204 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
1. To encourage women in the various trades to protect their mutual interests by organization.
2. To use all possible means to enforce the existing laws relating to the protection of women and children in factories or shops, investigating all reported violations of such laws, and to promote by all suitable means further legislation in this direction.
In addition to the above may be cited as a basis 1 for every society of working women the following principles formulated by Mrs. Florence Kelley, of Illinois, whose name has been men- tioned several times before :
I. To bring out of the chaos of competition the order of cooperation.
II. To organize all wage-earning women.
III. To disseminate the literature of labor and cooperation.
IV. To institute a label which shall enable the purchaser to discriminate in favor of goods produced under healthful con- ditions.
V. I. Abolition of child labor to the age of 16 years. 2. Compulsory education to the age of 1 6 years. 3. Prohibition of employment of minors more than eight hours a day. 4. Prohibition of employment of minors in dangerous occupations. 5. Appointment of women inspectors. 6. Healthful conditions of work for women and children.
All of the foregoing to be secured by legislation, while the two following points could be obtained by organized effort :
1 . Kqual pay for equal work with men.
2. A minimal rate which will enable the least paid to live upon her earnings.
Uniform legislation should be secured, particularly in regard to hours of labor, as then all states would be under the same conditions in respect to the amount of product. This point cannot be emphasized too strongly, nor reiterated too often.
But notwithstanding all drawbacks the condition of female operatives has improved greatly since protective legislation became an actual fact. However, it is as yet far from what it should be, and we are confronted by serious difficulties when
