Prosperity Has Come; But What About These Poor Women?
A decidedly optimistic daily paper has in a recent issue an editorial article with this heading: “Prosperity Has Come; But What About These Poor Women?” And then it goes on to say that Harrison R. Conley, director of charities in the wealthy city of Cleveland, Ohio, reports that by personal investigation he has found “that while the average cost of living for a working woman in Cleveland is $5.25 a week, the average wage of such woman is but $4.83. He tells us that out of thirty-eight women he questioned twelve were earning $3.00 and six were receiving but $2.00 a week. This, he assures us, is a fair representation of the general conditions.” How they live we do not know. Some become discouraged and sell body and virtue and everlasting hope. Cleveland is but a sample of many other cities. The paper in question remarks: “It is another illustration of the truth, which many are unwilling to admit, but which none can deny, that the industrial slavery of to-day is a worse condition of things than was the black slavery that existed in the South forty years ago.” There are myriads of such facts, that even prosperous optimists are forced to admit in their lucid moments of sober, serious observation. Discouraged are we? Not at all. God will bring good out of all the evil to every trusting soul. His lesson to those of means is that all such conditions are grand opportunities to bestow blessings and get greater in return.