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HEARfiT'S SUNDAY AMERICAN. ATLANTA. QA., SUNDAY. MAY 25, IMS. 3 E WOMEN’S WAGES SHOULD BE FIXED BY LAW Only by Legislation and the Establishment of a Minimum Wage Can Working Women and Girls and the Generations to Come be Protect ed Against Avaricious Compeling Employers. A GOOD JOB FOR THE BABY, BY AND BY! Copyright, 1813, IntorniUonal New* Mortice. “Take good care of your baby,’’ says the kindly fat child-labor employer to the new mother. “Bring her up care fully. I’ll need her by and by to run a loom for me.’’ And the mother wonders, as she holds her baby tightly to her breast, if, after all her suffering and all her mother love, and all her hope for the little girl in her arms, the baby will be taken away, when she is still a baby to the mother, and set before one of those great cruel machines, to stunt her mind and body, and all that the fat child-labor emqloyer may profit. T HE important thing on this earth is the HUMAN RACE, not individual profits. The women create the race, and the welfare of women and girlM, their health, their strength, their vitality, THEIR VIRTUE, TRANSMITTED TO THEIR CHILDREN, sur pass in importance* all other Questions. Tc-day undef our methods of employment and competition, the working woman is the lower millstone in a grinding system of mean- nesr, cupidity and heartless exploitation. Many animals are used by man as beasts of burden—from the Asiatic elephant, the small llama of the Andes, animals of all kinds, the horse, the ox, the mule, the ass. the camel, even the ostrich and the reindeer, are made 6r,to working slaves for men. Cheapest of all, among the animals that man harnesses and drives in his money making schemes, IS the human female. Do you want a miserable slave to stand on her feet all day long, with aching back, and tired heart, and stretched nerve* for twelve or more hours a day—hire a girl of sixteen. You can hire her for less than it actually costs to feed her if you are a good stave driver. Do you want your office building scrubbed right after night? Do you want a human being hands and knees to spend the hours of darkness every nighf, year in and year out, trawling across the cold stone floor, in the wet, scrubbing, cleaning, head bent, and face white and worn—hire some gray-haired woman, who has been left a widow with children, or who is cursed with a sick or a drunken hus band. Such a woman you can hire for $1 per night, if you know how to go about it. and how to find the mother made DESPERATE by HER CHILDREN’S NEEDS. Do you want swiftly moving fingers, keen eyesight, great agility, in your canning fac- tcrien—or in your making of paper boxes or artificial flowers? HIRE LITTLE GIRLS—YOU CAN GET THEM BY THE THOUSANDS FOR A FEW CENTS A DAY. By bribing Inspectors, or avoiding inspectors, you can work these children from daylight un til dark, working the mothers, too, through the same hours. This is done; it PAYS, and the affidavits and the photographs are on record, showing the half-fed, half-grown children fall ing alseep from exhaustion at their work, then wakened and driven to give up the last ounce of vitality by threats and blows. Thlt' is a fine world for the man who wants to make a fortune out of cheap female labor. The little store and the big store, the little tenement sweat shop, and the sweat shop in the left, and the great sweating factory ALL COMPETE, AND THEIR COMPETITION TURNS UPON THE QUESTION HOW MUCH LAEOR CAN WE EXTRACT FROM THE BODIES OF WOMEN AND GIRLS, AND HOW LITTLE MONEY, HOW LITTLE FOOD AND REST CAN THEY BE COMPELLED TO AC CEPT IN RETURN? When merchants in the big city need extra horses in their delivery department, they pay usually $1.75 a day for the use of a horse— and they must promise to take good care of it, drive it slowly, and it must be driven only so many miles and so many hours. The man who pays $1.75 for the day's work of a horse PAYS FIFTY CENTS AND OFTEN LESS FOR THE DAY'S WORK OF A GIRL OR A WOMAN. And the horse needs only a bed of straw, oats and hay, NO CLOTHING. You know what the woman ought to have, although she dees not get It. Mere and more the women of the country are drawn into the whirlpool of industry and commerce, half paid and half fed. More and more the vitality of the mothers of the next generation is drained and dimin ished for the sake of profits. NOW. Every little child put to work beyond its strength, every girl harnessed to a machine run by electricity at high speed, every woman overworked, underpaid and underfed, repre sents a weak mother, and every weak mother means weak children and a weaker generation to succeed this one. The story has been told in England, where child labor and overworked underpaid female labqi produced a generation so sickly and stunted that it was difficult to find recruits of the proper size even for as small an army as the English army. Are we going to have in rhe United States and in the big cities a oopulation like that of the East End of London, a White Chapel dis trict, where 'he women bear babies that aro called "wasters” children, that no skill can save from the grave In Infancy? Are we to have duplicates here of the mis erable half-starved and often