INDEPEHDEITT
3
MARCH 14.1907..
THE NEBRASKA
THE MANY HOMELESS WOMEN
AVII.L1SG TO WORK BIT Til Kit K IS
0 I'l.AlK FOK THEM.
New York Tribune Farmer: While
the problem of the woman worker who
at middle age finds herself thrust out
of her position to face old age and pov
erty is sufficiently pathetic, what of
the gentlewoman who at thirty-five or
fifty, or perhaps at sixty, through some
whirligig of fate, is thrown on her oVvn
resources. ,
The middle aged, woman who has al
ways supported, herself has an equip
ment of brain on hand, or both, that
may eventually land her in a position,
if not in New York, in some city less
overstocked with labor. But the wo
man who "has never had to work,"
who "has always had her own home,"
who has never learned to do anything
well, yet at middle life walks the
streets of New York vainly "looking
for a job" ah! what of her in this
roaring, swirling maelstrom of a city?
- Hot Even Temporary Shelter.
yHo you realize," said a woman who
administers the charities of one of
New York's millionaires, "that there
is not in all New York a place where a
reduced gentlewoman out of funds can
go not a home or an institution of
any sort that will take her In and tide
her over her crisis till she can get her
feet again? ,
"New York is honeycombed with
charities, millions are given away an
nually in philanthropy, mission work
ers overlap in the houses of the very
pooi-, yet absolutely nothing is being
done for the poor lady between thirty
five and sixty who is obliged to earn
her own bread.
' "Now here," and she ran her eye
down a page of the 'Charities Direct
ory,' "ia a home for 'indigent females'
admission- fee, $200. - How, I ask you,
is a woman who expects to be put out
on the street any day because she
can't meet, her rent to raise $200?
"Here is a home for 'destitute, re
spectable women' admission $100, and
the candidates must be the widows of
missionaries. Hereare church homes
innumerable; but this one only accepts
women of sixty-five or over, that one
charges $5 a week, another has a wait
ing list of three years, another re
"quires $200 admission, $50 for burial ex
penses and $5 for examining physi
cian's fee. -
"And so on and so on." . She closed
the book impatiently. "You'd think a
great ' deal was being done to meet
this class of distress, but it's all on
paper. -, - , --.
"I heard of "a new 'home for women,
to be opened in the fall. 'Now,' I said
to myself, 'we shall have something
that will really touch the problem of
the reduced gentlewoman struggling or
stranded in New York.' ' I wrote,, and
found that from $200 to $500 down
would be required, and applicants must
be sixty or more!
"Of all classes of needy ones in this
big city, reduced gentlewomen are the
most neglected."
True Citaes of Difttrena.
Then she went on to sketch the stor
ies of the poor things who drift to her,
in their distress, seeking a home, a
friend, work, resources, counsel, hope
everything.
"There's the widow of a university
professor she's making neckties in an
East Side factory for $6 a week. She
is fifty-three years old. Her husband
died; her family dropped off one by
one. At first she tried to keep genteel,
playing accompaniments or readiiy? to
invalids. Slowly she sank, sank, till
now she earns her pittance in the buz
and roar of a factory, living on two
mealu a day, her home a hall bedroom,
four flights up in a cheap tenement
house.
"And there's a nice southern woman
of thirty-eight or forty who may be
on the street by now, for when she
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came to see me the last time she owed
a week's rent and had nothing to do.
She writes most unusual verse, has
tried cataloguing, literary work, cleri
cal work, copying, addressing but
everything has proved to be tempo
rary, and she has had one sickness on
top of another, until nowshe has lost
heart and is on the verge of nervous
prostration. This woman can't get up
of a morning before : SO o'clock, yet
she is walking ten miles a day, looking
for positions, waiting an hour here to
see some one, half an hour therft to
present a letter, and so on. I hope I
have, a clerical position for her at a
club, but it will be only temporary. She
had a chance to go to a home in the
country for a month. I can't go, I
can't take a rest,' she cried. . 'I've got
to look for a job.' What will become
of her?
. - Fraulein Drops Out.
"We had a woman of sixty c,ome to
us last spring. She was one . of the
most brilliant conversationalists I ever
met. Her husband had had a good in
come, they had lived much in Europe,
had never put up a cent and well,
when I saw her she was out of clothes
that her hips stood out of her old vel
vet gown, a last remnant of her former
fineiy. "
"Now. any one hearing this would
naturally say: 'Why can't the Charity
Organization society cope with a case
like that? We give the society money
year after year. AVhat is it 'doing for
women like this?' .... .
"The Charity Organization society
could do nothing for her. A few people
got together, .put up some -money and
sent her back to Europe, where she
had. friends to help her. We shipped
her out of the country; it was the only
thing we could do for her. .
