Speaker 1: Chapter forty seven of Philip Drew, Administrator by Edward House.
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by
Speaker 1: the Progressing America Project. Chapter forty seven, The Wise Disposition
Speaker 1: of a fortune continued. If your fortune were mine, Senator Selwyn,
Speaker 1: said Philip Drew, I would devote it to the uplift
Speaker 1: of women. Their full rights will be accorded them in time,
Speaker 1: but their cause could be accelerated by you, and meantime,
Speaker 1: untold misery and unhappiness averted. Man who is dependent upon
Speaker 1: woman has largely failed in his duty to her, not
Speaker 1: alone as an individual, but as a sex. Laws are enacted,
Speaker 1: unions formed, and what not done for man's protection. But
Speaker 1: the working woman is generally ignored. With your money, and
Speaker 1: even more with your ability, you could change for the
Speaker 1: better the condition of girlhood and womanhood in every city
Speaker 1: and in every factory throughout the land. Largely because they
Speaker 1: are unorganized. Women are overworked and underpaid to such an
Speaker 1: extent that other evils which we deplore follow as a
Speaker 1: natural sequence by proper organization. By exciting public interest and
Speaker 1: enlisting the sympathy and active support of the humane element
Speaker 1: which is to be found in every community, you will
Speaker 1: be able to bring about better conditions. If I were you,
Speaker 1: I would start my crusade in New York and work
Speaker 1: out a model organization there, so that you could educate
Speaker 1: your coadjutors as to the best methods, and then send
Speaker 1: them elsewhere to inaugurate the movement. Moreover, I would not
Speaker 1: confine my energies entirely to America, but Europe and other
Speaker 1: parts of the world should share its benefits. For human
Speaker 1: misery knows no sheltering land. In conjunction with this plan,
Speaker 1: I would carry along still another workingmen have their clubs,
Speaker 1: their societies, and many places for social gathering, but the
Speaker 1: women in most cities have none. As you know, the
Speaker 1: great majority of working girls live in tenements, crowded with
Speaker 1: their families in a room or two, or they live
Speaker 1: in cheap and lonely boarding houses. They have no chance
Speaker 1: for recory after working hours or on holidays unless they
Speaker 1: go to places it would be better to keep away from.
Speaker 1: If men wish to visit them, it must be in
Speaker 1: their bedrooms, on the street, or in some questionable resort.
Speaker 1: How am I to change this condition? Said Selwyn? In
Speaker 1: many ways, said Drew have clubs for them, where they
Speaker 1: may sing, dance, read, exercise, and have their friends visit them.
Speaker 1: Have good women in charge, so that the influence will
Speaker 1: be of the best. Have occasional plays and entertainments for
Speaker 1: them to which they may each invite a friend, and
Speaker 1: make such places pleasanter than others where they might go.
Speaker 1: And all the time protect them, and preferably in a
Speaker 1: way they are not conscious of. By careful attention to
Speaker 1: the reading matter, interesting stories should be selected, each of
Speaker 1: which would bear its own moral quiet, And informal talks
Speaker 1: by the matron and others at opportune times would give
Speaker 1: them an insight into the pitfalls around them, and make
Speaker 1: it more difficult for the human vultures to accomplish their undoing.
Speaker 1: There is no greater stain upon our vaunted civilization continued
Speaker 1: drew than our failure to protect the weak, the unhappy,
Speaker 1: and the abjectly poor of Womenkind. Philosophers still treat of
Speaker 1: it in the abstract. Moralists speak of it now and
Speaker 1: then in an academic way, But it is a subject
Speaker 1: generally shunned and thought hopelessly impossible. It is only here
Speaker 1: and there that a big, noble, hearted woman can be
Speaker 1: found to approach it, and then a hull house is started,
Speaker 1: and under its sheltering roof, unreckoned numbers of innocent hearted
Speaker 1: girls are saved to bless at a later day, its
Speaker 1: patron saint, start hull houses, Senator Selwyn, along with your
Speaker 1: other plan, for it is all of a kind and
Speaker 1: works to the betterment of woman. The vicious, the evil minded,
Speaker 1: and the mature sensualist we will always have with us.
Speaker 1: But stretch out your mighty arm, buttressed as it is
Speaker 1: by fabulous wealth, and save from the lair of the
Speaker 1: libertines the innocent whose only crime is poverty and a
Speaker 1: hopeless despair. In your propaganda for good continued Drew, do
Speaker 1: not overlook the education of mothers to the importance of
Speaker 1: sex hygiene, so that they may impart to their daughters
Speaker 1: the truth, and not let them gather their knowledge from
Speaker 1: the streets. You may go into this great work, Senator Selwyn,
Speaker 1: with the consciousness that you are reaching a condition fraught
Speaker 1: with more consequence to society than any other that confronts it.
Speaker 1: For its ramifications for evil are beyond belief of any
Speaker 1: but the sociologist who has gone to its foundations. End
Speaker 1: of chapter forty seven