The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 29, 1919, Page 7

~e -l “tionary senate, still dominat- .for two years more, held ‘women workers. What One State Has Done for Women How the Women of North Dakota Regard the Nonpartisan League Laws, as Told by One of Them The author of this article, Miss Aldyth Ward, was born in_North Dakota, graduated from the state agricultural college, homeaeeaded. operated her own farm and was one of the first women to join the Nonpartisan league in her own right. She has also taught school and is active in welfare and educational work. E BY ALDYTH WARD VERY once in awhile you still hear someone use that old ar- gumenft, “The - Nonpartisan league is wrong because it sets class against class.” But that argument can not be used with any one who has had a chance to see facts among the women of North Dakota. Instead of setting class against class the League is brmg'mg the farm women and the city workmg girl in closer touch than any other agency in the state ever has done. And it is helping both of them. When the League first car- ried North Dakota in the elec- tion of 1916 and secured a majority of the members of the lower house in the 1917 legislature, bills: were_ intro- duced and passed in the house to provide for mini- mum wages for women and minors, the eight-hcur day and -the like. But the reac- ed by holdover senators whose terms would not expire these bills up and threatened to. kill them and anything else looking toward relief for I was in Bismarck at the time. One of the anti-League senators consented to go with me on a little tour to see what conditions really were with women and child workers. As the result of what he saw the senate, though refusing to pass the bills that had come from the house, did pass a bill creating a welfare commxsslon, consisting of the attorney general, commissioner of agriculture and labor and a third member to be appomted by the governor, _ but giving this commission no other powers than to investigate. The law had no “teeth”; it was not what we wanted and needed, but we accepted it as the first step in the rlght direction. Governor Frazier appomted me as the third mem- ber of the commission. I was sent out through the state as an investigator to learn what condi- tions were. I visited hotels, stores and restaurants principally, in the cities and towns of North Dakota, wherever women and children were employed. I found the child labor law of the state practically a dead letter. Girls under 15 years of age were working in kitchens throughout the state for long hours. - Permits were issued loosely for both boys and girls under 16 years of age to work, without - much regard to hours or conditions, and without regard to whether the children had finished their eighth-grade work. A telegraph company, with of- fices' throughout the continent and worth millions of dollars, was one of the worst offenders. HOW DO UNDERPAID WORKERS GET ALONG? It was necessary to look into living costs. I found that it was almost universally true that a girl could not maintain herself 'decently for less than $15 a week. In contrast with this I found that $756 was about the highest wage to be found in establishments that I investigated; many were working for $7.50 and $8 a week. This naturally raises the question of how these - working girls live. I met two of them the other day who were getting $10 a week. They got an unheated double room for $2.50 a week, with no sanitary facilities. - They economized on eating and in every other way—and still they ran behind, they told me, at the rate of about $2°a week. “But; ” they, said, “we are getting along much bettér than we did a few weeks ago when we got only $8 a week. ‘We went hungry a good many days then; wo don’t do it so much now.” I have found girls in many cases sleeping without night clothes because they could not afford them. Some of the well-dressed girls in the stores have insufficient underclothing. It is not a case of van- ity with them; they have to put up a good appear- ance in their outer clothing to hold their jobs; for the rest they have to do the best they can. Hours of labor I found ranged from eight and one-half hours a day to 14 hours or more. The last Jnamed figure sounds extreme, but in many country stores clerks were kept often from 8 in the morning till midnight, with a couple of hours off for meals, and sometimes their mealtime was shorter than this. Many proprietors, willing to close earlier, could not do so on account of competition. Some people tell me they do not see why an eight-hour day law is necessary. They _point out that the average housewife puts in a good deal more than eight hours a day, seven days a week. . But eight hours a day, on one’s feet, at a contin- uous task, such as ironing, dishwashing, or even the eight hours continuous strain of a telephone Miss Aldyth Ward and the cabin on her homestead near Raub, McLean county, N. D. operator, is many times more fatlgtimg than the same amount of time spent partly in one task, partly in another. 3 As the result of my investigations I made a Last week the Leader printed two un- usually interesting letters from farm women. This week Miss Ward’s article on North Dakota’s laws for the henefit of women and children takes up an- - other question that will command at- tention from every one. Let us have more letters from women in the League states and make the woman’s page the best in the Leader! PAGE SEVEN e e T o W B R Al . g S35 S e 10 AL e A1 s - the full value for his products, written report. Labor also had started an active campaign for needed reforms and had submitted its program. Governor Frazier included recom- mendations for the minimum wage and eight-hour day in his message to the legislature of 1919, The - legislature this time had a majority of League farmers in both houses. As a result the eight-hour day law and the minimum wage law were both passed, together with many other laws for the benefit of the farmers and workers. 7 Already the new laws have worked a tremendous benefit to the working girls and women of the state. Stores are no longer open from 8 till 12, but from 9 to 6, with an hour off for lunch, and the stores are makmg just as much money. As soon as a minimum wage can be fixed legally the workers . will be guaranteed a decent living wage. It is hard to estimate how much the state-of North .Da- kota is going to benefit in future years as the result of protecting its women and children workers in this man- ner. . FARM WOMEN ARE STRONG FOR LEAGUE So much for what the Non- partisan league has done for the women and children of the cities of North Dakota. When it comes to the country women I know how they feel also, for I have just complet- ed visits with four of the largest Woman’s auxiliary clubs in North Dakota. In the first place the farm women know a benefit to the city workers is a benefit to them also, for at least half of the women working in the cities and small towns of North Dakota come from the farms. They have gone to the cities, in the past, under bad conditions, but this is all to be changed now. Under right conditions there is no reason why farm girls should not go more and more to the towns and cities to work. The expe- rience will broaden them and their influence will be good for the towns. But the farm women have other reasons for being interested in the Nonpartisan league. They have seen the fight that the League has put up for better schools. They know that in North Dakota - . 'the appropriations for rural school aid are four times what they were before the League came into power. They know that Governor Frazier, to a greater extent than the governor of any other state, has been a tireless campaigner in behalf of better country schools. They know that as the result of his efforts the farm- boy or girl is going to be guaranteed a chance for as good an education as the boy or girl of the city. The farm women know that as the result of. action on the part of the League, women are going to have a hand in the future in choosing state of- . ficials. They know that the League industrial laws, by enabling the farmer to get more nearly wjll bring greater individual prosperity to each farmer and to the state as a whole. . All over North Dakota they are joining the Auxiliary. They are studying the state laws that are in existence now and what are needed for the future. It would surprise most people to learn how good a grasp the country woman has of pub- lic affairs, especially after she has had a chance to exchange views with her neighbors and friends at Auxiliary meetmgs The Auxiliary is bound to become a big force in public affairs in North Dakota. It is bringing women of the country and women in the cities and towns closer together, showing them the in- .terests they have in common and helpmg them both. North Dakota has done much, already, in the line of legislation for women and chlldren, but more remains to be done. I am sure that in the near future we will have, among other things, a better child labor law. And the women of the Auxiliary are ready to march ahead with the men of the League, to do whatever else may prove nec- - essary to make North Dakota a better state for all the people, regardless of whether they live in city or country, N i B VIO T VA T, 3 &