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Newspaper Page Text
CURRAN COMMISSION FINDS ONE MATERNITY HOME WHERE LOVE REALLY RULES THE DAY BOOK N. 13. Cochran, Editor dnd Publisher. 398 500 South Peoria St TeL Monroe 353. VOL. 2, NO, 183 Chicago, Friday, May 2, 1913 ONE CENT O'HARA COMMISSION SHOULD PROTECT GIRLS FROM STORE OWNERS' ASSOCIATION Girls Who Attend Union Meetings Persecuted and Blacklisted A Few of the Carious Traits Displayed by the Management of Siegel, Cooper '& Co, The first duty- of the O'Hara low wages commission in Chicago now is to protect ihe.department store-girls whor are s struggling 'to better them selves. The millionaire department store owners of Stale street have started a regular system of persecution to prevent the organization of their em ployers, , They have instituted a system of spies,, who watch an the girl 'em ployes, who report on what girls at tend union "meetings, and,. who go with, these girls to union meetings in order to draw them oni,:. If a girl expresses herself to a hired spy as being itrtavor of organization she is promptly warned that she had better quit attending union meetings. If she does not take the warning she is fired on some excuse neyer openly because she attended a union meeting. If, after being fired from one (store for attending a union meeting, she tries to get work in, another store, she finds that there is a blacklist in operation and that 'she cannot get work. These are things that are, easily proven. It is the duty of, "the O'Hara commission to prove them openly1, so all the people may know their truth. The millionaire store owners, un der oath, each and all swore that they would not object to their employes organizing. - They should be called before the O'Hara commission again and asked why they perjured themselves and why they are jiounding girls who dare attend a meeting of their fellow workers. The department store owners al ways were afraid of organization. They were more 'afraid of organiza tion than they ever were of legisla tion. They are doubly afraid now, for their eyes are on Buffalo, and thet see how powerful a united strike of department store clerks can be. Every one In Chicago knows what a philanthropic store Siegel, Coope. & Co. runs. "Siegel, Cooper & Co. used to give the buying public what they wen; pleased to term "profit-sharing cou pons." "Vtfhen the O'Hara commission be- -. u ., .- .-jtj. ,