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Show 263 264 have found in the very last few years immigrant girls coming in almost in gangs, coming witltout the mother, coming without the father, coming generally to some woman or some man whom they had known in the little province or the little town they came from, coming to our neighborhood; one girl eighteen or twenty, unprotected, coming to work in the stock yards; because they are unskilled, they cannot speak any English and it does not make any difference, they can easily take hold of a knife and cut icecold meat from ice~eold fat, and that is all the skill they have Ai‘ikdil ,muwv mum to have; and so they have come. in here. I asked a Lithuanian gentleman who was very intelligent why so many of these I ithuanian girls came. He said, quite seriously, not joking as Aiittricans are apt to joke about girls getting marriedfhe said: "It is a serious question in Lithuania. All the able-bodied mar- riageable young men are coming over here to escape the army. Because they have a horror of beingr drafted into the army, they are coining over here. Naturally the girls. who must have hus: bands. are coming after them, and settling in our district.' Every Saturday night and Sunday night there are many weddings heeatz~e of this. That affects them very much. it also affects the industrial conditions of our own American working girl. it is pushing her. it is pushing the workiugman, who has done this work before in certain departments. because an immigrant girl will work for any \'.2‘§;t‘>. so she is taking a man's place. You see today there is no such thing as a state livingr to itself, or a nation living to itself. \Ve are commercially and indus- trially intttnational, and there are no state. lines in industry at all. There cannot be any state lines in labor. in that respect I flail to give one hopeful touch. I represent the \Yonien‘s I'nion league. We, stand for the protection of the \t‘orlcingnoman and \\e stand for those who believe in the workinewomen looking after their own interests. We stand with tln H] as alliws with them. Mrs. lleurotin. Miss Addams. Mrs. Robbins and manv otlien of our Chic go women stand with these girls in the effort to look :iiti r their onn interests. because we believe women must loiil‘. afttr tlumselyvs and not be always 'ti ' 0' to lwrtk after them. (Applause) r ",1 tmh for some man In the industrial \voi'ld a girl cannot afford to wait for some- body to look after her. She must look after herself, and it is a tremendous problem-she is a tremendous problem. She never had the franchise, she is unorganized generally until she is skilled enough or gets wages enough to have a little leisure to think a little bit, and then she begins to see what her interest is. 50 we stand for the organization of women into trades unions to work with men and look after their own interests, and we stand for the investigation of conditions and for legislation to amelio- rate those conditions. All of this seems to me to have a very distinct relation to peace, this making the workingwomen who organize stand together to make contracts, and I wish we had the boot and shoe working young lady here today to tell you how they make their contracts which result in peace; and they keep their contract too. And I wish we had the glove worker girl here too to tell how that union makes its contract, and they have no war on because they do it. I could go on and tell you many others. Then we come to legislation. The young women themselves are working for legislation. They are working for it in this state and trying to limit the hours, which have no limit now. A young girl can be made to work all day and all night if she wants to. We call that freedom of contract, and there is no such thing as a contract in the work of a young girl or young woman. Now. a helpful touch is this. Labor's llague tribunal is in Switzerland, and in Switzerland there is this office called the of Bureau of International Labor Legislation, because the people would the different countries, especially in Europe. believe that it work be more fair and more just for all the countries together to that there is no for certain labor leg'slation, because they see in such thing as a line in industry. and so it has come to pass that including the 1906, September 26, fourteen European countries, Spain. German Empire, Austria, Hungary, lelgium, Denmark, Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxemburrr. the prohibitPortugal, Sweden and Switzerland, have signed a treaty ing night work for women. Think of it! The plenipotentiary night representatives from these governments signed prohibiting to the work for women because they said it was so detrimental the work of health of women that there must be some limit to women. (Applause) |