degraded Eng lish working girls, living on a few shillings a week, keeping their bodies and nervous energy going with tea, OR WITH GIN? For WHAT was this Republic established? Was it to enrich a few merchants and man ufacturers, or was It to create a nation free, strong and healthy, with the women powerful, gcoo mothers, the children healthy and at play, and the men able to protect the women, and safeguard the children in their youth? SUPPLY AND DEMAND? What have sup ply and demand to do with questions affecting the welfare of a race? When w f e say here THAT THE LAW SHOULD AND WILL COMPEL THE PAY MENT OF'DECENT WAGES TO WOMEN we are y>ld that we ignore the law of "supply and demand" and that these things must regulate themselves. NOTHING regulates Itself. Man has his in telligence in order that.HE may regulate con ditions and rfbolish brutality, and compel jus tice. We make -thousands of laws to protect the merchant and the manufacturer in their money making. Our Government attacks and punishes com binations and conspiracies in restraint of trade, because they hurt the individual business man. We forbid the railroads to practice extortion and oppress the money-making shipper of goods through rebates. Wc say that the passenger shall be carried at so much per mile, that the thousand feet of gas shall be sold for so many cents. In every direction, when money is involved, we make laws forbidding oppression, compell ing fair prices, protecting industrial, commer cial and personal rights. Shall we not also make law’s protecting women and girls against the sharks and the shark-like selfishness by which they are exploit ed and ground down? No man denies that women and girls are hired, FORCED BY THEIR POVERTY AND HELPLESSNESS, to work for wages upon which they cannot live. Upon such wages, paid to hundreds of thou sands of women, normal health and strength cannot be maintained. The law would not permit a man to under feed a horse and gradually wear him out. This would be prevented regardless of any argu ment as to competition. CRUELTY BEING DEMONSTRATED, THE HALF FED ANIMAL WOULD BE PROTECTED AND THE OWNER PUNISHED. Cruelty exists, and heartless brutality ex ists, wherever a woman or girl is put to work, paid less than it costs her to live, or worked beyond her strength. To overwork or starve a woman, to drive giris to immoral lives, is crime, AND THE LAW SHOULD PREVENT CRIME REGARDLESS OF “ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS AND LAWS.” For years th' matter has been left hap-haz- ard to accident, to competition, to individual M-lfishness, and for years conditions have been getting worse. It lv time for the public intelligence, the public conscience and the public power to pro tect women by law. Every Legislature in every State should pun- isl; as a felony th*' criminal underpaying and overworking of women employees. Careful investigation, intelligent and honest consideration of conditions and cost of living, Mioud underlie such legislation, of couse. In the cities, where rents and living expenses are highest, the minimum, that is to say the lowest, legal wage should be higher than in the smaller towns and villages, where life's cost is Uss. This would discourage the dreadful crowd ing in great cities, the criminal building of factories and sweat shops in narrow, sunless city streets. It would scatter population and counteract a great evil of our day. Dc not imagine that any capable or honest man, any useful Industry or business, would be Injured by laws giving Just protection to v. omen. That which is GOOD FOR THE WHOLE NATION IS GOOD FOR EVERY HONEST CITIZEN IN IT. Establish by law’ a minimum wage for women, protect the children by law* against deadly child labor, and you protect the well meaning em ployer, the man with a conscience and a heart. Forbid the exploitation of women, the starv ing and underpaying of girls, by miserable and heartless employers, and you protect the good employer. SINCE YOU PROTECT THE FAIR MAN AGAINST HEARTLESS COMPETITION. Many a man conducting a great business is filled with shame as he contemplates his pay roll He has, perhaps, one thousand women and girls working for him, and ho knows that at best three-quarters of them are shamefully underpaid, BECAUSE THEY ARE POOR AND DISORGANIZED. But, he must PAY WHAT THE OTHERS PAY OR GO OUT OF BUSINESS. He competes with other employers in his ability to buy goods, in *his knowledge of pub lic taste, in his power of organization. HE COMPETES ALSO IN HIS POWER TO BUY THE LIFE BLOOD OF WORKING WOMEN AT THE LOWEST POSSIBLE PRICE. Laws, that will protect the working women against starvation wages will protect honest employers. And, what is far more important, such laws will protect the coming generations and tht future of this country. It will be said that MEN are unerpald also, that disorganized labor suffers, and that the wives and children of the laborer suffer, in the competition of low wages. That is true. But one step at a time is man’s way of walk ing And one step at a time is the Govern ment's way of lawmaking. Protect the women and girls, compel payment of decent wages. JAIL THE MAN WHO HIRES A GIRI OR WOMAN FOR LESS THAN IT COSTS HER TO LIVE DECENTLY, OR