VOL.. ti
LINCOLN, XE15RASKA, SEPTEMBER 11, 1909
8 PAGES
What the Church Owes
Labor's Great Army
-I understand thai the street rail
way men of Liaeoin work eleven to
thirteen hours a day, seven days a
meek. That Is neither humane. Chris
tian or Americas, and the church peo
ple of this city owe it to themselves
and to the street car mea to help
them get one day off ia seven."
Miss Mary McDowell made this
statement in the cost emphatic man
ner from the pulpit of the First Bap
tist church last Sunday mOrning, and
she repeated it from the pulpit of St
Paul's M. E. church In the evening.
"Until the Christian people of this
city help the trades unions secure a
Saturday half-holiday they have no
right to object to Sunday sports and
amusements."
When Miss McDowell made that
statement shs spoke from the experi
ence of one who has studied the labor
problem from the Inside, and she
I,xkd straight at the great congrega
tion that fronted her in the First Bap
tist church.
Miss McDowell was to have spoken
at the Labor Day celebration In Lin
coln, but the weather man interfered
and tho celebration was called Off. But
the committee in charge of the cele
bration had planned wisely, and Miss
McDowell d.d spealt in Lincoln, and
to the very people that the commit
tee most desired to reach the church
goers, the employers and the profes
sional men. Sunday mornins she
spoke at the First Baptist church, tak
ing tor her subject. "A Human View
of the Law Problem," and for forty
uunu'e she held the close attention
of her hearers with her simple yet
forceful plea for humanity. Miss Mc
Dowell Indulges in no oratorical pro
technics. She clothes her Ideas in
simple language, but what she says
comes direct from a heart that beats
In sympathy with the weak and the
oppressed. She pointed out that the
"a Vr problem meant something more
thaa mere hours and wages. It means
more for the future of the republic
than any other problem. Unless it is
solved rightly it means that America
Is to become brutalized ; that the
American home life is to be lowered;
that our republican institutions are to
disappear before an aristocracy of
wealth and leisure. She declared that
the solution of this problem demanded
more cttention from real womanhood
than did the affairs of the Daughters
of the Revolution or the Colonial
Damea.
In plain and simple language she
detailed the conditions under which
thousands of girls are working and
living. She told of the hopeless strug
gle men and women are making
against conditions not of their own
choosing and she urged Christian men
and women to arouse themselves to
the necessity of assisting In correcting
the evils. The fact that little chil
dren are being robbed of the playtime
of youth and made old before their
time by forced labor in mills and
mines is an indictment of humanity
of the American people. Men who are
touched by the spectacle of individual
suffering are Indifferent to the suffer-
ins caused by a perverted industrial
system. The hitching of steam to
machinery has forced a huge problem
upon the people, and the problem
must be solved or the republic is
doomed. A century ago the weaving
and spinning and sewing was done in
the home; today it is done in the
great factories and women have fol
lowed the work from the home to the
f u tory. Today six million women
and girls are In the Industrial world,
earning their own livre. What this
teans to the home life of the nation
time alone will tell, but Miss McDow
el! believes that tt must mean even
tual good or God would not allow it
to be.
Miss McDowell did not attempt play
upon human sympathy; she content
ed herself with an appeal to justice
and patriotism. She wleaded for jus
lice to the children, for justice to the
young women, for justice to the over
worked and underpaid men. She
asked that they be given such wages
and conditions and hours that they
could make homes for themselves and
their families, educate their children
aad make provision for old age.
After Mis McDowell had concluded
Rev. Mr. Batten gave hearty endorse
ment o what she had said. He went
further in speaking of the railway sit
uation and declared that every de
mand of the men was based on jus
tice and deserved to be granted.
Sunday evening St. Paul's church
was almost filled when Miss McDow
ell was introduced by the pastor. Rev.
