earnings, rest periods, lunch periods, and that sort of thing. So that, far from taking gains for granted, I think if there is one thing that we could bring home from this conference, it would be the need to acquaint ourselves with the actual situation and to try to think through what we ought to do about it and where our pressures can be most effectively exerted.

Another point Miss Dickason made also needs, I think, a considerable amount of thought on our part, and that is the point that full employment is after all a major solution of some of our problems. Although that is true and we can readily, of course, understand the advantages of full employment to us as workers-they are obvious-I am afraid that the present full employment situation may be doing a good deal to put us to sleep about the kind of problems that face thousands if not millions of workers in this country.

I know, for example, from what I heard here this afternoon that very low wages are still being paid, in spite of the fact that the generalization most commonly made nowadays is, "Wages are high and we have full employment." I have even heard persons who should be indeed well informed remark that there was no need that they could see for minimum-wage boards meeting in New York at the present time, because all wages were much higher than any rates set by those boards at any time, anyway.

Well now, what is the point of a statement of that sort, when the actual meeting and discussions of the boards revealed that the rates that they wished to set were not entirely satisfactory in all parts of industry? What is the point of it, when representatives of the laundry industry, who are here this afternoon, can quote the kind of figures they have quoted?

I remember that after the War, although controls on wages had been removed, there were spots in New York State where side by side there were wages offered for women workers of 90 cents and $1.20 an hour, and other local employers were offering them 50 cents an hour. You would not think that could happen if you ever studied economics of the old variety which taught that there was one price in a market. But it does happen, and it is going on today.

Now, that is the kind of thing that can exist side by side with full employment, and that I think we have to keep our eye on at all times. I have also been very much struck, as I am sure you all were, by some of the descriptions of this problem of trying to meet home responsibilities and at the same time work in a plant or in an office. I have an acute personal interest in the problem, I must say. But when I hear these descriptions of what women working in factories particularly are up against, when I see it among my friends who are working in New York, I sometimes think that probably 50 years

from now the conditions under which women worked in this respect will be described in the same imaginative and horrendous tones that Dickens used almost a hundred years ago to describe some of the evils then existing in England.

In other words, it hardly seems possible from the standpoint of proper and humane treatment of a human being that women should be attempting and I mean this seriously, although there is a lot of joking about it-to run their homes, particularly when there are children, and carry out their many domestic responsibilities, and to work at the same time. Frankly, I don't think it can be done. And I am positive that before long there will be drastic changes made with respect to this problem.

As has already been pointed out, there are plants already that are attempting to face the problem through the creation of day nurseries. There is scarcely anything more sensible that a plant can do that wants female labor than to provide a place where children can be taken care of while the mother works.1

Those of you who have followed recent English developments during and since the War know that this is widespread in England as a permanent proposition, just as cafeterias where good hot food can be supplied have become a permanent part of the English factory scene, particularly where there are women workers.

Now, I feel that because it is so extremely difficult-you people are much more experienced in this than I am, and this is just a suggestion on my part-because it is so difficult to get public provision of that kind of assistance to employment, it is possible that industry itself ought to be approached, and the question of providing that kind of factory byproduct, so to speak, ought to be discussed with them if they want to keep women on the job.

If we find out as a result of such discussions that they don't contemplate women as a permanent part of their labor force, then we may have something else to think about. You see, one problem certainly leads to another.

The last point I want to make is that I was considerably impressed by the great need for facts about what is going on. I have already illustrated to you by a few quotations from people I know-and I could have also quoted myself, I may say, in my ignorance of the subject that the actual situation is not known with respect to wages, working conditions, the problem of night work, or the very limited amount of legislation that apparently actually exists. That, of course,

I have since learned that the Women's Bureau and the Children's Bureau do not favor such nurseries because environmental conditions near factories are frequently not favorable, and because changes in the mother's employment and factory close-downs lead to discontinuous attendance at a nursery by the child. Support of community-wide day-care centers by local industries is preferred.

valuable service.

