Part 43 (2/2)

I can't give nobody a good tiuess there won't be no weddin' bells forto the inside bedroooin'

to keep their looks”

So at six o'clock Minna joined the relays of working girls who--many of them, like Minna, at personal risk and sacrifice--handed out cards all day to each man who entered Thus thewoman's stake in the election ”Scratch EJ Troy”

was before their eyes as they crossed their tickets

Every irls to make this final quiet appeal for justice They were serious, dignified There was no jeering, no n--nothing to irls were quiet enough outwardly, but the inner dra, bill-posting and the canvassing of factories, blocks, and pris, their risk and personal sacrifice accoirls asked themselves The thermometer of their hope rose and fell with the rumors of the day The fathers of the Central Labor Body patted them on the head benevolently and tried to ease their fall, if they were to fall, by saying that anyway it would be so to make Troy run third on his ticket

Seven o'clock, and the girls were leaving the pri the situation Between hope and despondency the comment varied on the streets, at the supper-tables, and in the eager, waiting groups of girls on tenement steps and stairs

At last came the authentic returns EJ Troy ran _3,338 votes behind his ticket With a silent press and practically nowomen had defeated one of the ed to the interests of labor legislation won his place That made the outlook better for the Woirls tumbled into bed, tired, but with new hope

Every newspaper in St Louis failed to comment on the victory The slaves who sit at the editorial desk said they couldn't--they weren't ”let” _So the most hopeful feature in St Louis politics has never been commented on by the American press_

As for Hannah Hennessy--she had been too ill to share in the active work of the can, but her influence was everywhere--a vital force, a continual inspiration

Week by week her cheeks grew thinner, her cough ainst Troy was over, she turned with the same intensity of interest to the National Convention of the American Federation of Labor which was toplans, eager to make this convention a landmark in the history of worate fire in the fa-roos a scant three blocks from her home, she could be there in spirit only; she waited restlessly for the girls to slip in after the daily sessions and live the Day, between the exhausting strain of high-tension work and the zeal of the young reformer, her beautiful life and brilliant fire were burned out The committee for the prevention of tuberculosis added her case to their statistics, and the League girls bore her into the lighted church

In the winter of 1910-11 the leaders of all the labor and social forces of St Louis, all the organizations for various foran their custo social legislation They played a good game First, there was the educational effect of their previous legislative can to build on Then there was all the econoained froame better, too Their plans were more carefully laid and executed

With a more wary and sophisticated eye on the Manufacturers' association and a finger in the buttonhole of every legislator, the socially awake of St Louis have secured _islation, and the Nine-Hour Day for women and children with no exception in favor of shop-keepers_

Knowing the sickening fate of industrial legislation in certain other states when tried before judges whose social vision is fifty years behind the tih for its testing So far, however, the Women's Nine-Hour law has not been contested It has also been exceptionally well enforced, considering that there are only four factory inspectors for all thecity of the Southwest, and only seven factory inspectors for the whole state of Missouri

Meanwhile St Louis's new political wedge, the Woood political wedge When there is legislation wanted, all kinds of organizations invariably call upon this league of the working women, whose purpose is a wider social justice

St Louis is another A that they can do things if they only think so

(_The Delineator_)

Illustrated by two pen-and-ink sketches made by a staff artist

THE JOB LADY

GIVES THE YOUNG WAGE-EARNER A FAIR WORKING CHANCE

BY MARY E titZEL

The Jones School, the oldest public school building in Chicago, is at Harrison Street and Plymouth Court When it was new, it was surrounded by ”brown-stone fronts,” and boys and girls who to-day are a the city's most influential citizens learned their A-B-C's within its walls

Now, the office-buildings and printing-houses and cheap hotels and burlesque shows that rimy district south of the ”loop”

crowd in upon it; and only an occasional shabby brown-stone front survives in the neighborhood as a tene influential citizens is still going on

For there the ”Job Lady” has her office, her sanctueneric term that includes Miss Anne Davis, director of the Bureau of Vocational Supervision, and her four assistants The Bureau--which is the newest departency, but one that is different froency in the United States It is concerned solely with a e-earners--children froe; and its chief purpose is, not to find positions for its ”patrons,” but to keep them in school