What eight million women want

accuracy what one woman, much less what any number of women, wants. I sympathize with the first half of the tradition. The desires, that is to say, the ideals

in mystery simply because no one has cared

r even faintly interested in women. Strangely, deliberately ignorant of women, th

have to be abandoned. I believe that the time has arrived when self-interest, if other motive be lacking, will compel society to examine th

It increased faster than the birth rate. The number of women wage earners at the present date can only be estimated. Nine million would be a conservative guess. Nine million women who have forsaken the traditions of the hear

nathemas of the church, in the face of tradition and early precept, in defiance of social ostracism, accepting, in the vast majority of cases, the responsibility of self support, more than six hundred thousa

e already completely enfranchised. In England the opposition is seeking terms of surrender. In the United States the stoutest enemy of the movement acknowledges that woman suffrage is ultimately inevitable. The

xist as a subsidiary class in the community. They are no longer wholly dependent, economically, intellectually, and spiritually, on a ruling class of men. They look on life with the eyes of reason

tive expressions, it is evident that they differ very radically from accepted opinions and ideals of men. As a matter of fact, it is inevitable that this should be so. Back of t

of action necessarily result, after long centuries, in different habits of thought. Men, accustomed to habits of strife, pursuit of material gains, immediate and tangible rewards, have come to believe that strife is not only inevitable but desirable; that mater

iving his time to settlement work in the city of Washington. The rich young man is devoted to the settlement. One day he c

ffect of the cotton mills on the girls in my employ. They come in from the country, fresh, blooming, and eager to work. Within a few months perhaps they are

something wrong with your mills. Are you sur

ave them," said the rich young man. "Of

persisted t

n, and if the windows were kept open the lint from the

nery, reeking with the mingled odors of perspiration and warm oil, obscure with flying cotton fla

ve two rooms, one for the white y

ead with the air of one who go

we can't. The busin

lly function just that way. They have high and generous impulses, their hearts are susceptible to tenderest pity, they often possess the visi

h girls were leading lives of shame in the city, a statement which was received with horror by the Jewish population of Chicago. A meeting of wealthy and influential men and women was called in the law library of a w

and means had to be considered. The presiding officer put this phase of the matter to the conference with smiling frankness. "You

e for us to think of economy of expenditure. If the daughters of Israel are losing their ancient dower of purity, the sons of Israel should be willing, nay, eager to ransom them at

the room, and I whispered to the head resident of the settlement of wh

rder department store in Chicago." She sighed deeply, as she added: "During the f

red without the slightest rancor. They had to be given in order t

d to the aged, and given to the poor. The universal destiny of the mass of women trained them to feed and clothe, to invent, manufacture, build, repair, contrive, conserve, economiz

procession, when they were thrown on their own financial responsibility, found themselves willy nilly in the ranks of the producers, the wage earners; when the enlightenment of education was no longer denied them, wh

oman came into a world which is losing faith in the commercial ideal, and is endeavoring to substitute in its place a social ideal. She came into a generation which is reaching passionate hands towards democracy. She became one with a nation which is weary of wars and hatreds, impatient with greed an

are not better than men. The mantle of moral superiority forced upon them as a substitute for intellectual equality th

the new ideals is no evidence of their moral superiority

et car lines, where gaunt horses haul the shabbiest of cars over the oldest and roughest of road beds. The Westerner declares that nowhere in the

talled." Ther

lacing them. Old franchises have to expire or otherwise be got rid of; corporations have to be coaxed or coerced; greed and corruption often have to be overcome; huge su

nd a sufficient prosperity. Then it installs electric railways, and of

utworn theories of law, government, and social control. They cannot get rid of these at once. They have used them so long, have found them so c

ideals or any social theory. When they found themselves in need of a social theory it was only natural that they should choose the most modern, the most progressive, the most idealistic. They made t