we have never obtained a situation that we could
not have obtained if we had never heard of a union. We refuse to take
the men's situations when they are on strike, and when there is no
strike, if we ask for work in union offices we are told by union
foremen 'that there are no conveniences for us.' We are ostracized
in many offices because we are members of the union; and though the
principle is right, the disadvantages are so many that we cannot
much longer hold together.... No. 1 is indebted to No. 6 for great
assistance, but as long as we are refused work because of sex we
are at the mercy of our employers, and I can see no way out of our
difficulties."
In 1878 the International enacted a law that no further charter be
granted to women's unions, although it was not supposed to take effect
against any already in existence. Women's Typographical No. 1, already
on the downward grade, on this dissolved. But not till 1883 did the
women printers in New York begin to join the men's union, and there
have been a few women members in it ever since. But how few in
proportion may be judged from the figures on September 30, 1911. Total
membership 6,969, of whom 192 were women. I believe this to be typical
of the position of the woman compositor in other cities.]
I have given large space to this incident, because it is the only one
of the kind I have come across in Miss Anthony's long career. Page
after page of the _Revolution_ is full of long reports of workingmen's
conventions which she or Mrs. Stanton attended.[A] At these they were
either received as delegates or heard as speakers, advocating the
cause of labor and showing how closely the success of that cause was
bound up with juster treatment towards the working-woman. Many indeed
must have been the labor men, who gained a broader outlook upon their
own problems and difficulties through listening to such unwearied
champions of their all but voiceless sex.
[Footnote A: Mrs. Stanton's first speech before the New York
legislature, made in 1854, was a demand that married working-women
should have the right to collect their own wages. She and the workers
with her succeeded in having the law amended. Up till then a married
woman might wash all day at the washtub, and at night the law required
that her employer should, upon demand, hand over her hard-earned money
to her husband, however dissolute he might be.]
To the more conservative among the workingmen the uncompromisin
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