Part 42 (1/2)

And the two girls went on to the next tenement

They were only two of the hundreds of Trade Union girls ere ”doing”

the First Electoral District (about one-third of St Louis) on the eve of the prianized on the block system, and they went over each block house by house

_A new anized effort of factory woh the ballot-box?_

How have St Louis women attained this clear vision that their industrial future is bound up in politics? It is a three years' story

Let us go back a little

St Louis is essentially a conservative city First, it was an old French town; then a Southern town; then a German tradesman's town With such strata superimposed one above the other, it could hardly be other than conservative In addition, St Louis was crippled in the war between the states She lost her hties, this old French-Southern-Geran to recover from the ruin of her Southern trade Little by little she took heart, for the great Southas being settled There was a new field in which to build up trade To-day St Louis is _the_ great wholesale and jobbing depot, _the_city for that vast stretch of territory known as the Southwest

Since 1890, great fortunes have been amassed--most of therowth of industry The old Southern city has becos over the center of the city where the factories roar and pound

In therivers of beer, carloads of shoes and woodenware, s necessary to fill the orders of hundreds of traveling salesmen in the Southwest territory--and in the South, too, for St Louis is winning back so hands and flying fingers has wrought a golden age for the e have been shaking hands in their clubs for the past decade and congratulating themselves and each other over their drinks ”Yes, St Louis is a grand old business town Solid! No rowth New plants starting every et our deep ay, that's going to be another big shove toward prosperity

”Nice town to live in, too! Look at our handso like our World's Fair in the history of ether with speedways, where'll you find anything prettier?” Thus the money-makers in this heavy German town

But what about the employees--the clerks and the factory workers? Have they been ”in” on this ”big shove toward prosperity?” Have they found it a ”nice” town to live in?

No, to each count For the people at the botto ditches, and stand behind the notion counter--St Louis is a ss instead of pink; a tohere franchise grabbing and an antiquated system of taxation have their consequence of more than New York city rents A tohose slums, says Lee Frankel, are the worst in the country A tohere wages are low (in some occupations twenty-five per cent lower than in New York City); where e-up tre industry steadily increasing, and where the influx of ie scale and the standard of living

The average wage of the shoe-workers in the East is 550 per year In St Louis it is 440 if work is steady--and rents are higher than in New York City

It e, and that thousands of shoe-workers earn, less than 440, for full-tied in other kinds of manufacture and in department stores

Somehow the town looks different froovernment of Missouri and St Louis has been about as little adapted to the needs of the industrial worker as it well could be Men have been concerned not so overn schemes

Business opportunity has depended much on _pliable state and ht to keep them pliable; how St Louis and Missouri becarowth to riches, we all know

We know, too, the period of political reforely with the governmental machinery; and the optimists' faith in a state primary law, in the initiative and referendu _They did not see that the underlying problem is industrial_

After the reform wave had spent itself, the crooked people who had kept out of jail crept froame The only essential difference is that their entlehts

Thus it came to pass that when the cheerful opti a bone, why, lo! the cupboard was bare

Meantile for social justice on his own account, not singly but in groups and packs As yet, although a deal of snuffing, running to and fro, barking, yelping, and fighting has been done, little has been accoanizers in St Louis

It has re women of St Louis to make the industrial idea effective and to reach out with united single purpose to bend the political bow for their protection

The Worig Knefler, the most dynamic woman in St Louis, received its first io in the idealisirl, Hannah Hennessy, who died at Thanksgiving, 1910, a victiaranize the working girls of her city

Hannah Hennessy was sent by the Garment Workers' Union to the National Labor Convention of 1907 at Norfolk, Virginia