The Wages of Working Women
The Director of Charities in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Harrison Cooley, has been making an investigation of the condition of Cleveland's working women. In a report which he has prepared, he states that he is grievously surprised at the result. He found that the average cost of living for a woman of this class is $5.24 a week, while the average weekly wage is but $4.83. Of thirty-eight working women whom he questioned, twelve were earning three dollars, and six but two dollars, a week. He affirms that this is a fair representation of the general conditions. “To those who are permitted to see it,” says Mr. Cooley, “the tragedy of our modern industrial and social system is appalling. The cruel and unjust conditions really cause a ruin and degradation of life a hundredfold more than the things reformers are most prone to attack.” The reform which is most needed is not that which changes the law, but that which changes the heart, putting the love of God and of mankind in the place of the love of money and of power. Every crying evil in the world proclaims the world's need of Christianity, which alone can reach the source of every difficulty, and cleanse the fountain head of every impure stream.