WHO WORKS HER SO HARD AS TO LEAVE NO ENERGY IN HER BODY FOR THE DUTIES OF MOTHERHOOD, AND YOU WILL HAVE MADE A GOOD BEGINNING. SHALL A WIFE OBEY ? - tM alternately interested, pleased or alarmed at the recurring efforts of the New vo charge or abrogate the mar- e laws and ceremonies. he English suffragists, nuret militant and t violent of all their Bex-in-captivlty, are lng the movement and centralizing for the lent their attacks upon the word "OBEY" le marriage service of the Church, r Anna Shaw, of New York, for whose char- r and ability I have always entertained respect and admiration, takes up the jels in support of the English contention stoutly belabors this irritating and offensive J. lOuld a wife "obey" her husband? lis, then, is the domestic question of the ■. Dr. Shaw and the English militants natu- - thunder "No!” . rs Arthur Dodge, dauntless and unterrified ment of the suffrage movement, as stoutly vers, "Let the word remain!" launch my frail canoe upon the surging »rs between these two redoubtable battle- s of thought, and put out for port. Shaw, astute polemlst that she Is, seeks arry the question by storm In the vigor of first assault. Iny clergyman w r ho compels a woman to nise to obey a man," says Dr. Shaw, "com- i that woman in advance to perjury For voman ever has or ever will keep such a nise if it’s made,” lis would seem to settle the question, it this major premise and the conclusion of ic morality as founded on pnvate veracity ear. is true probably that multitudes of women promise do not fulfil In obedience the ge made at the altar. How many women, be- — the majority of women do, neither Dr, Shaw nor anyone else could say. But Dr. Shaw cannot deny that multitudes of women In ages past, and multitudes of women In the age about us, and multitudes in the coming years, have made and will make this promise and keep it as faithful, loving and obedient wives, and that domestic civilization has been worked out fairly well South and North, East and West, upon this basis, until this great age of assertion and discontent has come to change the status by a new and as yet unproved experiment. It remains to be seen whether the new' Republic of Marriage and Home Is going to be any bet ter, any happier and any more effective for children and law and order If the New Woman shall prevail to rule It under the later Declara tion of Independence. Beyond the present status there is pure speculation which must wait on time and trial. There are certainly some fine and wholesome centuries of happi ness and development and womanly Influence to be credited to the old regime. There Is nothing in Dr. Shaw's subsequent bombardment so effective as this first twelve- inch shell. Her continuing argument revolves around the injustice which makes man unfit to be obeyed. It is likely that the restless women of the new crusade believe that the "obey” in the marriage ceremony is a relic of some foolish and even barbarous laws and customs that out lived the age of chivalry. Time was when a man had every advantage of woman In property and children. Wendell Phillips used to tell the story of a man in Massachusetts who married an heiress worth fifty thousand dollars, and when he died he bequeathed to her, under the Massachusetts law, her own money upon condition that she should never marry again! Time was when the clothes a woman wore be longed by statute law to the prententions biped- in-breeches whose names she carried. Tima was, and is now in one State, when a man was allowed by law to whip his wife provided he used a rod no larger in size than his little finger. Time was when It tvas a greater crime to steal a cow than to bring a virtuous woman into shame. Time was when a little girl could consent to her own ruin at the age of ten and twelve—in Delaware, God save the mark, at seven! Time was when a married woman living with her husband had no right to her children; and, worse still, a bksband could by will bequeath his children away from the mother that gave them birth! Monstrous laws, thpse—man-made laws, too— made not so 'much because rBen deliberately meant to be cruel or unjust, but because they simply looked at things from their own point of view. Still, they make a mighty plea for woman’s suffrage and her equality In making laws. Suppose woman had made the laws alone. They would just as surely have leaned like Babel in the other way. But these unjust laws have been all re pealed. and man-made laws In this later day give woman the advantage in a hundred ways. Justice Timlin, of the Supreme Court of Wis consin, gave to Marjorie Dorman the other day a summary of these woman-partial man-made laws which woman must doubtless forfeit when her demand for “equal rights" Is legally de creed : Woman now enjoys, by man’s decree, exemp tion from military duty and exemption from jury duty. If the husband owns real estate, even in New York, he cannot sell or dispose of it by will In such a way as to affect the wife’s dower, even with her consent, but the wife can sell or dis pose of her real estate by will without his con sent to anyone she mav prefer. A man may marry a woman and give her a - - By John Temple Graves house and the woman can give or bequeath