Dr. Roach. "The Helpless in Indus
try," was her subject, and she spoke
along similar lines to the address of
the morning, making a plea for organ
ization among workers and demand
ing that the Church of Jesus Christ
awaken to its duty and its opportuni
ty. "It's not easy to interest a starv
ing man in religion, said Miss McDowell.
Although the weather did not per
mit Miss McDowell to deliver her La
bor Day address, the subject of which
was to have bsen "Woman in Indus
try," The W'ageworker is permitted to
give a synopsis of the address she had
prepared. It is as follows.
"The last census tells us that there
are 5.319,397 women in the gainful oc
cupations in the United States. Over
3.000.000 are wage earners working In
factories, shops and mercantile estab
lishments. Between 1S90 and 1900
their number increased more rapidly
than the total number of women or
the total number of men, or the to
tal population gainfully employed.
Forty-nine and three-tenths per cent
were under twenty-five years of age.
Fourteen and one-half per cent were
married. Women are found in every
occupation except the army, navy and
railroading.
'These girls do the weaving, spin
ning, sewing and canning: they make
shoes, exeept the soles; they are in
the Iron mills making screws and bolts
for the railroads, horse shoes and
horse nails, are core girls in the foun
dries, are buffers in the metal works.
they make the machines a dangerous
industry are in twine and wire mills,
wind all our telephone wire and make
age are thrown out into the world of
industry unprotected by the mother
and unsheltered by the home. A revo
lutionary situation what will be the
result to the borne and the future gen
eration? In Chicago the protective
league investigated three department
stores on State street and arrested
eleven men in the act of urging girls
to go with them to questionable
places. The coming of the foreign
girls in groups to such neighborhoods
as the stock yards causes another
problem. The girls often room in
crowded houses with unmarried men.
This summer when trained nurses vis
ited the sick babies back of the stock
yards in a few blocks thirteen illegiti
mate babies were found, born to the
ignorant girls in the yards. And most
of them were supporting the babies as
the man in the case had disappeared.
This is the natural result of an indus
try that needs and bids only for cheap
and unskilled labor that does not
want or need intelligence and feels no
responsiility for its thousands of work
ers. It can only result in a social con
dition that endangers the family and
neighborhood life of a whole communi
ty. Wages Too Low.
"Thousands of girl clerks in the
down town districts elf our great cities
are working for a wage that no self
respecting girl can live on if she
must provide her own board and lodg
ing, her clothes and dress like a lady,
her own recreation and keep it whole
some. The newspapers tell us of two
good ladies who visited girls in a
house of ill repute. They talked to
the girls about their sinful lives and
the girls responded: 'It is too late
now; don't trouble about us, but go
down and raise the wages of the girls
that can't keep decent on what they
get unless they live at home.' No one
has made an investigation to show the
ghastly business.
"In the large department stores in
a great city so little are the the girls
protected that in two weeks fifteen
men were arrested by one protective
electric light and telephone appli-( league officer for insulting girls in
ances. They work m the packing , three department stores.
houses; they make kodak films work
ing in titter darkness, working under
red light for ten hours a day, and they
work in breweries and tanneries.
Girls of sixteen and eighteen years of
"The individual girl in industry is
a temporary worker as well as a sup
plementary wage earner. She ex
pects to marry, bnt she is in the
world laor market to stay when she
is dragging down the standard of
wages and the standard of living be
cause she is unorganized and inex
perienced and undisciplined and will
take any' wages given her.
Girl in Railroad Shops.
"I saw a bright young Hungarian
girl in Cleveland. O., feeding a giant
machine making screws and bolls for
the railroads and she was so graceful
in every movement that the superin
tendent told me she had doubled the
capacity of the machine, and turned
cut twice the product her father did
who ran the machine before she took
it. , I asked about the difference in
wages. "Oh, he said, 'we paid the
father twice what we pay the girl.
