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MRS. HENRY PRESTON WHITE

Sara C. White, wife of Henry Preston White; educated in the Emma Willard School of Troy, New York; a member of the Auxiliary Board of Directors of the Brookline Day Nursery; member of the Committee on Ventilation of Public Conveyances (Woman's Municipal League); With Miss Mabel Stedman of Brookline, Mrs. White started the model moving-picture show in connection with the Brookline Friendly Society. She is a well-known speaker for the anti-suffrage cause.

J. A. H.

The argument that the woman in industry needs the ballot in order to obtain fair wages and fair working conditions has undoubtedly made many converts to the cause of woman suffrage. The sympathies of the average man, who is ever solicitous for the welfare of women, go out especially to the woman who must compete with men in the work-a-day world. And so, when he is told that there are 8,000,000 such women in this country, and that their lot would be much easier if they could vote, he is apt to think it worth a trial anyway and to give his support, without further consideration, to the "votes for women" movement.

Now, if it were true that there are 8,000,000 women in industry, and that these must have the ballot in order to get fair treatment, it would be a strong argument for woman suffrage—though by no means a conclusive argument, since the fundamental question is the greatest good of the greatest number, and not the greatest good of any class. But it is not true that there are 8,000,000 women in industry, and a single sensible reason has yet to be advanced for the contention that women in industry, even if they numbered 8,000,000, could better their condition by undertaking political methods.

There are in the United States, according to the last census, 8,075,772 females 10 years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations. Of these, over 3,600,000 are employed in domestic and personal service, where wage and working conditions are determined chiefly by women, and in "agricultural pursuits," a classification including every female who sells eggs or butter on the home farm. Approximately 4,000,000 of the remaining gainfully occupied females work in store, factory, and shop, and of these nearly 1,500,000 are under twenty-one.

Thus, instead of 8,000,000 women in industry who are alleged to "need the ballot," we have only about 2,500,000 women of voting age employed in industries that can reasonably be said to come within the category of those properly subject to remedial labor legislation; and of these women a very large percentage are aliens and would not be entitled to use the ballot if woman suffrage were granted. By itself, of course, this fact does not dispose of the argument that the industrial woman needs the ballot, but it does reveal how comparatively few are the women who could possibly try to improve their working conditions by means of the vote, and how hopelessly outnumbered they would be if reduced to the necessity of fighting for their rights at the ballot box.

The premise of the suffrage argument that the woman in industry needs the ballot in order to get fair treatment is the assumption that she now fails to get as fair treatment as is given the industrial man, and that this is due to the fact that she has no vote. This arbitrary assumption is without justification either in fact or reason. Every law placed upon the statute-books of any state for the benefit of the working man is a blanket law and covers men and women engaged in the same industry. All the benefits that have accrued to the working man through legislation are enjoyed equally by his sister in industry. In addition she has the advantage of special protective laws which have been enacted simply because she is a woman—because she is weaker physically than man and because she is a potential mother and must be protected in the interest of the race.

I am not arguing, of course, that the working woman has all the protection she needs, but I am arguing that she is not unfairly treated as compared with her industrial brother, who has the ballot, and that whatever hardships she may now suffer are as likely to be removed without woman suffrage as they are with it. If she is being unfairly treated, I think it will be found that she is so treated in common with all industrial workers—simply because she is a worker and not at all because she is a woman.

And in taking this ground I am by no means forced to depend upon theory; for, after all, the best answer to the dogma that the woman in industry needs the ballot in order to obtain fair wages and fair working conditions is the fact that in states where women have voted anywhere from 4 to 46 years the laws for the working woman are no better than they are in male suffrage states. Indeed, it is pretty generally agreed that the states which have been first and most progressive in enacting laws for the benefit of women and children in industry are states that have refused to give women the vote.

It is quite true, as the suffragists so constantly tell us, that the only states having eight-hour laws for women in industry are woman suffrage states. But it is true, too, that the eight-hour laws of California, Oregon, and Washington, of which so much is heard, are not to be taken at their face value, since they do not cover the canning industry, which is the chief industry in all those states. It is true, also, that what is considered by experts the most advanced step in protective legislation for women in industry, the prohibition of night work, has been taken only in male suffrage states. In Massachusetts and Nebraska the laws provide for a 54-hour week for women in industry, provide for one day's rest in seven, and prohibit night work. Will any one deny that these laws are infinitely better for women in industry than the boasted eight-hour law of Colorado, under which it is permissible for a woman to work nights and Sundays and 56 hours a week?

Now as to the question of "fair wages." The suffragists tell us that women in industry are entitled to equal pay with men, and that this will follow upon the heels of woman suffrage. Here again we have experience to guide us, and we find upon investigation that in no state has the ratio between men's and women's wages been affected by doubling the electorate. Dr. Helen Sumner, who made a thorough investigation of this point, says in her book entitled Equal Suffrage: "Taking the public employment as a whole, women in Colorado receive considerably less remuneration than men. It is the old story of supply and demand in the commercial world, and suffrage has probably nothing to do with the wages of either men or women. The wages of men and women in all fields of industry are governed by economic conditions."

By tables carefully compiled, Dr. Sumner shows that in Colorado, women in private employment receive an average of only 47 per cent of the average of men's wages, while in the United States as a whole the average for women is 55.3 per cent of the average for men, and in Massachusetts, where woman suffrage was recently defeated by nearly two to one in the largest vote in the state's history, women receive 62 cents for every 100 cents paid to men in wages.

No one can deny, of course, that the wages of women in industry average considerably lower than those of men. But the reasons for this are found entirely outside of politics. The average girl is a transient in industry, going into it as a temporary expedient to tide her over until she attains her natural desire, which is to marry, settle down, and raise a family. She is, therefore, not so good an investment for her employer as the boy who works beside her, who has gone into the business with the idea of making it his life work, and who has a stronger incentive to make himself more valuable.

It must be remembered that employers of labor do not pay for men and women, but for results. Samuel Gompers, an ardent suffragist, says women get less because they ask for less. That is true in part. Women do ask for less. One reason for this is that they look upon the job as something temporary. Another reason is, very frequently, that they are not entirely dependent on their own earnings, but are partly supported in their parents' home. But in the majority of cases, the industrial woman gets less than the industrial man because she is worth less, being not only less experienced, but physically unable to compete with him on a basis of absolute equality.

If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of woman suffrage is in its operation; and, when we find that it has failed to fulfill its promises where longest tried, it is hard to listen patiently to pleas for its further extension. The vote has never raised the wages or shortened the hours of men. It has never done it and can never do it for women. The industrial woman can gain nothing by it. She will lose much, as will other women.