ates made a legal
requirement, but to name a definite sum per week puts a stated figure
where a movable and changeable condition inheres in the situation.
Experts in labor reform, therefore, urge the passage of legislative
bills providing for "wage commissions to determine living wages for
women and minors," and such have been secured in several states.

The linking of women of all ages with minors may be necessary for
protection of individual women from exploitation, but again, it must
be insisted that such a blanket cover for women workers of all ages
may not be for the ultimate good of the adult, competent yet
struggling women, who are trying to compete with men for a place in
the world of labor. The fact is that we often approach the problems of
work and wages and general labor conditions from the angle of the most
needy, the most exploited, the least trained, and the poorest in
opportunity. This may be the highway of philanthropy and to be
travelled in the interest of social helpfulness, but it is not all the
roads labor reform must use.

=Minimum Wage for Fathers of Families Real Need.=--When we study
questions of labor as related to family well-being we must begin with
an ideal of what the normal family requires of its members, men,
women, and older children, and place in the first position of economic
requirement the family demand upon the husband and father. He must, we
have said, be in position to be a "good provider" for his group. That
means he must be trained to be a worker, faithful, efficient,
intelligent, who does something which society needs to have done and
for which employers can and will pay adequate wages. That means
vocational training, guidance, and opportunity. That means, also, an
economic system not easily convulsed by bad times and ups and downs in
the industrial world. That means, again, ease and cheapness of
transportation in order that families may live in decent homes and yet
the chief wage-earner go back and forth to his work without too great
strain of strength or purse. That means some social control of housing
facilities, food supply, public sanitation, and educational facilities
which will secure the essential of human living to all workers and
their families. To work harder to secure these vital elements of
family well-being is the task of all. If we were as anxious as
citizens to secure opportunity for the men and women who make up the
great army of average workers, self-supporti