THE END OF THE TRAIL
Work of itself is not hard. It is the conditions under which most work
is done that makes it a hardship. Work under good conditions is
exhilarating.
There never was a time in all my four years in the underbrush that the
work itself palled on me. It was the conditions under which I was forced
to work that made it objectionable. One of my chief reasons for liking
my work as an inspector of dog licenses was that I was a free agent, not
bound by any hampering conditions. Each inspector was given his or her
district, instructed as to their power and limitations under the law,
and sent out to get results.
Never once did the manager of the A. S. P. C. A. tell me that I must do
a given thing in a given way. The few times that I found myself facing a
problem about the handling of which I was in doubt, when I appealed to
him he gave me advice; advice, never instructions. I was always a free
agent at a living wage. Though the wage could never be called generous,
especially for a man with a family, it was sufficient for me to live on
in a rooming-house or a tenement-flat, and pay for a five-hundred-dollar
Liberty bond. At the time that I left I was receiving one hundred and
four dollars and car-fare per month—quite a raise in four years for an
untrained woman who began on six dollars the week.
What we know as labor unrest is caused as much by the conditions under
which workers struggle as the amount of wage so grudgingly paid them.
The untangling of both those knotty problems is in the hands of our
women.
On the way they untangle those two knots, as I see it, hangs the fate of
our country, the United States as we know it to-day—whether it lasts
fifty years or fifty centuries.
Now I know by actual experience what conditions were before this country
entered the World War. I watched the improvement that followed—larger
windows made in dark rooms to improve light and ventilation; when this
was impossible workers would be moved into better quarters. I saw lofts
that had not known a broom or wash-pail for years swept and garnished as
though for a celebration.
One reason for this was the coming of the girl who didn’t have to work
for her living—the war-worker. I had managers tell me:
“You’re an educated woman—ah—ah—Why, to tell the truth, I’m afraid you
wouldn’t be happy here. Our loft is not—not what we’d like it to be. Not
very clean, you know.”
“What about your regular workers?” I asked him.
“Oh, they’re different. They’re used to it.”
At a munition plant in Hoboken the manager of a department jumped at me
as an applicant for work. He was going to “place” me at once, and sent
to the office for a pass. The employment manager happened to be in a
“cranky” mood, or so the department manager explained to me, and said he
could not issue a pass until he had me investigated. I left with the
understanding that an investigator would see me that afternoon, and the
manager urged me to report early the next morning ready for work.
The investigator did see me that afternoon, and because I answered her
questions truthfully she learned that I am a college graduate. The next
morning the employment manager issued me a pass without question, but
when I returned to the office of red-haired Mr. Black, the department
manager, he had changed his mind.
“Why, you’re a college graduate!” he exclaimed, leaning forward in his
swivel-chair and looking for all the world like a big frog ready to hop.
“You wouldn’t be happy here a day. You just wouldn’t stand it.”
Out in the passageway I chanced upon the girl who had conducted me to
Mr. Black’s office. When I told her that he had refused to give me a job
she stared, then nodded her head.
“I mighter known he wouldn’t take you on. He wants girls he can chuck
under the chin and poke in the ribs and call by their first name,” she
told me. “He’s foxy, that red-head, he seen he couldn’t make free with
you. You come with me. I’ll take you to the employment manager. He’ll
give you a job in the office, real Gentile work.”
But I’d had enough office work, so I refused her offer.
When I applied at Store Beautiful the employment manager apologized for
offering me seventeen dollars a week. He was not allowed to pay more for
an inexperienced saleswoman, he explained. When I accepted the job he
quickly told me that there were many better-paying positions in the
store, and if I stayed he would try to fit me into one of them. Remember
this happened after the war. Employment managers had learned the value
of educated working women.
Now I’d as soon try to reason with a herd of jackasses as with a selfish
woman. It is because I learned during my four years in the underbrush
that American women are not, as a rule, selfish when they understand
conditions that I have written this book. It is because I know by
experience that American women are, as a rule, unselfishly patriotic
that I am adding to the narrative of my experience an expression of my
opinion on that condition known as our “labor troubles.”
The United States is to-day the most powerful nation in the world. We,
its women, are the most powerful half of the nation. Again we, its
educated women of native birth and lineage, are the most powerful group
in that half.
It is up to us how our country is coming through its period of labor
troubles. Are we going to remain human cooties, forcing our fathers and
husbands to beat down and rob their employees for the sake of getting
money to support us in idle luxury?
They, the men of the United States, have given us, their womenfolks, the
ballot and Prohibition. Not because they wanted either, but because we,
their adored womenfolks, clamored for them. Every profession is open to
us, every line of work.
What are we going to do with all this wealth of opportunity?
Our sister, the working woman, believes in us. She ties her faith to
us—her hope for her children and their future. Many, many times I had
women of the slums assure me that “rich ladies” fought for suffrage that
they might get shorter hours for working women. And even more often they
told me that the fight for Prohibition was fought and won by “rich
ladies” for the protection of working-people’s homes.
During the war we showed them that there was no work we couldn’t do, and
wouldn’t do, when it was necessary. During the war through us they
realized what work was with the stigma rubbed out—work was a badge of
honor, idleness a disgrace.
To-day those women stand between us and chaos. A slender cordon of hope,
they are holding back the surging multitude of unrest. Their men have
ceased to believe in any method of getting justice except by violence.
What are we going to do?—measure up to the working-woman’s faith in us,
come out of our nests as cooties and, taking our place at her side as we
did during the war, do our share of the work. Or are we going to remain
human cooties, let that cordon of hope crumble, be swept away?
There is one thing as certain as the rising of the sun. If we do not
give, it will be taken from us.
Were I a girl growing up to-day I would demand of my parents an equal
chance with my brother. If he was given his training—for trade or
profession—I would have mine—trade or profession. I would insist on my
obligations as a citizen, a future voter, to learn the condition and the
needs of my country.
How can a girl vote intelligently if she spends her days debating on how
high she can wear her skirt, or how low she can cut her camisole? That
time is passed. We must either keep step with progress or be swept away
by the class of women who have learned the lesson that we refused to be
taught.
Only motherhood—bearing and caring for a living child—should excuse a
woman from working for her living.
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Transcriber’s Note
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and
are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
102.23 It was tastefully furnished and spotless[s]ly Removed.
clean.
119.17 the schedule of my work[.] Added.
End of Project Gutenberg's Four Years in the Underbrush, by Anonymous