Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1888 — THE WORKING WOMEN. [ARTICLE]

THE WORKING WOMEN.

They Are More Contented Than the Idle Daughters of the Rich. - - , ~ Ban Francisco Call. Hu rely no able-bodied, self-respecting woman has any complaint to make ol the fact that in the past fifty years there has been secured to her the right to earn her living. This is rather an occasion for rejoicing. In this age, when the public press is devoting so much attention to opening fields of labor for women, when from pulpit and rostrum and wort shop and school room are coming words of help and encouragement, it is curious to hear one voice raised in lamentation over the fact that all this means the setting of women to work, as if they had not always been working—slaving, in sact —in unrecognised corners and against fearful odds, as though the socalled course of labor had not, for women as well as meo, concealed the "fairest boon God’s love could send;’’ as though there were any reason In fact for "such a statement as the one that women who are out in the world at work are growing hard and bitter and losing their womanly delicacy, etc The writer’s experience with several organizations of workingwomen has been that among no class of women are there so bitter or discontented ones. Nothing so broadens one’s life and mind and character as hearty, wholesome work. It is the greatest of follies to spend so much time in commiserating the bard lot of the working girl in having to work. Many an idle, novel reading, discontented daughter of wealth is more to be pitied. Pity the conditions under which women have to work, inadequate wages, the unreasonable demands, the cruel oppression and the many disadvantages which the agitations of Btrongmin ed women have not yet been sufficient to remove, but offer your sympathy to a bright, wide awake American business girl, because she has to work, and note her astonishment at your views.

And who with the scorn of examples upon every side of noble women, supporting themselves and others', going to and from their business daily, and maintaining in every relation of life a dignity and delicacy of womanly character that commands the respect of all, dares maintain that oar business women are losing their delicacy and refinement? Nor do men lose their chivalry. It is the testimony of all who have tried the experiment, that the best way to elevate the tone of a business establishment in which there are many employes, is to employ self respecting women and let them work side by Bide with the men. ' An Eastern manager of a mercantile business which boasts an office in every large city in the the Union, desirous of introdneing a bettor tone of morality and deportment among the employes of his office tried the experiment of employing women in several of the departments. The experiment was a decided success, and to-day that office, for thorough business ability and t quipment, and for the moral and social character of its employes, is a model among the offices of that concern, and its example is widely copied. Men do not respect women less for being independent and self helpful, and the chivalry that only regards protected womanhood as worthy of consideration is a poor Bort of article that the world is jost as well oft without.