that house to her lover without her husband's consent, the law reserving to him only the right to occupy It during his own lifetime, if the wife should die. In case of divorce the man must by law divide his property in degree with his wife, but even If she is wealthy she cannot be com pelled to provide alimony for him. He is obliged to pay her bills, even for false teeth, but she doe# not have to pay his bills, although able to do so. She may be worth a million and cut the husband off without a penny by her will or con veyance, but he cannot cut her off by either without her consent. If he dies leaving children, a widow and an estate, no matter how large, consisting of personal property, she not only gets her widow’s allowance, but comes in equally with the chil dren for a share of the personal estate, whllo he, under the same circumstances, no matter how wealthy she may he, gets nothing. If the homestead is In his name he can not sell or mortgage it without the signature of his wife; If it Is In her name she may sell or mortgage It without his signature. The same as to exempt personal property. The husband can be arrested and prose cuted criminally If he fails to support his wife needing such support, but no matter how wealthy she is or how sick or poor he is, she is not so liable. The personal property of the wife Is as sessed against the husband, and by the new Income tax law he must report and pay tax on the Income of his wife, If she commits a crime while in his pres ence It is presumed that he coerced her to do so. and he will be presumed guilty and she not guilty. If she slanders her neighbor he must pay the damages, hut if he slaudeta he must stand the consequences himself. Surely, these are mighty statutes to plead In vindication of man’s chivalry and justice, and must go far to offset the long years of selfish injustice in which he oppressed the woman. Nor can Dr. Shaw and her brilliant colleagues plead that these man-made laws were made by the fear and compulsion of woman's rapidly approaching suffrage. For be It remembered that these laws have been for some years on the books, and that ton years ago It would have been difficult to find even a comparative handful of men in this country who regarded woman's suffrage as either probable or possible! There are many who do not think so even now. I am myself a long-time committed and earnest suffragist. I wish woman to have her ballot and all her rights, but I wish her, for her own sake and for ours, to come Into her rights without bitterness or injustice to men, or In Ignorance of his later generous concessions to her advantage. If I were arguing with Tir. Shaw for the re tention of "obey" in the marriage rite -as 1 am not—I would remind her that in the beginning, when the man and woman lived in Eden on equal terms, the woman's influence in that primal government was neither wise nor right, and resulted in banishment and sorrow, which may have forced Adam to assert the subsequent authority for the benefit of both, and per petuated it through succeeding generations of rebellious and tempting Eves. I would argue that in government. In business and in law the wisdom of the years has found It advisable to have some central authority and head, for every working body of individ uals who live and love and labor together. 1 would remind the accomplished woman that In all the ages women of tact and talent have nearly always gotten, without authority, every thin# or nearly every lhin a they have per sistently and unitedly desired. I might even go so far as to repeat the venerable view that women are only happy with the men whom they respect and look up to, and that what women love and respect in man Is what Shakespeare loved in* Lear— authority. But I do not press these doctrines undulv here. For my own part—and for most men t do not care a bauble about this word “obey.” I am myself so steeped and satisfied in lndl- •vidual "sweet subordination" that the word is of no moment to my Independence or my will. And I think that the whole contention about it is useless and unnecessary. It is not worth while trying to reform. Even under present customs, which are not laws, there 13 no woman in all the world who is under any compulsion to promise at the altar to “obey" her husband. It is for her to say. Woman Is no more compelled to prom ise than she is compelled to marry. It is a matter which can be agreed upon by the high contracting parties before the ceremony. If a woman does not love and trust and re spect a man enough to promise to "obey” l.<r.- she need not come before the altar. If the man insists, it is even yet her perfect right and privilege to refuse. If the difference is irrecon cilable, the way to the door Is generally clear, three-fourths of modern women have the word omitted from the ceremony now. Taken altogether, I believe I would leave the word alone. Old customs ought to be slaugh tered slowly, if at all. And before the word "obey" is smitten from these immemorial rites It might be just as well for the consenting race of men to watt and see what kind of wives the new woman move ment will provide for opr patient and Impatient race. There are some symptoms that are not p;om- ising. - — -