What eight million women want

. The Illinois working women, or that thriving minority of them organized in labor unions, had been waiting sixteen years for a favorable opportunity to get an eight-hour day for themselves. Six

milar decisions had been handed down in other States, until it had become almost a

n may be decreed without depriving anybody of his constitutional rights, and at the same time rule

itions under which coal miners work, and they can see that it is contrary to public interests that men should toil underground, at arduous labor, twelve hours a day. Accidents result with painful frequency,

ions surrounding women; ignorance of the physical effects of certain kinds of labor on young girls; ignorance of the effect of women's arduous toil on the birth rate; ignorance of moral conditions in trades which involve night work; ignorance of the injury to the home resulting

e unrestricted labor of women and immature girls. The Supreme Court's decision forever abolished the old fallacy that the American Constitution forbids protective legislation

, the working women of Illinois began their educational campaign. They had now, for the first time, a fighting chance to secure the

nted early in 1908 by Governor Dineen, to investigate the ne

rankly that limited hours of work for women was not one o

union. Miss Maloney and her associates drafted and introduced into the Illinois Legislature a bill providing an eight-hour working day for every wom

acturers appeared at the public hearing on the bill to protest against it. One man brought a number of meek and tired women employees, who, he declared, were opposed

e business aspect of the question, the girls confined themselves to the human side. Agnes Nestor, secretary of the Glove Makers' Union of the United States and Canada, was one of the two girls who spoke. Miss Nestor, whose eyes

is extorted from the toiler, in order that she may earn a living wage. The legislators were asked to imagine themselves operating a machine whose speed was gauged up to nine thousand stitches a minute; to consider h

tolerably busy walks ten miles, and the dishes she carries back and forth aggregate in weight fift

e workers to overcome. It was decided to substitute a ten-hour bill, an exact duplicate of the "Oregon Standard" established by the Supreme Court of the United

ately brought suit to test the constitutionality of the law. Two Ritchie employees, Anna Kusserow and Dora Windeguth, made appeal to the Illinois courts. Their appeal declared that they could not

llinois. If women of mature years-one of the petitioners had been an expert box maker for over thirty years-are unable, in a day of ten hours, to earn enough to keep body and soul tog

of his career, I think he will not remember with pride that he was blind to the real meaning of that petition of Anna Kusserow and Do

f was a book of six hundred and ten printed pages, over which Miss Pauline Goldmark, of the National Consumers' League, and a large corps of trained investigators and students had toiled for many months. The World's Experience Against the Illinois Circuit Court, this document might well have been cal

contained in the brief was the testimon

ific poison or toxin of fatigue, entirely analogous in chemical and physical nature to other bacterial toxins, such as the diphtheria toxin. It has been shown that when artificially injected into animals in large amounts the fatigue toxin causes de

ution was never intended to shield manufacturers in their willingness to poi

sists of women members of labor unions, a few men in organized trades, and many women outside the ranks of wage earners. Some of these latter are women of wealth, who are believers in the trade-union principle, but more are women who work in the professional ranks,-teachers, lawyers,

ctrine of trade unionism. The League trains and supports organizers among all classes of workers. As quickly as a group in any trade seems ready for organizing

l level. One hundred and fifty dressmakers in New York City belong to a union. Seventy stenographers have organized in the same city. The Teachers' Federation of Chicago is a labor u

demonstrated during the famous strike of the shirt-waist makers in New York and

ided, and the stage was well filled with members of the Women's Trade Union League. The meeting had been called by the League in conjunction with Shirt-Waist Makers' Union, Local 2

that for four to five dollars a week the girl shirt-waist makers worked from eight in the morning until half-past five in the evening two days in

tions, had formed a union, and had informed their employers of their action. The

t a general strike of shirt-waist makers ought to be declared. But the union was weak, there were no funds, and most of the shirt-waist makers we

as plainly fearful

bed to the high platform. Flinging up her arms with a dramatic gesture she poured out a flood of speech, entirely unintelligible to the presiding Gompers, and to the memb

e man, and a great roar aros

e girl on the platform. "Will you swear

sh throats uttered the oath: "If I turn traitor to the cause I now

complished. Within a few days forty tho

the direction of Miss Helen Marot, sec

to be "signed up." Clinton Hall, one of the largest buildings on the lower East Side, was secured, and for several weeks the rooms and hallways of the building and the street

s. Picketing, if this activity has not been revealed to you, consists in patrolling the neighborhood of the factories during

er place, permits her to present her cause in her most persuasive fashion, but if she lays

mateur pickets were girls fresh from college, and among these were Elsie Cole, the brilliant daughter of Albany's Superintendent of Schools, Inez Milholland, the beautiful and cherished daughter of a millionaire father, leader of her class, of 1909, in Vassar College, Elizabeth Dutcher and Violet

terest in it. They sent for Miss Marot, Miss Cole, Miss Gertrude Barnum, and other women known to be familiar with the industrial world of w

s. Egerton Winthrop, wife of the president of the New York Board of Education, to hear the story from the strikers' own lips. The Colony Club was swept into the shi

oman Suffrage Association, engaged the Hippodrome, and packed it to the roof with ten thous

the union. Others settled later, and under the influence of the "uptown scum," as the employers' association gallantly termed the Women's Trade Union League, the Colony Club, and the Suffragists, s

e all, that their progress towards industrial emancipation would ever be helped along by the wives and daughters of the employing classes was unthinkable. That the releasing of one class of women from house

of men. The women of the leisure classes, almost as fast as their eyes are opened to the situation. espouse the

in Roxbury, Massachusetts, is a perfect history,

w every one of his employees by name, was especially considerate of the women operatives, and was loved and respected by every one. Ho

ration. The manager knew only his office force and possibly a few fl

king noise and jar of the machinery. Other grievances developed. The quality of the yarn furnished the weavers was often so bad that they spent hours of unpaid labor mending a broken warp or manipulating a ro

f them had been in the mills as long as for

n Branch of the Women's Trade Union League, through its secretary, Mabel Gillespie, Radcliffe graduate, joined the strikers. Backed up by the Bost

you, exists as an individual, a very humble individual, but one to be received and conferred with. Hands, considered collectivel

, conservative, cultured, one might say Back Bay personified, had come to Roxbury to see the carpet manufacturer. Her powers of persuasion, plus her soci

le situation in an entirely new light. They were men of probity; they wanted to be fair; and when they saw the human side of the struggle they surrendered. When they perceived the justic

diciary. They are lending moral and financial support to the women of the toiling masses in their struggle to make over the factory from the in

r courts. The educational process is not yet complete. Not every judge possesses the prophetic mind of the late Justice Brewer, who wrote the decision in the

not have to strike, because in that country a substitute for the strike is provided by law. To this substitute, a Court of Arbitration, the women took their grievance. The employer in his answer declared, just as employers in this country

ustry. There it was an inquiry into the cost of living in the town where the match factory was located. And

e souls and bodies of the young women of New Zealand are of more importance than your profits, and if you cannot pay living wages it will be better for the community for you to close your factory. I

me; it does to the eight million women in the