The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1919-02-13
senator WACO and a Big Question.

the Evening News taking him to task
on what the Senator refers to as g
"slurring paragraph" relating to the
Senator's bill to fix the minimum wage
Of teachers in Wisconsin at $50 a
month.
In his letter the Senator suggested
that some people believed thai the
News was going after him."
We are willing to admit that we are
going after Senator Wilcox. The fact
that he presented a bin to the legisla-
ture to make minimum wage Of $50
month for teachers suggests that he
may be the agent of righting great
injustice that has been done to the
most important body Of working peo-
pie in Wisconsin. We have offered no
"siur" to the suggestion of Senator
Wilcox. OR idea is that he has not
gone any where near far enough. We
believe that in Wilcox the state has
man who is big enough to be COVER
nor and the Wilderness Of his vision
must be called into play in battling
for the rights not only of the teach
ers who teach but Of the children who
are the most important thing that the
state has to deal with
Senator Wilcox should raise his ante.
He should put in a new bill declaring
that the minimum wage Of school
teacher should not be less than seventy
five dollars q month. The Senator says
in his letter that the committee to
which his bill was sent reported it out
for passage after cutting the minimum
wage to $55 month. This fact will
not deter real fighter like Sena-
tor Wilcox. His eloquence and his
general good sense should be brought
into play when the bill comes up again
and his amendment should be forth
coming without hesitancy. That com
mittee probably had not been brought
to see the demands of state for edu-
cation of it's children. Members Of
the committee had probably given the
bin the "once over' and had decided
that Wilcox had a good idea but was
a little too high in his figures. Pos
sibly Senator Wilcox could come down
to Kenosha for data to present to that
committee. He might show them that
in Kenosha janitor gets minimum
Of a lot more than he had proposed
for q teacher, that sewer worker dig
ging in the trenches is rated at nearly
twice as much in the minimum wage
scale as the ordinary school teacher.
He might find that an Office boy would
scorn to accept that minimum pay. He
might find men working machines for
minimum wage three times as great
as he proposes for a teacher.
Senat Wilcox knows these things
but he is Of the opinion that "heaven
is not reached by a single bound"
and that teachers minimum wages must
be taken up round by round. Possibly
in forty years of legislation under this
idea the minimum wage Of school
teacher would be brought up to seventy
five dollars Probably not.
The splendid leadership of Senator
Wilcox in the state should count and
count big. Leadership means some
thing more than first page headlines.
Tt means fighting and it means fight
ing for rights of people. School teach.
ers just like sewer and industrial
workers have right to be considered
as people and some of us have the idea
that they are among the most i'm
portant body Of >people going into the
make up of any body polite. The
injustice to the school teacher has long
been the crying shame of Wisconsin
and the response that some other states
pay their teachers less is no answer
to the argument.
The school teacher is the father
of the man. . She is the "mother of
the woman She is the real bull
wark of American citizenship. With
out her and her work the whole fabric
is cut to threads and then into holes
To make the fabric strong the school
teacher must be strong No one can
expect schools to be popular unless
teachers are efficient Schools can not
get efficient teachers when they offer
wages for them which are less than the
wages Of house maids.
Of course it is the course of least
resistance to accept the report of the
committee as something better" but
the real idea of leadership is to get
not something better but the best.
Senator Wilcox has put his hand to
Che plough. He has opened to the leg
isature one Of the states abuses. BE
can not afford to stop. He must see
it through"
The movement that he has started
Is not a dollars and cents movement. It
Is one that affects the future citizen
ship of Wisconsin The result of it is
going into every city and village, into
every hamlet to every four corners
II concerns more people and the future
Of more people than any movement
that has come before the Legislature