished thousand or more em- ulovees to the total group studied the proportion of females employed ranged from 7,5S per cent in found ries to SO.45 per cent in the manu- facture of corset stecls. In only three of these more numerouSlE represented industries dii tHe T"o- nortion of female workers fall be- low one fifth; in seven it rose above one fourth, and in five above one third"
 There is quite a general ignorance as to the employment of women III America industry that seems aston ishing. But it is not any more astonishing than the wonderful writ ines of American publicists who em- phaticallv denounced the system or Europe wherein the women worked in the fields the factories and the shops as if such a state of things were unheard of in America. II Is just such articles that have given the impression that woman in Am erica was more highly favored, and her place was strictly reserved toI her in the sacred confines of the home, where, by the way, oftenel than not, the most miserable oi drudgery is provided for her within the meaning of the poetic words Home, Sweet Home"
 The most serious feature of th' employment of women is not tha employment per se There is nc earthly reason if sanitary conditions are provided, the work is not labor ious and nerve racking and remu neration is adequate, why woman cannot do it just as well as man She has got to live as well as tn man. and why the lighter forms activity in industry may not be f1lie' by her as well as by men is not all apparent. There are many sig nificant facts in connection wlt such employment which shows tha it agrees far better with wome than the miserable drudgery o securing homes and stopping over
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