Now, I am not so naive as to think, I hope, that facts ever convinced a legislature, or for that matter ever convinced the public. The more facts you have the more sleepy they get listening to you. But the reiteration of a fact often helps quite a lot. So let's remember that and not give up on the facts just on the grounds that facts are not persuasive.

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February 17 Evening Session

Assistant Secretary of Labor, John W. Gibson, Presiding

CONFERENCE ADDRESSES

Centennial of the Woman's Movement, Hon. William H. Stevenson
Women's Status-Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, C. Mildred Thompson
The Idea Takes Root, Lisa Sergio

John W. Gibson, Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of Labor, was chairman of the February 17 evening session, to which the public was invited. Mr. Gibson warmly welcomed the members of the conference and its guests. He commended the purpose of the conference and spoke of its wide representation, referring to both the many different parts of the country from which the delegates came and to the diversity of their organizations' interests and activities; he spoke of the concrete values to be derived from their exchange of ideas and experiences.

Representing the Department of Labor as a whole, Mr. Gibson stated that it deals with the problems and forwards the welfare of all workers, and that all its various Divisions and Bureaus are therefore concerned to be of assistance to working women and women's organizations, although the Women's Bureau is the agency having specially designated responsibility for developing policy to promote the welfare of women workers.

Mr. Gibson paid tribute to the movement whose centennial was being celebrated and expressed the hope and belief that new goals would be as successfully sighted and pursued.

CENTENNIAL OF THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT Honorable William H. Stevenson, Ranking Member of House Post Office and Civil Service Committee

T was just a century ago this July, while attending the annual meeting of the Friends Society of western New York, that four women concluded to have a conference of the women of that State at Seneca Falls for the purpose of telling the world their grievances. Thus the first woman's rights movement was born.

Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, a leader among the Friends or Quakers, was visiting at the home of her sister, Martha Wright. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, formerly of Boston, had gone west to make her new home in Seneca Falls. These three and Mary Ann McClintock put their idea into action and set a convention for Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th days of July 1848.

The man who owned the town newspaper, the Seneca County Courier, must have been favorably impressed by the appeal of those

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for space in the Courier for the following notice appearing on Sunday, July 16:

WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION

A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel at Seneca Falls on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July, commencing at 10 o'clock a. m.

During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend.

The public generally are invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen will address the convention. Those ladies did not have the background of world travel and the international, economic, and political experience that our friend Frieda Miller has, who is one of the leaders of your conference here in Washington today. But they did think of the causes of the American Revolution and other grievances expressed by our founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence. So Lucretia and Elizabeth, Mary and Martha, those four pioneers of the woman's movement, drew upon the Declaration of Independence as a model for the foundation of their program of action and resolution.

On Wednesday morning, July 19, 1848, men and women on foot and horseback and by horse and carriage, scores of them, arrived at the door of the Wesleyan Church-to find the door locked. But the women were undaunted. A young professor from Yale College was in the crowd. He climbed through a window of the church-fortunately left unlocked. The professor gaining entrance by way of the window then unlocked the door of the church from the inside, and the crowd of men and women, making up that first convention of the women's rights movement, soon filled the church.

The women had not intended to have their husbands, and the other men who had accompanied them to the church in a spirit of curiosity, take any part in the convention. But inasmuch as it was a man who had gained entrance to the church when the women found themselves locked out, helpless and unable to convene, they then and there decided to let their friends of the opposite sex join with them in the meeting.

In a prayerful attitude around the altar of the church the women concluded that the moment had arrived when the men should help them in their mission of bringing to the attention of the world the plight that woman was in.

And so it happened that the first convention of the women's rights movement was presided over by a man, James Mott, husband of Lucretia, who it is said made a very impressive chairman as he presided over the meetings, tall and dignified in his Quaker costume. Mary McClintock was named secretary of the convention. Lucretia Mott recited the objects of the meeting. A law student, Samuel Tillman,