The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-04-28
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM ALTON
BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HAEK1N. Director.
WashinEton. .. C
WHY THE WOMEN WON'T QUIT
WaahingtOa. D. C

WashinEtoa. .. C
WHY THE WOMEN WON'T QUIT.
Washington, d. c., April 25.-With
the shutting down of one war plant
after another, hundreds of workmen
are returning to their old jobs, only
to find them filled by women. who
show no disposition to give them up
On the street cars. in machine shops.
print shops, even in the railroad yards,
women are sticking to their work,
while the men who formerly held
these places are unemployed and
fostering an evergroWing resentment.
OF course, this is precisely what so
many people predicted would happen
when women started pouring into IN
duStry during the war, but now that
it has happened, no one seems to know
what to do about it. In the recent
Cleveland episode, the war labor
board upheld the attitude of the wom-
en- street car conductors, who insisted
upon keeping their jobs, but there is
also widespread opinion in favor of
the women yielding their places to the
old male employees.
According to the United States En-
ployment Service, women are doing
/ this whenever it is a soldier who wants
his job back. In such instances they
do not have to be asked. An employ
ment manager for large factory in
a middle western city was visited by
seven soldier applicants for jobs one
morning few weeks ago. The jobs
referred to were in a machine shop.
and, since the war, had been filled by
women. The manager did not like to
fire the women on short notice. as
their work was satisfactory. and
neither did he like to refuse the old
employees who had been drafted. Be-
ing a man of tact, however. he dis
cussed the women's case with the SOL
diers. and the soldiers case with the
women. 1t was the women who inn
mediately solved the problem by Of
fering to give the jobs back to the SOL
diers.
The federal employment office of
large eastern city also reports the case
of one woman who has given up three
time she has appeared at the registra-
ton desk for a new job, she has ex-
planned calmly that a soldier had
wanted her old one. While women
exhibit this generous attitude toward
the uniform, they are strongly opposed
to relinquishing their jobs to workmen
who left them during the war to go
elsewhere for higher wages. The
Cleveland case, which has often been
misstated, is a good illustration.
During the war. the male street car
conductors of Cleveland left the town
| in great numbers to go into ship
building, steel-making and other lines
| of war endeavor. paying high wages
, The street car companies, hard pressed
for labor to run their cars. held
meeting with the representatives of
| the local street railway employees I'M
| ion and asked it to agree to let them
| put women on at the same wage as
men, if it became necessary. The
company and the union never agreed
as to when it became necessary, but
| in the course of time women were
trained in school especially estab-
lished for the purpose by the COM
pany, and placed on the cars. The
war over. the union registered a
strong protest against the employment
! of women when there were men re-
turning to take over the jobs. A strike
threatened, and the case was brought
| to Washington for the consideration
of the war labor board. The Women's
Trade Union took up the matter, and
after thoro consideration of the de-
tails, in which all sides were heard,
the war labor board decided that there
| mad been no. agreement between the
street car company and the union to
dismiss women once employed on the
| cars, and that the women were there
fore entitled to keep their jobs.
The argument made by the pro-
testing male workers in this case was
/ that the women didn 1t need the jobs.
In spite of all the evidence to the con-
trary, the majority of men still cher
ish the firm and IN llterable convic-
| ton that women do not have to w. rk,
but do so merely to provide them
selves with candy and orchids. "Gee,"
exclaimed one of the woman street car
conductors when she learned of this
popular fallacy which has persisted
while thousands of women have gone
into industrial work, ANY dummy
| could see no woman would do this
kind of work unless she had to-"
During the war, many women went
to work who had never worked be-
fore, but the percentage was extremely
small compared to the large number
already earning their daily bread
| The 1910 census showed eight million
women to be engaged in gainful &C.
equations in this country, and esti-
mated that since then this number
| has increased by two million,
! What the war actually did for
working women was not to give them
more work bu: better work. 1t per-
mitted them to go a step higher on
the industrial ladder. Hundreds of
high-waged jobs were suddenly Gre
ated by our new war industries, and
these were taken by men. The old
| jobs, paying lower wages, were left
vacant until the women saw their op-
pertunity and stepped into them.
This accounts for the present ire
mendous shortage in teachers, dress
makers, domestics and charwomen.
women had been holding responsible
teaching positions for years-positions
discarded by men because the salaries
paid were incredibly low. Thousands
of women had been working, sons
times twelve hours a day, making
clothes for other women, and getting
/ barely enough to eat out of it. The
work they did was skilled and difficult.
The majority of the women who took
1t up were not inspired by a desire for
frivolous things such as are supposed
to be bought with pin money" They
had to support themselves, and they
did this by teaching and making
tclothes because all the better-paying
jobs within their capabilities were
held by men. To them the war was
AN opportunitv which few Of then,