The learned judges, I say this with all due respect, do not know
anything about working women. Their own words prove it. The texts of
their decisions, denying the constitutionality of protective measures,
are amazing in the ignorance they display,--ignorance of industrial
conditions surrounding women; ignorance of the physical effects of
certain kinds of labor on young girls; ignorance of the effect of
women's arduous toil on the birth rate; ignorance of moral conditions in
trades which involve night work; ignorance of the injury to the home
resulting from the sweated labor of tenement women. In brief, the
learned judges, when they write opinions involving the health, the
happiness, the very lives of women workers, might be writing about the
inhabitants of another planet, so little knowledge do they display of
the real facts.

We have seen how the women of the Consumers' League taught the United
States Supreme Court something about working women; showed them a few of
the calamities resulting from the unrestricted labor of women and
immature girls. The Supreme Court's decision forever abolished the old
fallacy that the American Constitution _forbids_ protective legislation
for women workers. It remains for women's organizations in the various
States to educate local courts up to the knowledge that community
interest _demands_ protective legislation.

Following the decision of the Supreme Court in the Oregon case, which
flatly contradicted the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court, the
working women of Illinois began their educational campaign. They had
now, for the first time, a fighting chance to secure the restoration of
their shortened work day. The women of fifteen organized trades in the
city of Chicago determined to take that chance.

The women first appealed to the Industrial Commission, appointed early
in 1908 by Governor Dineen, to investigate the need of protective
legislation for workers, men and women alike.

The women were given a courteous hearing, but were told frankly that
limited hours of work for women was not one of protective measures to be
recommended by the Commission.

The Waitresses' Union, Local No. 484, of Chicago, entered the lists, led
by a remarkable young woman, Elizabeth Maloney, financial secretary of
the union. Miss Maloney and her associates drafted and introduced into
the Illinois Legislature a bill providing an eight-hour working day for
every woman in the State, working in shop,