The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-25
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, d. C.
EIGHT HOURS FOR WOMEN.

New YORK, Feb. 22.-An interesting
| feminist f eud has again burst into
activity in New York. 1t is between
the women voters who are striving for
! the eight-hour day for workers of
their sex in New YORK and the
Women's Equal Opportunity League,
which declares that it coesn't want it
Twice, the question or the eight
hour day has invaded the state legis-
lature At Albany. and twice It has been
easily vanquished by unsympathetic
assemblymen, who were greatly as
sisted in their task by the eloquent OPP
position of the champions of equal OPP
portunity. Now the same bill, having
| been patiently reintroduced, is soon
to come up for consideration, and
consequently each feminist faction is
once more preparing for a brisk fight.
Those who are backing this legls-
lation represent some OF the most
powerful women's organizations of the
state, including the New York Wo-
mems Trade Union league, the Con-
sumer's league. the New York State
League of Women Voters, the Young
Women Christian association, and the
New York League of Women Work
ers. They believe that the eight-hour
day is essential to the health and the
efficiency of the women worker, and
they have announced that they will
keep on taking old members of the
legislature out and putting new ones
should women nse the ballot, they ask
you, if not to obtain beneficial legis-
lation for their sex?
The members of the Equal Oppor-
tunity league, on the other hand,
among whom are some we'll known
purpose of the ballot is to remove
rather than to increase restrictions
upon women. They believe that every
industrial channel open to men should
be open to women, that if a man is
willing to work twelve hours at his
Job. then woman, if she is to COM
pete for that job, must be able to
work twelve hours at 1t. too. They
are bitterly resentful of any so-called
welfare legislation, which they assert
is merely a current popular pastime
of society women
the state declared a~member of the
league. in addressing a meeting of
working women the other day, but
merely the opportunity to compete
with men on an equal basis. Laws
protecting women workers place in
tolerable restrictions upon them, and
end by throwing them out of work.
Firms cannot be expected to employ
women to work for only eight hours
when they can get men to work for
nine or ten, and thus women are UNI
justifiably hampered in their compe-
IltlOn lOf JOBS
When this statement was submitted
to the Women's Trade Union league
here. which contains very few society
women, it produced a tolerant smile.
1t was the same kind of a smile that
Used to travel around the various suf-
frage headquarters after particular
ly clumsy onslaught of the ants.
Since 1913" said Miss Rose
Schneiderman. president of the league.
New ork has had a statute limiting
the working day of women employed
in certain industries to nine hours; yet
the enactment of this law several
years ago when there was no such
limitation placed upon them, did not
result in the laying off of large num-
bers of women. On the contrary, the
figures show that there are now about
200. 900 more women in these indus
tries than there were then"
Miss Schneiderman. who is one of
our greatest authorities on women in
industry, went on to say that, as
matter of fact. the competition be-
tween men and women for jobs. on
which the League of Equal OppOrtun-
ity places so great an emphasis. ac-
tually does not eXist\ During the war,
she says. there was much talk con-
corning the equal efficiency of the wo-
man worker. but this was because the
labor shortage was so great that many
employers were compelled to accept
women-not in the place of-but in
the absence of men. Under normal
conditions, experience has shown that
when an employer can take his choice
of a man or woman worker at the
same wage. he takes man. Miss
Schneiderman does not applaud this
state of affairs. She thinks it most
regrettable, but none the less true.
The labor shortage resulting from
he no enabled women to
take a step upward in industry 1t
was not a step gained in open com
petition with men, but one made pos
sible because men had given up certain
places for others carrying higher pay.
Women were taken on as street car
conductors. because the men who had
formerly manned the street cars found
better Jobs or Joined the army but as
soon as they applied for reinstatement
on the cars, the women were fired.
1.-THE eight-hOur bill We are trying
to get thru affects only women en-
ployed in factories and mercantile
establishments" Miss Scnneiderman
concluded. land not professional
women, who seem to constitute the
majority of the membership of the
Equal Opportunity league and who
are exhibiting an amazing ignorance
not only of the legislation itself. but
of the conditions of women IN indus
try"
The advocates of the eight-nour day
declare that the strain of the speed
and the monotony of piece work de-
mand shorter hours. The constant
concentration of the mind upon one
process is deadening. they say. When
the laborer worked by hand sne could
relax at times; now she must work
while the machine works. Human
muscle and nerve cannot compete
with steel unless it has time to re
cuperate.
1t is further pointed out that the
modern organization of industry di-
vides. labor more and more into repe-
titions of single processes, so that thir
teen people are now employed in the
making of one corset, twenty-one peo-
pie in the making of one shirt; twenty
seven on one vest: and fifty people
in the making on one shoe. One girl
makes one buttonhole every three
fourths of a minute. One girl dips
720 pieces of chocolate every hour.
One girl packs 100 pounds or candy
every day. One girl pastes one thou
sand paper boxes every daV