During a discussion over the merit
of ' giving cheap lunches to the girls
employed in one factory, one of the
head men explained that it was not
charity, because they paid the girls
so much less than the men who had
to pay full prices for their lunches. A
girl IS years of age who received 7
cents an hour was asked how she
lived on that amount and she respond
ed with eternal feminine resignation,
"Why, I have to. Another girl who re
ceived 75 cents a day in the sausage
room of the packing house, said, It
was pretty good for a girl,' yet that
very girl had taken the place of a
young man who had made $1.75 a day.
"More and not less women will be
self-supporting and whether we like
it or not they are in the industrial
world to stay. It is for those of us
who care for the future generation to
see to it that pur coming mothers are
earning their livlihood under condi
tions that are upbuilding and not de
grading. "We must protect the men's wages
and the American standard of living
by organizing the women so that they
may- be disciplined and not a hysteri
cal element in the industrial struggle.
They must be helpmates in industry,
not competitors. They must have the
ballot for their .education in responsi
bility and because of the power it
gives them .to change their condition.
Fall River Figures.
"William Hard, in his article on
The Woman's Invasion, says that
tvfcoty-one women out of. every hun
dred are working. In twenty years
1,000.000 have been added to the ranks
(Continued on Pag Five.)
Miss McDowell Talked
Frankly to Star Reporter
The unionists of Lincoln and Have-1
lock, and especially those connected
with the Labor Day committee, are un
der obligations to the three daily pa
pers of Lincoln the Star, the Xews
and the Journal for their liberality in
the matter of advertising the star at
traction of the Labor Day celebration,
Miss Mary McDowell of Chicago. All
th-ee of the papers gave all the space
asked, and, indeed, asked for more
than the committee could find time to
prepare.
Sunday mornin's Star contained the
following interesting interview with
Miss McDowell:
"If the employer without sympathy
for the oppressed who work for him,
and without kindness or charity for
the men who have spent the best days
of their life in his service, can be de
picted to a people of the m iddle west
where poverty is almost unknown and
where no problem of the working peo
ple exists, Mis3 Mary McDowell, the
"angel or the stock yards,' and the
head worker of the Chicago settlement
society, can draw the picture.
"Miss McDowell arrived in Lincoln
shortly after noon Saturday. She will
give two lectures in this city Sunday
snd uill speak at the Labor Day meet
ing at Capital Beach Monday. In the
par'or of her hotel Saturday evening
sbe, discussed the conditions of the
working girls in the Chicago packing
house district. She paints a picture
of the treament accorded the girls by
their employers that would put to
shame many of the nasueating scenes
depicted by Upton Sinclair. However,
Miss McDowell is not an admirer of
the author of "The Jungle," and she
alleges that he exaggerated conditions
of the packing house district when he
told some of the tales which she says
were the emanations if a fecund im
agination. -For twenty years Miss McDowell
has worked among the working girls in
the stock yards district of Chicago and
she has an intimate acquaintance with
the majority of the three thousand
girls who work day afer day in the
sausage rooms and in the canning fac-
SOME GENERAL NOTES FROM THE FIELD OF LABOR
Sicilian bakers have organized in New
York City.
. Over a hundred carpenters in Ft. Dodge,
la., formed a union.
Brewers are organizing the weiss beer
men in Milwaukee.
Laundry workers in Jackson, Mich., have
received their charter.
The custom vest makers have organized
a union in New .York City.
The Chicago Tribune declares the new
tariff law is about as popular as the ear-
acne.
"Inside" electrical workers have ef
fected a good organization in Des Moines,
Iowa.
, .Journeyman barbers in St. Paul, Minn.,
have been granted an increase of $2 a week
in wages.
The Cloakmakers' strike in Cleveland
for an increase in wages of 10 per cent is
proving successful.
The Garment "Workers in San Francisco
have decided to affiliate with the National
Women's Trade Union League.
Kansas City, Mo., city council has passed
an ordinance barring out the Barnum &
Bailey circus from that city on Labor
Day.
