that women's clubs
were not the ladylike, innocuous institutions that too-confiding man
supposed them to be. In those clubs, he declared, their own wives and
daughters were listening to addresses by the worst enemies of the
Manufacturers' Association, the labor leaders. By which he meant that
the club women were inviting trade-union men and women to present the
worker's side of industrial subjects. "Soon," exclaimed Mr. Kirby, "we
shall have to fight the women as well as the unions."

The richest and most aristocratic woman's club in the country is the
Colony Club of New York. The Colony Club was organized by a number of
women from the exclusive circles of New York society, after the manner
of men's clubs. The women built a magnificent clubhouse on Madison
Avenue, furnished it with every luxury, including a wonderful
roof-garden. For a time the Colony Club appeared to be nothing more
than a beautiful toy which its members played with. But soon it began to
develop into a sort of a woman's forum, where all sorts of social topics
were discussed. Visiting women of distinction, artists, writers,
lecturers, were entertained there.

Last year the club inaugurated a Wednesday afternoon course in
industrial economics. The women did not invite lecturers from Columbia
University to address them. They asked John Mitchell and many lesser
lights of the labor world. They wanted to learn, at first hand, the
facts concerning conditions of industry. Most of them are stockholders
in mills, factories, mines, or business establishments. Many own real
estate on which factories stand.

"It is not fair," they have openly declared, "that we should enjoy
wealth and luxury at the cost of illness, suffering, and death. We do
not want wealth on such terms."

The Colony Club members, and the women who form the Auxiliary to the
National Civic Federation, have for their object improvement in the
working and living conditions of wage earners in industries and in
governmental institutions. A few conscientious employers have spent a
part of their profits to make their employees comfortable. They have
given them the best sanitary conditions, good air, strong light, and
comfortable seats. They have provided rest rooms, lunch rooms, vacation
houses, and the like.

No one should belittle such efforts on the part of employers. Equally,
no one should regard them as a solution of the industrial problem. Nor
should they be used as a substitute for justice