Surely these women won't lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread, let me tell you that.
From Rose Schneiderman
You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also.
The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.
By working hard we could make an average of about $5 a week. We would have made more but had to provide our own machines, which cost us $45, we paying for them on the installment plan. We paid $5 down and $1 a month after that.
I learned the business in about two months, and then made as much as the others, and was consequently doing quite well when the factory burned down, destroying all our machines - 150 of them. This was very hard on the girls who had paid for their machines.
Then came a big strike. About 100 girls went out. The result was a victory, which netted us - I mean the girls - $2 increase in our wages on the average.
All the time our union was progressing very nicely. There were lectures to make us understand what trades unionism is and our real position in the labor movement.
I read upon the subject and grew more and more interested, and after a time I became a member of the National Board, and had duties and responsibilities that kept me busy after my day's work was done.
Our people were very restive, saying that they could not sit under that notice, and that if the National Board did not call them out soon they would go out of themselves.
So we must stand together to resist, for we will get what we can take - just that and no more.
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