A settlement has been made between the
Mississippi Valley Telephone company and
the Electrical Workers' Union in Keokuk,
Iowa. '
What the union does: A little eontra
down in Florida Organized machinists
cot $3.50 for eight hours; unorganized get
2.."0 for nine hours.
The straw hat workers have entered into
the industrial "field, and, like all progres
sive unions, have adopted a ttniou label to
designate their product.
All of the tents used by Cole Bros., cir
cus were made by union workmen. Each
tent bears the stamp of A. F. of Lu Tent
Makers' Union. No. 1257 of Chicago.
The Dallas, Texas, strike or lockout in
reality a lockout is settled and settled in
the interest of the union plumbers. It
lasted a little more than a week.
The Hatters' fight is still on- don't be
misled in this matter. To be sure you r
on the right side insist on the Hatters'
label when buying a hat.
The entire force of the Westinghouse
Electric and Manufacturing company in
East Pittsburg, Pa., have been placed on
full time. About 2,000 men are affected.
The journeymen tailors at their conven
tion in Buffalo passed resolutions declaring
for government ownership and democratic
vertising rates. Not a job printer in the
town would print handbills. Not a hall
could be secured. But the Wheeling union
ists went over by the score and adver:;:rd
the meeting by word of mouth. They hired
a vacant lot, and Raymond Robins ad
dressed 3,000 toilers, janorganized and hope-
management of the means of production , less, and left them organized and fullof
and distribution. ! determination to stand up for their rights.
An increase of 50 cents per day was
won by 120 marble workers in Cleveland
through a strike which began July 1
and ended Saturday. Setters will receive
$5 and helpers $2 per day.
" The strike of the carpenters in Fargo,
N. D., has been settled and building opera
tions have been resumed. The contractors
agreed to concede the nine-hour day and
time and a half rates for overtime.
The Barbers' International Union at its
convention in Milwaukee next Oetober,
will discuss the founding of a home for
old and disabled members after printers'
pattern at Colorado Springs.
At St. Paul, Minn., the letter carriers
who will be holding their national conven
tion in that city have been invited to
march and the Labor Day committee hope
to have a detachment of the fire depart
ment in line.
A plan was advocated in the meetings
of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi
neers and Grand International Auxiliary
in Savannah, Ga., to let the annual gather
ings rotate among four Georgia eities At
lanta, Savannah, Augusta and Maeon. This
would bring them together permanently in
Georsria.
The day God made' Raymond Robins He
laid off when He had finished and called
it a good day's work. Would He would get
busy s and make another one for each in
dustrial center in this great republic.
THANK YOU, KIND SIB!
W. M. Maupin, editor and publisher of
the Wageworker of Lincoln, Neb., who" was
recently appointed labor commissioner of
Nebraska, has also been elected president
of the Nebraska State Federation of Labor.
We wish Brother Maupin all kinds of suc
cess and from reading his paper we know
that he is capable of filling any place that
may be imposed upon him, and especially
when it comes to anything connected with
the labor cause. The Times extends a hand
of congratulation to Brother Will, and may
he live to do much good in his new
fields of labor. Council Bluffs Times.
RAYMOND ROBINS BACK EAST.
Raymond Robins has been stirring up the
animals in the east. He is now in the big
industrial storm centers, and he is carry
ing hope and cheer to the toilers. The
union-hating corporation tools have ordered
him out of town, but he laughed in their
face$. They told him he should not make
public speeches, but he made them. Arid
every time he spoke he put another nail
in the coffin of oppression. He arranged to
speak at Appollo, W. Va., and the news
papers refused to announce the meeting,
although offered treble their regular ad-
SOME LABOR DAY MOTTOES.
All laws are subordinate to the Law of
Equivalents.
Nothing short of absolute freedom will
make us eontented.
The workers' motto: "Come up higher."
We are all creators, and mould our own
destiny.
We have a perfect right to change our
minds also our votes.
The master is as mueh. in bondage to
the slave as the slave to the master.
. We respect, only the Laws of God and
those that represent the will of the people.
