The day book. [volume], March 04, 1914, NOON EDITION, Image 2

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
sion.. Mrs. Edson believes that the
government's commission is Slowly
but surely bringing about a changed
attitude -between the employer and
the employed, and' when the mini
mum wage between the next year and
a half or two years has been, fixed, the
measure will have no such opposition
to overcome as had the eight-hour
iaw. r
"My answer to the direct actionists
is simply the way this law is work
ing out," declared Mrs. .Edson. "A
' Mrs. Katherine .Philip Edson.
change has come over every employ
er since, the law was passed. I know
because I have watched it.
- "I have come to see that the em--ployer
is not a conscious enemy of
society; that js where the direct ac
tionists make their mistake; he sim
ply has the old, "out-of-date individ
ualistic point of view. These men do
hot consciously want the girls who
work for them to be underfed, under
clothed; they do not want them to
live under miserable conditions.
"They say to me: 'What can do
in the face .of interstate competition?'
I have worked out what many of
them can do. I think we have the
employing class very largely with us.
"The work of our investigators
covers workers in all of the retail
trades, the candy manufacturers and .
the laundries. We are also going into
the cannery situation in this state,
with an attempt to standardize wages
and fix payment for overtime. The
canneries are a tremendous problem.
"In the rural communities the can
neries, the whole fruit, vegetable and
hop industry is a menace. Wheatland
demonstrated that. Wheatland has
forced on us a lesson which the com- .
munity should have learned in a less
terrible way. I never go into a rural
town to speak that I do not say to the .
women: 'This problem can be solved
by you; it is really up to you. "You
have no tenement, no factory, in
short, no industrial problem as the
cities have; but you have this problem
that is akin. Women everywhere can
change the conditions under which
migratory labor toils."
o o
ONE OF COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN
TAKEN FOR ABANDONMENT
It has been said by its promoters
that the Committee of Fifteen was
organized to fulfill a Godly rnission,
that of purifying Chicago.
And it's quite possible that men
should sacrifice everything to follow
on when they hear "the call of the
committee. And in the case of one
member of the committee it is evi
dently so.
From the detective bureau yester
day the hews leaked out that Charles
Bates, the secretary of the commit
tee, had been taken into custody and
sent back to St Louis, Mich.
There he must face a charge. of
abandoning his wife and two ' little .
tots.
It is charged that he left one child
suffering from infantile paralysis
when he deserted the quiet little town
to take up the "Godly" work of clean
ing Chicago's morals.