"Then there was Fraulein , poor
old Fraulein, in her immaculate white
ties, her old velvet bonnet, speckless
and spotless, her only headgear winter,
and her shabby black. She had come
to America at fifty-five on the death of
the last of her patrons among the ti
tled families of France, where she had
taught her mother tongue. The best
she could do was to get one temporary
position after another, and she sank,
sank, till she was stranded beyond
description. Little, shrinking old gen
tlewoman that she was, she had not
the necessary push to make her way
with private pupils. She was known
at all the settlements, all the relief or
ganizations, and everybody liked and
respected her and everybody helped
her. Kind hearted, charming women
listened to her story and sent her on
from one to the other.
" 'Where is Fraulein now?', you .ask.
I don't . know. She's gone ; nobody
knows where-vanished; dropped out.
That's happened oftener than you
would believe. These poor things will
come' to you every few weeks, some
times for periods of years, then sud
denly they will stop 'coming, and you
never see or hear anything more of
them.
"One more instance to show what a
plucky fight .some of these women put
up. Here is a girl who has always
wanted to be a kindergfirtner.
Wherever she applied they turned her
down because she had had no training.
Now she has just completed a two
years' course at the cost of mes't heroic
sacrifices. While she was getting her
training she lived all alone in a vacant
house in Elizabeth street infested with
rats a horrible experience. She got
it rent free in return for keeping up
the insurance, and there she did her
own cooking and washing, handicapped
all the time by a morphine fiend of a
father.
Living on Raepd EdKe.
"Now, at thirty-five, she has her
professional equfpment, and what is
she doing with it? The best she can
get is a position to substitute in a tru
ant school. Her pay poor and pre
carious, she ekes out with "a cents
worth of sewing a week for a church
charity and $1.50 from a church kinder
garten class. She has a tidy little
home In two rooms in a model tene
ment house, but she finds it impossible
to get any new clothes, and last night
she came to me and cried, and said her
employers were finding fault with her
because she was so shabby.
"The fault of the reduced gentle
woman Is she isn't interesting. If she
were a young working girl, rich,
warmhearted people would fall over
themselves to help and save her: if she
were un 'indigent poor,' relief agencies
wouhl overlap in their efforts to pay
her rent, fed and cloth her and give
her summer holiday to boot. Hut
leople who give always want to give
when they can see results, and thoy
would rather apend 1100 on ten glrN
to bring them out of m oik thing than
put It all or any of it on one faded,
neutral, middle agd woman who
keeps her trial to hro-lf."
TelU Haw C. O. . Warb.
Continuing. the rh.trlty worker
Hooted aboyp, took up the way otus or
two iiKnUutfin ri.imll Ilk
t h-t.
"Tula 1 ul Uie ch.utljr or(iiiaa
tiou society does to a refined woman.
First, she sits among the chronic beg
gars of the city waiting for her case
to be probed. Then, if homeless, she
is sent to one of the society's boarding
houses, where she sleeps and eats
with the foulest sort of women while
being 'investigated.' Investigation
consists in sending some young woman
around to all the addresses the young
woman has given and hearing what
anyone wishes to say about her. Moral
likely, considering her plight, she has
no very near relatives left, so it Is gen
erally some remote relative, who, per
haps, never liked her or her family,
and whose contributions to the 'inves
tigation will be that 'Jane had a nasty
temper when she was a girl,' or that
she always said 'Jane woald go to the
poorhouse if she bought such expen
sive stockings. When it has found out
all that can be said about her it begins
to act, but all the women I ever knew
ran away before the investigation was
finished.
"A refined woman of forty years ap
plied to me who had been locked out M
her room and her trunk put out in the
hall by the janitor because she owed
three weeks' rent. I took her to the
young women's Christian associa
tion. AH it could do for her was to
take her In for the night, give her
three meals the next day, take her
name and try to find her work and
that to a homeless woman who had
been walking the streets three weeks
looking for a job! .
Well Dreaaed, op 3Vu Job.
"It is not so much lack of force that
brings women to this pass as mis
placed energy. They have never been
trained to do anything, and here they
are launched on a sea of specialists.
They cannot ring people's -bells and
tell their story without references;
they cannot get a job even as nurse or
chambermaid. Where are they to get
their references? From their rich
friends at home, who talk over their
downfall at teas and sewing circles?
Who wants to employ an underfed,
out-of-elbows woman of forty-five
yearB who sits around on the benches
of an employment office in a cockled,
faded skirt, a soiled shirtwaist and a
battered hat and tells you she has no
references because she never worked
anywhere before? To get a position it
is absolutely necessary to be .pretty
well dressed. Clothes count for more
in New York than in any city in the
world."
As to the remedy suggested by Mrs.
Gabrielle Stewart Mulliner In The Sun
day Tribune a few weeks ago, that in
domestic service the reduced gentle
woman should find her refuge, the
speaker said: ."It is no use theorizing.
There is a social stigma about domes
tic labor. The woman who earns her
living by cooking can never be re
ceived as a social equal she has os
tracised herself. Is that a solution?