Laws affect only the weak. The strong
overcome them.
The injunction judge heeds not the in
junction, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
No man ean be absolutely free as long
as there is one in bondage. George Tyler,
Machinists' Union No. 720, Toledo, Ohio.
tones of the great packing booses. A
a strong advocate of unionism Miss
McDowell thinks that the conditio of
the working classes is the packing
plants as we!! a the other large fac
tories, can only be -aUeviated by ta
close organization of the worth? peo
ple. "The average waxes paid to tie girl
m the stock yards, M :
says, is aVrel Z a week. Oat of this
allowance they have to pay for their
board as well as lodging and eiota--Xearly
all of the girls who are ia th
packing houses are foreigners; many of
whom are unable to speak the Engllsa
language, and most of thetn living ia
the tenements without the protectioa
of a home and without the gaiding to
flaence of parents. The most miserable
conditions. Kiss McDowell believes,
are not in the packing plants bat fa
the eating aad sleeping quarters of the
girls. Dozens of them are huddled to
gether night after night In a sisgle
room, she declared, where there is Ift
Ue ventilation and where the air fs
made more acrid by the fool odors of
the near-by fertilizer plants aad glae
factories.
"More thaa one man, said Hjjs Me
Doweil has spenS, twenty or thirty
years is the packing nooses working
for wages that were barely encash to
' keep poverty from snapping at his heels
"only to be refused a Job acd farmed
away from the labor gate when he
had parsed the years of Esefalisess
The places are thea taken by yosrager
men who are better able to do the ar
duous labor. Ia suea cases It has
often been necessary for the wives
and mothers of these men to do menial
labor to furnish bread for toe famSy
There is no pension system, or eves a
system of protection in most of the
houses. One of the packing plant has
a mutual benefit' society, bat tt has
been a current manor that evea that,
instead of being for the benefit of the
men has been made a money producer
lor the oa aers of Uie plaat.
There are no tabor anions ia the
Chicago packing plants. There were
strong trades organizations previous to
1&04, but the defeat of "Mike" Don
ally and his 30.000 worker at that
time was sa thorough that unionists
has not regained Its feet. For years.
Miss McDowell said, attempts have
been made to organize the women, tot
the foreign girls are difficult to coo-
i.-&t, and even if the anions were
fo-Tned "they wonld be Ineffective oe
account of the necessity for the girl
working whether or not they might
desire. The American girls, she says,
do not work in the plants, bat may be
found in the uptown offices or ia the
factories where more money 1 paid.
In many factories the American bora
women hare formed strong union
which have been a means of getting
higher wages and better working con
ditions, and Miss McDowell believes
that the same condition will exist ia
the packing house district as soon as
the foreign girls can be made to under
stand what they would gala by union
ism. "A. great deal of good has been done
in Chicago by the American Associa
tion of Labor Legislation. Miss Mc
Dowell said, in discussing the working
hours of men in the packing plants.
This organization has succeeded ia
securing a ten hour working dy for
womea and it attempting to get the
limit reuueed to eight hours. This or
ganization was formed ia 19X to '
serve as the American section of the
International Association for Labor
legislation. The International Associa
tion was established at the Paris ex- -position
ia 1&00, and the permanent
bureau was opened ia Basel, Switzer
land, in 1901. This bureau, which t
strictly scientific ia character, has a
its special function the examination of
labor measures and the investigatios
of actual conditions underlying labor
legislation. It is semi-private ia char
acter inasmuch as it is a voluntary or
ganization composed of experts aa4
officials as well as pubHe-spirfted cit
zens. It is, however, quasi-official as
it receives subventions freaa sut
civilized governments, ineiodiag ooe
from our own federal guaawat
Strictly non-partisan ia character, as
well is scientific, it aids governments
by its iavestigafioes conducted ty
men trained la econoaies. It has di
rected special atentioa to iadasirsa"
, poisons, night work of van aa4
yodng persons, aad uniformity of Tta-(Continue-!
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