To Miss Margaret Riley

Shop Girl, Concerning Her Oppressors

Your letter has been destroyed, as you requested, and you need not fear my betraying your confidence.

Your mother was so long in my employ that I feel almost like a foster-mother to you, having seen you grow up from the cradle to self-supporting young womanhood.

The troubles and evils which you mention as existing about you, I know to be quite universal in all large shops, factories, and department stores, indeed in all houses where the two sexes are employed.

I know that a certain order of men in power use that power to lower the ideals and standards of womanhood when they can.

A pretty young girl once in my service related to me the cold-blooded suggestions made to her by her employer to increase the miserable wage paid her in a sweat-shop.

The sacrifice of her virtue seemed no more to this man than the sale of an old garment.

The girl did not make the sacrifice, however, and she did not starve, freeze, or die.  She managed to exist and to better her condition by doing domestic work and saving her money to fit herself for more congenial employment.  When I last saw her she was planning to become a trained nurse, and had paid for a course of instruction in massage.  I tell you this merely to illustrate a fact I fully believe, that any girl who is determined to live an honourable life and retain her self-respect can make her way in the world and rise from lesser to higher positions, if she is patient and willing to do what is termed menial work as a stepping-stone.  You tell me that scores of girls are kept in poorly paying, inferior positions when capable of filling better places, simply because they will not accept the dishonourable attentions of some of the men in authority.

You beg me to arouse the good women of America to a crusade against what you say is a growing evil and to boycott such shops and stores.

But you ask me to do what is an impracticable thing.

You would not like to be called as a witness were this matter brought before the courts.  Were all the good women of America to begin such a crusade, where would they obtain the proofs of their accusations?

And even if the witnesses were ready, there is not a newspaper in the land that would dare champion the reform.  And no great reform can be made without the aid of the press.  The daily papers, as you say, give columns to protests against lesser evils, but you must know that these newspapers are largely supported by the profitable advertisements of manufactories and dry-goods houses.  Glance over the columns of any of our large dailies and see how much space such advertising occupies.

Imagine what it would mean to lose all this high-priced patronage.  Therefore, even if the most moral of editors knew that these establishments were undermining our social conditions and invading our homes, I doubt if he could be induced to make a protest.  It is a curious thing to see how many are the kinds of victims caught and held in the clutches of the money-devil-fish in our wonderful land of freedom.