To what extent even the more intelligent trade-union leaders felt true comradeship for their women co-workers it is difficult to say.  The underlying thought may often have been that safety for the man lay in his insisting upon just and even favorable conditions for women.  Even under conditions of nominal equality the woman was so often handicapped by her physique, by the difficulty she experienced in obtaining thorough training, and by the additional claims of her home, that the men must have felt they were likely to keep their hold on the best positions anyhow, and perhaps all the more readily with the union exacting identical standards of accomplishment from all workers, while at the same time claiming for all identical standards of wages.

There is certainly something of this idea in the plan outlined by President Strasser of the International Cigar-makers, and he represented the advance guard of his generation, in his annual report in the year 1879.

“We cannot drive the females out of the trade but we can restrict this daily quota of labor through factory laws.  No girl under eighteen should be employed more than eight hours per day; all overwork should be prohibited; while married women should be kept out of factories at least six weeks before and six weeks after confinement.”

But it is a man’s way out, after all, and it is the man’s way still.  There is the same readiness shown today to save the woman from overwork before and after confinement, although she may be thereby at the same time deprived of the means of support, while there is no hint of any provision for either herself or the baby, not to speak of other children who may be dependent upon her.  In many quarters today there is the same willingness to stand for equal pay, but very little anxiety to see that the young girl worker be as well trained as the boy, in order that the girl may be able with reason and justice to demand the same wage from an employer.

II

WOMEN IN THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR

So little trace is left in the world of organized labor today of that short-lived body, the Knights of Labor, that it might be thought worthy of but slight notice in any general review.

But women have peculiar reason to remember the Knights, and to be grateful to them, for they were the first large national organization to which women were admitted on terms of equality with men, and in the work of the organization itself, they played an active and a notable part.

From the year 1869 till 1878 the Knights of Labor existed as a secret order, having for its aim the improvement of living conditions.  Its philosophy and its policy were well expressed in the motto, taken from the maxims of Solon, the Greek lawgiver:  “That is the most perfect government in which an injury to one is the concern of all.”