"I want some man to look at things
as they are and realize the fearful ex
tremities these women are in. If some
home could be built where they could
stay for a month when they were out
of work and money which would also
be an employment bureau for a refined
class of- labor it would save a world of
tragedy. If I had the tongue and the
pen I would stop the rich people of
New York from helping the picturesque-
lazzaroni any more or squan
dering their sympathy and their sen
timent on the atractive working girl.
They should not shut their cheap ho
tels to women over thirty-five years
old, as the Trowmart Inn is doing.
The reduced gentlewoman is the de
serving poor."
A PROMISING PRECEDENT.
Suppose", that Great Britain should
Install a navy yard at Toronto or Port
Stanley or Kingston and begin to
build half a dozen Dreadnaughts to
patrol and defend the Canadian lake
front. The least the business inter
ests of Chicago and Cleveland and the
rest of our lake communities could
ask would be seven American Dread
naughts a little bigger and better,
than the tlritlsh six. Canada would,
of course, have to meet the raise and
the United States would have to go
Canada a little better until the great
lakes would be cloudy with warships
as the milky way la cloudy with stars.
As a matter of fact there Is on Lake
Ontario one diminutive warship of
each nation, two tn each other luks
except Lake Cham plain, on which
there Is one. With all other interna
tional waters filling with warships
how does thl hippen? President
I'll lot of Ilarvur.. explained It the
other day In an address at (Ktawa.
After the clo of the lat war
with Great Britain the Uofh-IUgnt
treaty of U17 was drawn In whteh It
was stipulated that thU number of
armed vfswaela should bo the limit, ami
that then Mhoiild not tTCed 100 ton
burden with an eightcxm-pouiwl can
non. No IUcue run f err new was
ndd. Tha terrtfylnjr term "inter
national" or evn "limitation of arma
ment" wu not called into u, but
only modicum of almpia, prortfeni I
Tlx pruiMMUUoA to cwotraiUa
leading ocean rouea, and the sug
gestion that next summer's Hague
conference at least talk about means
of stopping the mad race of battle
ship building seems not necessarily all
mellow moonshine In the light of this
experience.
RESTRICTING THE IIKJI.
Whatever its relation to socialism,
communism is dl&tinctly .n the down
grade If not everywhere, at least In
Nebraska. The . great weVen Ne
braska common on which the herds
of. all comers were supposed to graze
on equal terms wre Foon fenced bv
the best shots nnd the strongest arms.
Ths fasces down, by order of the gov
ernment, a demand arises for a par
tition of the common-inheritance on a
leasing plan, and to save the grazing
value of the land this will in all prob
ability have n time to be provided.
The one vestige of communismjtet re
maining in more closely settled com
munities, namely the free range for
fowls, has always been a hot-bed of
discord, setting . housewife against
housewife, garden against garden, and
henless men against men with hens.
The march of reform has reached this
subject in- numerous radical communi
ties. The city of York, which long ago
eliminated the open season for sa
loons, has at length taken advanced
ground on the chicken question. Here-,
after at all seasons the useful and In
dustrious hen must exert her genius
at doing what we hired Mr, Shonts to
do,- in her - own - back yard. : A 'Strict
inter-garden - commerce law forbids
the -exercise, of her Harrlmanic " in
stincts. We hear as in a dream her
cry that thus hampered In her busi
ness operations eggs must at once ba
scarce. The man next door will not
be moved. He has noticed that how
ever free she has been to excavate
his pea crop the ensuing eggs were
always laid In his neighbor's barn.
TKI.EPHOXINU BY "WIRELESS."
Last Friday evening a group of men
sat in the tower of the Times build
ing on upper Broadway, New York,
and listened to telephone messages
from a room at Thirty-ninth and
Broadway, One of the messages said,
"Soon every up-to-date reporter will
be equipped with a wireless telephone,
which he will ground with his heel In
the mud and through which he will
tell his city editor that the rumor
that Mrs. Blank has abandoned her
poodle dog is false." ' '
This prediction was not altogether
unwarranted, for , the prediction itself
was telephoned without wires' through
a mile or so of agitated New York
atmosphere. When the messages bad
been heard to full satisfaction the
apparatus was changed and the tele
harmonium, which proposes to
put music on tap at the end of a
wire in any house willing to pay for
it, was heard likewise without the in
tervention of wires. Dr. De Forest, the
author of the experiments, predicts
that soon telephone messages can be
sent to persons at sea, out of sight
of land. Imagination strains at these
developments, for who can be certain,
in view of these things so unthinkable
but. yesterday, that these advances are
nof closing the gap between what lias
been called physical and what has
been called metaphysical; that In
time the "apparatus" may not be
necessary or even so much be required
as to "ground with his heel in the
mud.".
If the railroads intend to contest
the new passenger fare law as has
been reported, they will probably
be too cautious in protecting their
own rights to take off trains and in
other ways to discourage travel. A
company that reduces its facilities and
attractiveness to travelers Immediately
after the law is passed will be in a
poor position to show later that the
returns under a 2-cent rate are un
remcmerative. The court may decide
that until a trial is made with the
same facilities as were offered before
the test, the experience cannot be re
garded as conclusive.
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