You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Tuesday February 16, 1915
Chicago, Illinois - Mother Jones Leaves Chicago, Heads Back to Colorado
The Chicago
Day Book today reports that Mother Jones is heading back to "her children" in Colorado. Before leaving Chicago, she spoke out regarding the appalling conditions under which women and girls work in this city. "We are a lot of moral cowards," she declared, "or we wouldn't stand for such oppression.
From today's Day Book:
MOTHER JONES ON WAY BACK TO COLORADO CHILDREN
Big-hearted old Mother Jones, on the way back to "her children" in the Colorado mines, left Chicago last might. She left her regards to Chicago friends in these words:
You must have faced the guns of the soldiers, the fire and the prisons in Colorado, to understand the philosophy of capitalism.
We are a lot of moral cowards or we wouldn't stand for such oppression. Over 25 years ago I preached to the people to watch their congressmen.
They work for a man, elect him, send him away and then never stop to see whether he is voting in their interest or that of big business.
Right now in Chicago they are hollering "Hurrah for Harrison! Hurrah for Olson!" and it doesn't make any difference which of the "regulars" gets in. He is not there in the interests of the people.
Then we have our social workers with their noses in the air. They claim to be bettering conditions.
Meanwhile, we have thousands of overworked telephone girls that will be physical wrecks in a few years working over their switch boards. What are they doing for them?
In Marshall field's sub-basements we have girls going blind because they work all day down there with no daylight and when they come out it is night. They see the sun only on holidays or when they are too ill to work.
As long as the "society" women of the city patronize Marshall Field's store and stand for the conditions the girls will get no better. These same social workers and settlement workers that "toil so hard" helping foreigners go down into the basement below the earth and buy from the girls without sunlight.
It will be hard to fight against these conditions because the police force and other city departments take their orders from the mayor and he in turn gets them from the Marshall Field estate and State street.
We can't blame the Field or the Rockefellers for grabbing all they can get when the people are too indifferent to care.
Citizens of Chicago Find Their Moral Courage
We find this encouraging news on the front page of today's edition of The Day Book that Chicagoans are exercising their moral courage to demand that the sub-basement salesrooms in the city's fashionable department stores be shut down. These sub-basements are unhealthy places to work, especially for the long hours spent away from sunlight and fresh air. The Women's Trade Union League, along with various settlement houses and women's clubs have joined the city against the efforts of Mandel Brothers and others to keep these dudgeon-like salesrooms operating.
CITY TO DRAG MANDEL BROS. BEFORE
COURT BY MEANS OF LAW SUITS
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Suits to Be Based on Ordinance Against Sub-Basements-
Women's Organizations Line Up to Fight Mandel Bros.-
Health Commissioner Young Gives His Views
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The city of Chicago is preparing to sue Mandel Bros. for about $2,500 for each day they have kept their sub-basement open since last September, when the supreme court upheld the ordinance prohibiting the use of sub-basements as salesrooms.
The corporation counsel has not yet decided when these suits will be filed, but it will probably be in the near future.
In the meantime, Mandel Bros. are working desperately to put over and ordinance that will give the department stores the right to open up the second basements as salesrooms.
But the women of Chicago who are working to defeat their plans are confident of success. Two new organizations entered the fight against the influence of the State street stores. They are the Women's Trade Union league and the Woman's City club. Mrs. Robert Palmer has been named by the latter club to appear before the city council to fight the proposed ordinance.
Sanitary Inspector Ball, who will appear at the Harris school tomorrow night to make a speech on "ventilation," is expected to express the opinion that real ventilation in sub-basements is impossible. He knows from test made in the sub-basement of Siegel-Cooper's New York store. Ball says that when the original ordinance was before the council that a representative of Marshall Field & Co. said that if the plan went through Field's would open a sub-basement.
Tomorrow morning the building committee of the city council will meet in the city hall to discuss the present pending ordinance against sub-basements, according to Ald. Geo. Pretzel's plans.
Mandel Bros. have requested the committee to approve the ordinance that it might go to the council to be passed upon.
Health Commissioner Young and a delegation of clubwomen headed by Esther Falkenstein will also be present. They are supporting the ordinance in its present form and are opposing the amendment suggested by Mandel Bros. that sub-basements already constructed at great expense be allowed to remain running.
[Said Dr. Young to a Day Book reporter:]
At the time this basement was constructed two years ago there was an ordinance in effect which prohibited its use as a salesroom...In the face of this the store went right ahead and opened it to the public. We filed suit and lost in the lower courts. The supreme court, however, reversed the decision last September. The corporation counsel's office is now preparing suits against the store for every day it has been opened since this decision.
Mandel Bros. knew that they were disobeying the law when they built this sub-basement. Mayor Busse told them to go ahead and that if the present laws did not suit them he would get some that would.
There are two other reasons why this department is against sub-basements. The first is that sub-basements are undesirable places for men and women to work in. The second is the probability of increasing the congestion of the loop. There is a law limiting the height of buildings and, to my mind, it is more objectionable to build deeper under the ground than to build higher into the air.
Commissioner Young also strongly condemned the "washed, dried and manicured" air which is being supplied to the basement by a ventilation system-installed at an enormous expense, according to Mandel Bros.
[Said Dr. Young:]
Why, when the council sub-committee visited the basement a few days ago this wonderfully complex ventilating system was not even running...This shows a lack of efficient supervision. If a salesgirl had stopped work for 30 minutes every body would know about it, but let the ventilating system stop sending this washed, dried and manicured air into that hot, stuffy room for an afternoon and nobody notices it.
Following is a list of the women's organizations who have entered the fight against the sub-basement ordinance:
Altrui Jefferson Park Woman's club, Desplaines Woman's club, Esther Falkenstein Settlement Woman's club, Edison Park Settlement, Humbolt Woman's club, Irving Park Woman's club, Irving Park Sorosis, Irving Park Woman's Loan and Aid society, Mayfair Woman's club, Mt. Clare Musical and Literary society, Mothers' Friendly group, Norwood Park Woman's club, Oakley Woman's club, Open Door Club of Bowmanville, Rhoda Woman's Club of Emerson house, Wicker Park Woman's club, Arlington Heights club, and Park Ridge Woman's club.
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SOURCE
The Day Book
(Chicago, Illinois)
-Feb 16, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Mother Jones on Train, 1914
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Seal of the National Women's Trade Union League
http://www.nwhm.org/...
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Bread and Roses - Kombinat
As we come marching, marching, un-numbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread,
Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew
Yes, it is bread we. fight for, but we fight for roses, too.
-James Oppenheim
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