Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1770-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities external link and the Library of Congress. Learn more
Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL
Newspaper Page Text
1 ganize a chance to be able to say to the big employers of Chicago: "We are one; you cannot treat one of .us badly -without treating all of us badly; you cannot starve one girl "without ""every other girl working for you or your brother millionaires re senting it; you cannot dig a grave be fore the feet of one child among us without all of us fighting you for it "Working women have a right to - life, have a right to sunshine, have a right to a little play as well as to a lot of work. And we're ready to go as far as possible to get these rights," said Mary McDowell, the woman who has become known as "The Mother of the Stockyards:" . "If a girl could live on $8 a week, as some of these millionaires say," said Mrs. John T. Bowen, "it would leave nothing for emergency, nothing for amusement, nothing for right liv ing. We must, demand more, andf we must make pur demand so strong we'll get more." , "I don't believe in people getting together and pitying themselves," said Mary McDowell. "We're not go ing to do that. We're going to get to work." "Organization is the only hope of the women," said Elizabeth Maloney, the fighting little waitress who did more than any other one person to force a 'sluggish, employer-cowed legislature to pass the ten-hour law, "If there were a few more strikes on State street, the girls of the department stores would get more decent treatment You girls have a right to live and to enjoy life. You've got to fight for that right . . I think you're ready to do it " "I found that the girls of the .de partment stores looked on the work of the O'Hara commission as a God send," said Mary O'Reilly. "They're all ready now to fight for the right to help themselves upward. . . , ." And all through the'meeting, the women, the young girls with the fresh complexions, and the old wom ien"with weary, bowed backs, cheered. And at the end they stood up and sang "My Country, 'Tis of Thee,": with' a new spirit, a new hope and a new meaning. It's a-pity that none of the big'mil lionaires, who leaned, back fatly in their chairs before the O'Hara com mission and talked about how easy it would be for a girl to live on $4 or $5 a week, who smugly declared that any really good girl would starve to death, before she'd ever go wrong, who, by the way they talked of their women employes, eternally-disgraced their own sex, were not at" that meet ing. . . . i Their eyes might, have been open ed. -They might have awakened to the fact that these women employes of theirs of whom they talked in terms of dollars and cents, actually were human beings, made of jlesh and blood, just like themselves if some of these millionaires really are flesh and blood. . ; . . And they might have come to real ize that the time is really past when any employer, no matter how many millions he has, can treat any em ploye in terms of dollars and cents. . It's a pity, too, that the members of he O'Hara commission weren't at that meeting. For if the day should come when the courage of any mem ber of that commission should begin to fade, It would have been renewed by the memory of these women of last night, the women with the new hope and the new courage in their tired faces. CHIVALRY 1915 To the Editor: I have a kick "to make, and I ask for goodness sake, that you take and air this outrage in your book. I. got in a crowded car, and it gave me such a jar, when I found two women seated, in a nook., In front of them I stood, as any sane man would, but neither one of them rose, to her feet Where is chivalry, I say, whether has it flown away, when a lady will not give, a man her seat? A Mere Man. u