of all
workingmen_, and while the women were refused organization forty years
ago, the Federation of Labor is to-day paying trades-union organizers to
induce women to become members of trades-unions. The introduction of a
low rate of wages in one branch of a trade (pursued by both men _and_
women) is always a menace to the branches that survive the reduction. The
number of women engaged in the industries in 1900 was 1,315,890. The
number of married women engaged in industrial pursuits is small; in 1895,
an official investigation showed that in 1067 factories 7,000 workingwomen
out of 71,000 were married. The chief industries in which women are
employed are the textile industry (cotton), laundering, the manufacture of
ready-made clothing, corsets, carpets, millinery, and fancy-goods. Women
work alongside the men in wool-spinning, in bookbinding, and in the
manufacture of shoes, mittens, tobacco, and confectionery.

The inability of workingwomen to exercise political rights makes minors of
them when compared with workingmen, and this decreases their importance as
human beings. Women cannot protect themselves against injustice, and these
things put them at a great disadvantage.

The American women became involved in a lively conflict with President
Roosevelt (otherwise favoring woman's rights) concerning his gift to a
father and mother for bringing twenty children into the world. The women
declared in the _Woman's Journal_ that it is wrong to encourage an
immoderate procreation of children among a population 70 per cent of
which possesses no property.[23] Above all, this encouragement is not only
a menace to the overworked and oppressed workingwomen, but it is inhuman,
and really lowers woman to the position of a machine for bearing children.

The institution of factory inspection does not as yet exist in the whole
Union. According to the report of Mrs. v. Vorst[24] the factories and the
homes of laborers in the Southern States are extremely unsatisfactory.
Child labor is exploited there, a matter which is now being dealt with by
the National Child Labor Committee. According to this same work (the
inquiry of Mrs. v. Vorst) the living conditions in the North and Central
States are better, and the moral menaces to the young girl are
inconsiderable. The women of the property-holding classes are attempting
to do their duty toward the women of the factories and stores by founding
clubs, vacation colonies, and homes for them. W